Grand Canyon
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How do you describe the deepest, longest, widest canyon on the planet? I can't really, I was absolutely blown away by the Grand Canyon. I hope to come back here one day and spend a little more time admiring the beauty of the place.
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The Grand Canyon is a mile deep in places, between 8 and 16 miles wide and nearly 200 miles long. However the length is usually measured in river miles, which is 277 miles. To travel the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River would take 10 days by boat. The rock layers that make up the walls of the canyon range from 2 billion years old to 270 million years old; there is Limestone, Sandstone, Shale, Granite and Schist. The erosion that shaped the canyon happened 5-6 million years ago. The Grand Canyon owes its distinctive shape to the fact that the different rock layers in the canyon walls each respond to erosion in different ways; some form slopes, some form cliffs, some erode more quickly than others. The vivid colours of many of these layers are due mainly to small amounts of various minerals, most containing iron, which impart subtle shades of red, yellow, or green to the canyon walls. The ensemble of stunning dimensions, the melding of depth, width, length, colour and form sets the Grand Canyon apart from all other canyons. Nowhere else is such a dazzling variety of colourful rock layers, impressive buttes and shadowed side canyons revealed in such a dramatic chasm. The Grand Canyon is the canyon against which all other canyons are compared.
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Grand Canyon West (located on the south side of the Colorado River) is managed by the Hualapai Tribe. The Hualapai Indian Reservation is located on the south side of the Colorado River. This land lies outside the boundary and jurisdiction of the National Park Service and is administered by the Hualapai Indian Tribe. The Navajo people make up one of the largest tribes in North America. The Navajo live throughout the region and on the Navajo Reservation, which borders the park to the east. Relative newcomers to this region, they are the descendants of Athabascan peoples who migrated into the southwest from the north in the 15th Century. The Havasupai people inhabit the inner canyon in a region west of Grand Canyon Village. In this remote and beautiful corner of the canyon sits the village of Supai and the descendants of a people who have lived within the canyon for several hundred years. The village remains accessible only by foot, pack animal or from the river but is still heavily visited each year by tourists. The ancestral Puebloan people are believed to be the ancestors of the Hopi people, who inhabit a region east of Grand Canyon. The Hopi name for these ancestors is Hisatsinom. The Hopi people believe they emerged from the canyon and that their spirits rest here.
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Below are a selection of photographs from my visit there.
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