Grand Canyon National Park

The park, focusing on the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, encompasses the entire course of the river and adjacent uplands from the southern terminus of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area to the eastern boundary of Lake Mead National Recreational Area. The National Park was established by an act of Congress on February 26, 1919 and receives about 4 million visitors annually.

Geology

Geologists have a hard time determining the age of the Grand Canyon itself, though it is far younger than even the most recent rock layers - those on the rim, which are about 250 million years old. They lay at sea level 65 million years ago when the earth's crust began a slow uplift. Somewhere between 5 and 20 million years ago, the ancestral Colorado River took its present course and began to carve the Canyon. Gradual uplift continued, giving the water even greater power. Today, the South Rim reaches elevations of 7,000 to 7,500 ft, while the North Rim towers about 1,000 feet higher. Still young, the Colorado River drops through the Canyon at an average gradient of 7.8 feet per mile, 25 times the gradient of the lower Mississippi.

Prehistoric, Historic and Modern Indians

At least 4,000 years ago, a hunting and gathering society stalked the plateaus and canyons of northern Arizona, leaving behind stone spear points and some small split-twig figurines resembling deer or sheep. Preserved in caves of the Grand Canyon, these figurines have a carbon-14 date of 2000 BC. This culture apparently departed about 1000 BC, leaving the canyon unoccupied for the next 1,500 years.

Prehistoric Anasazi Indians came to the Grand Canyon area about AD 500. Like their predecessors, they hunted deer, bighorn sheep, rabbit and other animals, while gathering such wild plant foods as pinon nuts and agave. They lived on the North Rim in the summer, where warm updrafts from the Canyon provided a sufficient growing season for raising squash, beans, and corn. After the harvest, they migrated into the Canyon where the warmer climate allowed an extended growing season. The Anasazi also made fine baskets and sandals. At their peak between 1050 and 1150, they grew crops, crafted pottery and lived in above-ground masonry villages. At about the end of this period, drought hit the region and may have caused its abandonment. By 1150 neatly all the Anasazi had departed from the Grand Canyon, leaving more than 2,000 sites behind. Most likely they migrated east to the Hopi mesas.

While the Anasazi kept mostly to the east half of the Grand Canyon (east of today's Grand Canyon Village), another group of hunter-gathers and farmers, the Cohonina, lived downstream between AD 600 and 1150. They adopted many of the agricultural and building techniques and craft of their Anasazi neighbors. In 1300 the Cerbat, probable ancestors of the modern Havasupai and Hualapai Indians, migrated onto the Grand Canyon's South Rim from the west. They lived in caves of brush shelters and ranged as far upstream as the Little Colorado River in search of game and wild plant foods. The Cerbat also planted crops in areas of fertile soil or permanent springs. It is possible that the Cerbat had cultural ties with the earlier Cohonina. Nomadic Paiute Indians living north of the Grand Canyon made seasonal trips to the North Rim, occasionally clashing with the Cerbat when one group raided the other. The Paiute lived in brush shelters and relied almost entirely on hunting and gathering. They spent summers on the Kaibab Plateau and other high country, then moved to lower elevations for the winter. Hopi Indians knew of the Grand Canyon, too; they came for religious pilgrimages and to collect salt.

Today the Havasupai live 35 air miles northwest of Grand Canyon Village in Havasu Canyon, a tributary of the Grand Canyon, and on lands atop the South Rim. To the west of the Havasupai, the large Hualapai Reservation spreads across much of the Grand Canyon's South Rim. A small band of Paiute Indians lives on the Kaibab Reservation just west of Fredonia in far northern Arizona.

Historical Background

In 1540, when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led an expedition in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola, Hopi Indians told a detachment of soldiers about a great canyon tot he west. Hopi guides later took a party of Coronado's men, led by Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, to the South Rim, but kept secret the routes into the depths. The Spaniards failed to find a way to the river and left discouraged. Franciscan priest Francisco Tomas Garces, looking for souls to save, visited the Havasupai and Hualapai in 1776 and was well received by the Indians. Historians credit Garces with naming the Rio Colorado ("Red River").

James Ohio Pattie and other American fur trappers probably came across the Grand Canyon in the late 1820s, but they gave only sketchy accounts of their visits. Lt. Joseph Ives led the first real exploration of the Colorado River. He chugged 350 miles by steamboat upstream from the river's mouth in 1857-58 before crashing into a rock in Black Canyon. The party continued overland to the Diamond Creek area in the western Grand Canyon. Most of the Canyon remained a mystery until Major John Wesley Powell led a boat expedition through it in 1869. On this trip and a second one in 1871-72, Powell and his men made detailed drawings and took notes on the geology, flora, fauna, and Indian ruins.

After about 1880, prospectors entered the Grand Canyon to search for copper, asbestos, silver and lead deposits, despite the remoteness and difficult terrain. Their trails, many following old Indian routes, are still used by modern hikers. In 1883 stagecoaches began bringing tourists to see the Canyon at Diamond Creek, where a four-room hotel was built the next year. Prospectors Peter Berry and Ralph and Niles Cameron built the Grandview Hotel in 1895 at Grandview Point and led tourists down their trail to Horseshoe Mesa. Other prospectors also found guiding tourist to be more profitable than mining. Tourism began on a large scale soon after the railroad reached the South Rim in 1901. The Fred Harvey Company purchased the Bright Angel Lodge, built the deluxe El Tovar Hotel, and took over from the small operators. As the Canyon became better known, President Theodore Roosevelt and others pushed for greater federal protection. First a forest reserve in 1893, the Grand Canyon became a national monument in 1908, then a national park in 1919. The Park's size doubled in 1975 when legislation extended the boundaries west to Grand Wash and northeast to Lees Ferry. Grand Canyon National Park now includes 1,892 square miles and receives more than 4 million visitors annually.

Grand Canyon Fun Facts

* The Grand Canyon encompasses an area equal in size to the country of Switzerland

Driving Tour - East Rim

Desert View Point (elev 7438 ft/2267 m) is named not for its canyon vistas, but for its view to the east, across the Marble Platform towards the Painted Desert. Two distinctly different landscapes are visible here: The horizontal meets the vertical; flat rock layers of the Marble Platform meet the folded layers of the Kaibab Monocline. The Colorado River, having made its way south along the edge of the monocline, turns to the west at this point, cutting through the heart of the Kaibab Plateau.

Desert Watchtower was designed by architect Mary E.J. Colter and built in the 1930s. Colter took inspiration from similar round structures at Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly. The originals, whose real purpose can only be surmised, were built some 800 years ago by the Anasazi (or Hisat Sinom in Hopi terminology). Colter built her tower to a much larger scale (70 ft high and 30 ft in diameter) and incorporated ideas from a variety of Indian cultures. The ground floor is patterned after a Pueblo kiva, or ceremonial structure. Each level in the tower is decorated in a different style, ranging from modern Hopi art to pictographs in the ancient style.

Navajo Point (elev 7498 ft/2285 m) Captain Pablo de Melgosa of Burgos, Juan Galeras and a third man whose name is not known where the first whites to descend into the Grand Canyon. They were probably less than happy about the honor. After 20 days in the desert, they came across an area "elevated and full of low twisted pines, very cold, and lying open to the north," a description that, historians believe, best fits this area between Desert View and Moran Point. It was in September of 1540 and the expedition leader, Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, sent his men into the Canyon to find a route to the Colorado River. They negotiated a third of the distance before returning with the information the rocks that appeared no larger than a man from the rim were taller than the Tower of Seville (185 ft/56 m) when they reached them.

Lipan Point (elev 7360 ft/2243 m) Originally called Lincoln Point, the name of this point was changed in 1902 to Lipan after an Apache Indian group in Texas. Look down into the Canyon and find the spot were the Colorado River forms an "S." In the middle of this meander is Unkar Rapids, which drops 25 ft in 0.3 miles (7.6 meters in 0.4 km). As with most of the rapids on the Colorado, Unkar was formed by boulders and debris brought to the River along the creekbed. As you leave Lipan Point, the San Francisco Peaks are prominent on the southern horizon. These mountains, of volcanic origin, are the highest peaks in Arizona. The tallest, Humphreys Peak, stands at 12,670 ft/3801 m above sea level. These mountains are sacred to the Hopi and Navajo Indians, and their springs furnish a portion of Flagstaff's water.

Tusayan Ruin is the remains of a pueblo village that has been partially excavated and stabilized. Judging from its size, Tusayan was a small Anasazi village housing about 30 people. The village was inhabited from AD 1200 - 1250. It is one of more than 2000 prehistoric sites recorded in Grand Canyon National Park. Archaeologists who excavated the site in 1930 named it "Tusayan," a Spanish term used for Hopi Indian territory.

Moran Point (elev 7157 ft/2181 m)is thought to have been named for painter Thomas Moran, who first gained attention as a member of the 1871 Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone. His watercolors helped to influence Congress to establish the world's first national park. He came to the Canyon with Major Powell in the early 1870s, and he was also with another geologic survey team headed by Clarence Dutton in 1880. On a semi-attached butte at the end of Moran Point are remnants of a wall, probably built by Indians during the twelfth century.

Red Canyon, to the west, is named for its vivid exposure of red Hakatai Shale.

Hance Rapids are visible if you go to the left, almost to the end of the rail, and look down to the right. They were named for Captain John Hance, the first white settler at the Grand Canyon.

The Sinking Ship, complete with superstructure, masts and bridge, is located to the left of the viewpoint.

Grandview Point, at a higher elevation (7406 ft/2257 m) than most points on the East Rim, receives more moisture and supports more vegetation than other points. Directly beneath the overlook, Horseshoe Mesa was the site of the Last Chance copper mine, established in 1890 by Peter Berry and two partners Niles and Ralph Cameron - the same fellows who justified their control of the Bright Angel Trail with mining claims that never produced ore. The Last Chance, however, was a legitimate mine. Despite the cost of hauling out every pound on mules, the ore was good enough (up to 70% pure copper) for the mine to keep operating until 1907.

Yaki Point (elev 7260 ft/2212 m) offers tremendous panoramic views of the central section of the Grand Canyon. Across the Canyon to the northeast is a large flat-topped butte called Wotans Throne. It was named by Francois Matthes, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who made the first topographical map of the Canyon. To the right of Wotans Throne is a prominent pointed butte named Vishnu Temple. Directly below Yaki Point is Cremation Canyon.

Sections of the South Kaibab Trail, descending into the Canyon just to the west of Yaki Point, can be seen from the overlook. This trail was built by the National Park Service in 1925 and is one of three trails forming a cross-canyon hiking corridor connecting the North and South Rims.

Mather Point (elev 7120 ft/2170 m) is named for Stephen T. Mather, the first director of the National Park Service.

At Mather Point, only a fourth of the entire Grand Canyon is visible. The park encompasses more than a million acres, and is 277 miles (446 km) long, by river. By air, the distance from Mather Point across to the North Rim is approximately 10 miles (16 km). Looking down from the point, the straight-line depth is nearly one vertical mile (1.6 km). Although the small section of the Colorado River seen from Mather Point appear to be merely a creek, the river is actually about 300 ft (90 meters) wide. Its average speed is four mile per hour (6 kph), flowing up to 10 mph (16 kph) in some rapids. The river's depth averages 50 ft (15 m), but has been measured at 110 ft (34 m) in one spot. A patch of cottonwood trees at the bottom of the Canyon signals Bright Angel Campground and Phantom Ranch.