Grand Canyon National Park 5

(10/2) Pima Point and sunset.

For our last outing at the Grand Canyon, we went out to the best overlook on the western part of the south rim, known as Pima Point. 

Here we had great looks both at the colorful formations in the higher part of the canyon and at the Colorado River flowing through the inner gorge below. The longer we were at the park, and the more we looked into the canyon, the more we sensed the vastness of this place. It's not hard for the eye to take in the whole view from top to bottom. However, as we discovered earlier today, when one takes binoculars and looks down to the trail below and discovers a mule train that seems microscopic in size, the true scale of the scene becomes apparent.

In the Grand Canyon, as John Muir observed, "one's most extravagant expectations are infinitely surpassed."  Not just by the sheer size of the canyon--5 to 15 miles wide and 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep--but by its walls "elaborately carved into all sorts of recesses - alcoves, cirques, amphitheaters, and side canyons."

And as Muir noted, "the vast space these glorious walls enclose, instead of being empty, is crowded with gigantic architectural rock-forms, gorgeously coloured and adorned with towers and spires like works of art."

Muir observed that, at sunset, "shadows, wondrous, black and thick, fill up the wall hollows, while the glowing rocks ... stand submerged in purple haze, which fills the canyon like a sea."

As the Grand Canyon was the last of the national parks we visited on this trip, a view of the sunset over the canyon seems a fitting way to end our blog.  This has been a wonderful trip for us.  We have enjoyed sharing it with you!

Grand Canyon National Park 4

The names of the rock layers.

North of the park, in driving past Arizona's Vermillion Cliffs, we saw several of the same Mesozoic rock layers we had seen in southern Utah.  But when we reached the park, none of these layers were present!  The Grand Canyon rocks are all Paleozoic in age or older.  The younger Mesozoic and even Cenozoic rocks must have existed on top of them at one time but due to uplift they have all now been eroded off.

Before we show our last views of the Grand Canyon, here are some notes on the names and ages of the major rock layers, for those who like to put names to the things they see. (The limestones, shales, and thin-bedded sandstones were deposited in shallow seas, at various distances from shore, as the sea level fluctuated.  Massive sandstones were formed on land from sand dunes.)

There are many formation names and some of them are not easy to separate visually, but those can just be viewed as groups.  The main layers are quite distinctive and easy to separate.

The white stuff.  At the top is a group of white or light colored rocks of Permian age (the youngest Paleozoic rocks).  The rimrock is the vertical-walled Kaibab limestone.  Below it is the terraced Toroweap formation, and below that the massive vertical-walled Coconino sandstone.  Sloping out from the base of the Coconino is the Hermit Shale.

The red stuff. The slopes of thin-bedded red sandstones and shales belong to several formations that all together are called the Supai group, of Pennsylvanian age.  The vertical red wall below them consists of the Red Wall limestone (Mississippian), the Temple Butte limestone (Devonian), and the Muav limestone (Cambrian).

Below these red rocks, forming a greenish gray apron stretching out to the inner gorge, is the Bright Angel Shale (Cambrian).  The rimrock of the inner gorge is a vertical wall of Tapeats sandstone (Cambrian).

Below the rim of the inner gorge in the eastern part of the park are tilted orange-red beds of much older rock.  There are several formations all belonging to the Grand Canyon Supergroup of Precambrian age (as old as 1.2 billion years).

From the western overlooks, the rocks of the Supergroup are not visible, having been eroded off  before the Tapeats sandstone was deposited.  Instead, the river there cuts through even older rock, known as the Vishnu Schist, which is marbled with intrusions called the Zoroaster Granite.  These gray, unlayered rocks date back as far as 1.8 billion years.

Simplifying, from the top down one sees the white stuff, the red stuff, and the gray-green apron of Bright Angel Shale.  In the inner gorge, the rimrock is Tapeats sandstone and below that the reddish Grand Canyon Supergroup and/or the gray Vishnu Schist.

Grand Canyon National Park 3

(10/2) Lodges and Bright Angel Trail.

Our second day at the Grand Canyon began near our lodge. We stayed at the Kachina Lodge, which is to the right of the older El Tovar lodge in the photo. It was amazing to wake up in the morning, pull back the drapes, and see the canyon!

We walked the upper part of the Bright Angel Trail, to get a sense of the view from below the rim.

Along the way, we had the unexpected good fortune to look up and see a Bighorn Sheep.

We were also able to look down on the Indian Garden area where some who hike down to the river spend the first night.

Beyond Indian Garden, we could see the canyon of Bright Angel Creek extending toward the distant north rim. The canyon is so straight because it follows a fault line. Rock layers to the left of the fault are about 200 feet higher than their counterparts to the right.

Grand Canyon National Park 2

(10/1) At Desert View.

We had read that the best south rim views of the canyon were from the most eastern and western overlooks. At the eastern end is Desert View, so called because the desert to the east of the park is visible here, but of course the views of the canyon are what we came for.  And those views are incredible.

 

This structure, called the Watchtower, has wonderful views from the top windows.

 

Here we see the Colorado River cutting close to the east rim, beyond which is the desert.

 

Now we are looking down into the inner gorge at the delta created by Unkar Creek. There is evidence that prehistoric cultures used this land close to the river.

 

The view to the west reveals, beyond a colorful formation, the gorge of the river flowing close to the south rim.

We have had mostly warm weather on this trip.  This day was an exception, but a beautiful day nonetheless.

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona 1

(9/29) The North Rim.

Approaching the north rim of the Grand Canyon, we enjoyed the sight of beautiful fall color in the aspen trees that were interspersed among the firs.

We drove directly to the lookout at Cape Royal Point, which is at the tip of a peninsula of the plateau surrounded on three sides by a sweeping bend in the Colorado River. Our first view was looking down a creek valley to the distant south rim and the top of the plateau beyond it. As this picture shows, the north rim is about 1,000 feet higher than the south rim, because the plateau slants downward from north to south. Because of that slant, the Colorado River tends to follow the south wall of the canyon, and the longest tributary creeks are those coming down to the river from the north rim.

The peninsula on which we stood once extended farther into the canyon, but erosion has separated that former tip, and it now stands alone as a feature called "Wotan's Throne."

For comparison, here is what Wotan's Throne later looked like when we viewed it from the south rim.

We were at the north rim on a windy day so we were holding on to both our hats and the railings. Looking down into the profound spaces of the canyon was aslo a challenge for Judy, but being there made us both smile.

Antelope Canyon 2

(9/30 continued)

There are other slot canyons on the Colorado Plateau, but Antelope is one of the most beautiful and most photographed.

Enhancing the experience was our Navajo guide, who talked about how her people relate to the canyon. In several locations, she played lovely traditional Navajo music on her flute.

She also gave tips for shooting pictures in the canyon.

Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona 1

(9/30)

Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon on the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona. We visited it en route from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the south rim. (Our next posts will be about the Grand Canyon.)

The canyon was created by water flowing over Navajo sandstone and cutting down through joints in the rock.

Normally the canyon is dry, but during flash floods, water flows through the canyon with a powerful current carrying suspended sand, abrading and smoothing the walls of the canyon as it goes. The curves in the walls were carved by the current deflecting from one wall to another.

The striations in the walls are bedding in the original sandstone, showing the varying slopes of the dunes on which the sand had been deposited.