July 25th, Drive to the Grand Canyon

  


Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Day 30
Drive to the Grand Canyon!

I’ve been dreaming about today for such a long time that I can hardly believe we are actually here at the Grand Canyon! It took us about 4 hours to drive the 170 miles. The drive was beautiful, especially once we entered into Arizona from Utah and drove near the Vermillion Cliffs. Climbing up the Kaibab Plateau after seeing it in the distance was really amazing. We stopped at the Kaibab National Forest Visitor’s Center in Jacob Lake, which is 45 miles from the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, and the closest town to the North Rim. The ranger there was very helpful and told us about the fire that took place in the National Forest in June.

I knew there had been a fire here from some brief blurb I heard on the news or somewhere before we left home, but it wasn’t well publicized back home. Close to 60,000 acres burned right near the main road going into the North Rim. The fire burned for four weeks. They did have to evacuate the North Rim campground and lodge at some point in early July when the winds shifted and changed the character of the fire from a ground fire to a crowning fire. When that happened they really fought the fire and got it put out. Before that they were just keeping an eye on it, because fire is healthy and necessary for Ponderosa Pine forest like that found here on the Kaibab Plateau.

The campsite we are at is gorgeous, under tall old Ponderosa Pines. It is quiet and there is no electricity here except when people use generators, which are only allowed for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. We attended the campfire program here at the campsite. It was about all the colors in the canyon and what causes them. Geology, geology, geology. I love it!

After we arrived and set up we could barely wait to drive the short (maybe half mile) to the lodge and visitors center that is directly on the rim. Our first view of the actual canyon blew us away. It is so HUGE and colorful and incredibly amazing. We attended a Ranger Program at the lodge, right on the edge of the canyon. It was about Geology and we learned about some more rocks, such as the Vishnu Schist which is at the bottom of the canyon and is 1.7 billion years old. (Oldest exposed here.) We learned about the redwall limestone which is only red because the layer above it is “painting” it – the layer above is the Supai formation which is red due to the iron in the minerals that make it up. IE: rust. We learned about the Coconino Sandstone that was layed down when this area was a huge sandy desert larger than the Sahara today. And of course Kaibab limestone which was formed at the bottom of a shallow sea. There are more layers, but hey, this was just half an hour!

The rocks are beautiful and we were able to take a walk, part of the way with the Ranger, to Bright Angel Point, from which you have a clear view of Bright Angel Canyon. This is a North-South running canyon with a creek at the bottom and it is right on a fault called Bright Angel Fault. You can literally see the fault because the exposed rock layers are so clearly visible even from afar. The Supai formation is RED and you can follow the band of it from east to west like reading a book, when suddenly it jumps up roughly 30 feet. That’s where it jumps the fault and there is a clear difference from one side to the other. Pretty nifty.

Tomorrow I hope to get up before 5 am to go down to the canyon to see the sunrise. I’ve heard it is spectacular. By the way, we are back on Pacific Time, or more precisely we are on Mountain Standard Time, because Arizona does not observe daylight savings unless you live on the big Indian Reservation in the eastern part of the state. So it is 10:30 pm here now, but last night at this time it was 11:30 for me. I no longer care, we just do as we please anyway.

Oh, and Rod saw deer already on the drive in here and also right here within the campsite. There is a different type of deer here, called the Kaibab Deer. It can have an antler spread of 30 inches on average. They also seem bigger and darker in color. The fawns we saw today were quite dark in coloration. We can’t wait to see some Kaibab Squirrels, another unique species here that evolved through geographic isolation from its cousin on the other side of the canyon. I taught about this for so many years and now I can finally see it all! Also, we are hoping to see some Condors. Tomorrow at 2 there is a condor talk (Ranger Program). We also want to go to the evening program and the night program, and the morning walk would be nice too. So much to do, so little time…