Friday, March 29, 2019

A Quick Southwest Trip: Grand Canyon


The magnificent Grand Canyon
I have been to the Grand Canyon so many times I can't even count my visits. 

I even blogged about my history with this magnificent park. I posted about the Grand Canyon in May 2017 and November 2013


South Rim views
Areas of the Grand Canyon accessible by road
Plus, I did a whole series last May when Scott and I rafted through the Canyon and went to the North Rim.

This time, Caty and I went to the South Rim in Grand Canyon National Park. 

It is the most accessible and most visited part of the Park and, even though it can get snow, is open year-round. 

The North Rim, which is far more remote (215 miles by road from the South Rim) and has far more brutal weather, is open only from late spring to early fall.

Geology
The Grand Canyon National Park, which is roughly the size of Delaware, is 277 miles long. It ranges in width from four to 18 miles wide and from 600 to 6,093 feet deep. The Colorado River, which snakes through the bottom, ranges from 15 to 76 feet wide.

The Colorado River continues to carve the Canyon
The Grand Canyon was formed by two competing forces – a river carving down and tectonic forces pushing the Colorado Plateau up – exposing nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history.

Grand Canyon panorama
Because the Colorado Plateau is about 1,000 feet higher on the north,  almost all runoff from the North Rim (which gets more rain and snow) flows toward the Grand Canyon, while much of the runoff on the plateau behind the South Rim flows away from the Canyon (following the general tilt). The result is deeper and longer washes and canyons on the north and shorter and steeper side canyons on the south.

The  Canyon’s geologic layers range from the 2-billion-year-old Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge to 230-million-year-old Kaibab Limestone on the Rim. 

There is a gap of about a billion years between the 500-million-year-old stratum and the level below it, which dates to about 1.5 billion years ago, indicating a long period for which no deposits were made. 

Many of the formations were deposited in warm shallow seas, beaches and swamps as the waters repeatedly advanced and retreated. There are also preserved sand dunes. and layers that indicate that the area was not always beside an ocean.

The major uplift occurred 5 to 6 million years ago, followed by gentle erosion. When the Gulf of California opened 5.3 million years ago, the base level of the Colorado River dropped and the rate of erosion accelerated. 

Most of the Canyon's current depth had been achieved by 1.2 million years ago. The terraced walls of the canyon were created – and continue to be created – by additional erosion. 

But that wasn’t enough. Volcanoes erupting between 3 million and 100,000 years ago, deposited ash and lava, intermittently damming the river until the force of the river could re-cut a channel.


The Park
Centennial stamp
This year is the 100th anniversary of Grand Canyon National Park, which, among other things, means that we got a special stamp for our National Park Passports. 

The Grand Canyon was a National Monument for 11 years before receiving Park status in 1919. (a President can establish a National Monument; Congress must establish National Parks).

It is the second-most visited National Park (after Great Smoky Mountains), with 6.3 million visitors in 2018.

The South Rim of the Park has about 60 miles of road and numerous overlooks along the Rim from Desert View to the east to Hermit's Rest in the west. The eastern portion can be visited by car, but the western portion can be visited only by Park shuttle bus. This has greatly reduced the congestion on the narrow, winding road and makes it very easy to see the Canyon without having to find a parking space.

History
Havasupai women, 1899; Photo: George Wharton James
For thousands of years, the area has been inhabited by Native Americans. Among the Peoples living there were Ancestral Puebloans, the Cohonina (ancestors of the Yuman, Havasupai and Walapai peoples who inhabit the area today) and the Sinagua (possibly ancestors of present-day Hopis).

The first European to view the Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540. Then, no more Europeans visited for more than 200 years.

In 1776, Spanish Catholic Priests Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante traveled with Spanish soldiers along the North Rim in Glen and Marble Canyons in search of a route from Santa Fe to California. They eventually found a crossing, formerly known as the "Crossing of the Fathers," that today lies under Lake Powell. The same year, Fray Francisco Garces, a Franciscan missionary, spent a week near Havasupai, unsuccessfully attempting to convert a band of Native Americans to Christianity.

Park History from the National Park Service
In the early 1820s, Americans, including trappers and Mormons traveling to Utah, began to visit the Canyon. A number of expeditions were conducted in the mid-1800s

People from all over visit
In 1869, Major John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran and avid explorer, led the first expedition down the present day Grand Canyon. 

With nine men, four boats and food for 10 months, he traveled from Green River, Wyoming, to the Colorado River, near present-day Moab, Utah, and then began his trip through the Canyon. 

One man quit after the first month and three more left at Separation Canyon in the third month just two days before the group reached the mouth of the Virgin River. The latter three disappeared; perhaps killed by Native Americans in the Canyon or by Mormons in the town of Toquerville. 

In 1871, Powell first used the term "Grand Canyon;" previously it had been called the "Big Canyon."

Henry C. Pitz painting of John Wesley Powell and his party going through the Grand Canyon
Theodore Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon in 1903 and established the Grand Canyon Game Preserve in 1906. Livestock grazing was reduced, but predators such as mountain lions, eagles and wolves were eradicated. Back then, they just didn't realize the impact of removing animals they considered pests.

Teddy Roosevelt in the Grand Canyon
Once the Antiquities Act of 1906 was passed, Roosevelt added adjacent national forest lands and redesignated the preserve a U.S. National Monument in 1908. Opponents, including land and mining claim holders, blocked efforts to reclassify the monument as a U.S. National Park until 1919.


There are several historic buildings located along the South Rim near Grand Canyon Village. The Kolb Studio, which was very close to our room, was built in 1904 by brothers Ellsworth and Emery Kolb, who made a living photographing visitors walking down the Bright Angel Trail. In 1911, the Kolb brothers filmed their journey down the Green and Colorado Rivers. Emery Kolb showed this movie regularly in his studio until 1976, when he died at the age of 95. Today the building is an art gallery and exhibit.

Displays inside the Kolb Studio
Bright Angel Lodge, where we stayed, was built of logs and stone in 1935. Mary Colter designed the lodge and it was built by the Fred Harvey Company.

Animals
There are 52 mammal species in the Grand Canyon, including Desert Bighorn Sheep, Mountain Lions, Elk, Mule Deer, Raccoons, Coyotes, Ringtails and lots of bats and rodents.
I saw a couple of Mule Deer coming out of the Canyon in the early morning. We saw a few Elk far off in the distance, but no Bighorn Sheep.

Early morning Mule Deer
There are about 48 species of birds, but we saw only Common Ravens and Juncos.

A Common Raven soars over the Canyon
We may have seen a Peregrine Falcon far, far below the rim, but it was too far away and too fast for us to be sure.

We did, however, get one rare treat: Javelinas. Two crossed the road right in front of our car on the east side of the park! We had to stop suddenly and we were lucky the guy behind us didn’t hit us. Multiple cars sped by while we were taking pictures and then trying to find the Javelinas  after they disappeared in the bushes.

Javelina crossing
I just can’t understand people who visit National parks and then are not interested in the wildlife.

Javelinas, which are NOT pigs, are also called Collared Peccaries
Accommodations
Our cabin was like this
Caty and I stayed one night at the Thunderbird Lodge and one night at the Bright Angel Lodge. Both have been updated recently and now have TVs and WiFi! Both were lovely. Our Bright Angel Lodge cabin was just steps from the Rim. 

It is very tough to get reservations at the Grand Canyon, which is why we had to switch rooms. However, we were very lucky and our second night's room was ready in the morning.

The only downside to Grand Canyon lodging is parking. It's very tight because there is no parking reserved for hotel guests. So, you grab whatever slot you can and then try to move closer in the late afternoon/early evening when things thin out a little. The first night, we had to schlep luggage a long way in the dark. But, the next night it worked out. We had a space right across from our room.

Of course, I forgot to photograph our room!!!

Our Trip
We didn’t do much special, except that every minute spent at the Grand Canyon is special. In the morning, we took the shuttle to Hermit’s Rest, the farthest easily accessible overlook on the west side of the Park. 

Hermit's Rest has a nice photo op
This area is closed to automobile traffic the majority of the year. But, the buses are frequent and comfortable, so that is the best way to go. The outbound buses stop at all nine overlooks; the inbound at only three. So, we stopped at most going out, opting to walk the last mile to Hermit’s Rest along the paved Rim Trail. Then, we just made one stop coming back.

On the rim
Then, we got in the car to explore the east part of the Park, driving the 19-mile road out to Desert View. We stopped multiple times along the way to get Passport stamps ...

Just a few of our stamps
... visit the Tusayan Ruins ...

Tusayan kiva and house

Nice shot of the distant San Fransisco Peaks from Tusayan Ruins
... and visit the Desert View Watchtower (which I wrote about in 2015). 

Desert View Watchtower
Desert View Watchtower
Also known as the Indian Watchtower at Desert View, this 70-foot-high stone building is  east of the main developed area at Grand Canyon Village near the east entrance to the Park. 

Desert View Watchtower
Colter is on the right
The four-story structure, completed in 1932, was designed by American architect Mary Colter, an employee of the Fred Harvey Company. She created and designed many other Grand Canyon buildings, including Hermit's Rest and the Lookout Studio. Desert View Watchtower was the last of Mary Colter-designed visitor concession structures at the Grand Canyon until she renovated the Bright Angel Lodge in 1935. 

The interior contains murals by Fred Kabotie. 
Mary Colter and Fred Kabotie are also responsible for the design and paintings, respectively, at the PaintedDesert Inn at Petrified Forest National Park. 

Kabootie design at Petrified Forest
The tower was designed to resemble an Ancient Pueblo Peoples watchtower, but its size dwarfs any known Pueblan-built tower. 

The closest prototypes for such a structure may be found at Canyons of the Ancients and at Hovenweep National Monument in Colorado and Utah.

Towers at Canyons of the Ancients, left, and Hovenweep, right
The structure is composed of a circular coursed masonry tower rising from a rubble base. The base was intentionally designed to convey a partly ruinous appearance, perhaps of an older structure on which the watchtower was later built. The base is arranged within a large circle with the tower to the north. Tiny windows are irregularly disposed, some of which are themselves irregular in shape.

Caty looks down from the balcony
The main space is the Kiva Room in the base structure, roofed with logs salvaged from the old Grandview Hotel. The false ceiling conceals a structure that supports an observation deck. The Kiva Room has a fireplace with a picture window above where the chimney would ordinarily go.

The tower rises as an open shaft lined by circular interior balconies overlooking the central space. 

Access from balcony to balcony is provided by small stairways (too bad Mary didn’t envision two staircases – one up and one down!). At the top the space is decked over, creating an enclosed observation level with large glazed windows that were a bit fogged on the cold day we went up.

Kabootie and Greer wall decorations
The tower is decorated by bold murals by Fred Kabotie, with other, petroglyph-style decorations by Fred Greer.

Kabootie, right, with his work in the Desert View Watchtower
In 2008, two tourists were banned from all American National Parks for a year after using white-out and permanent marker to correct the punctuation on a sign on the Desert View Watchtower, which had been painted by Colter. Although I sympathize with their motives of improving grammar, I do see the historical issue here.

Desert View Watchtower
Sunset
We decide to photograph sunset on the east side of the park. Most people flock to the west, but there you get just a red orb and a completely black canyon. 

To the west, you see the sun (looks like two through the clouds), but not the Canyon
On the east, you can get the red glow of sunset illuminating the Canyon.

Sunset illumination
The night we were there was a rather mundane sunset, probably because of some haze in the Canyon. Still, there were some pretty moments.

Haze in the Canyon
Of course, the good moments were spoiled by idiots who feel that rules don’t apply to them. The Grand Canyon had many overlooks with railings to protect people from falling. If you stand at the railing you get an unobstructed view. 

My family has a long history of staying behind the rails: 1987, 2017, 1975
Except, of course, if your view is obstructed by people who climb over the railings and place themselves closer to the edge. This means that they are front and center in your photos. This night two guys were way out on a big rock and two women were down below on a smaller promontory. By the time the sun set, at least a dozen people were on the lower shelf.

Selfish idiots
An average of 12 people die each year at the Grand Canyon, including from natural causes, medical problems, suicide, heat, drowning and traffic crashes. Two to three deaths per year are from falls over the rim, generally from places you are not supposed to be. I wonder how many deaths are from being assaulted by a photographer after you screwed up a perfect landscape shot with your selfish disregard of rules?

Sunset shot minus people; Thank goodness for Photoshop!
Oh, and although I just seethed about the people climbing over the railings (I knew they wouldn’t care that they were ruining the view for everyone else if I spoke up), I did yell at an idiot who started throwing rocks over the edge. Some people!

Night Sky
The Grand Canyon generally has exceptionally clear skies, which makes for excellent night photos. We had four factors working against us on our trip: it was cold, it was very windy, recent rains had increased humidity making the sky a bit hazy and the Moon was almost full. Still, we got a few shots.

It is amazing how much the Moon lights the Canyon and you just can’t go wrong with the Big Dipper …

Night sky photos
It was just a quick trip, but lots of fun, even with an 11-hour drive home the next day!

Caty and me

Trip date: March 20-23, 2019

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