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Take Your Next Family Vacation to the Grand Canyon
Written by Doug Maxwell
Monday, 07 September 2009 23:45
The Grand Canyon in Arizona is enormous in size. You can't just drive to the gorge, spend some time looking around and then leave. To really make the most of a visit to the Grand Canyon, you must take a few hikes, ride the Colorado River and explore each corner open to tourists. The many different views the Grand Canyon can give you will certainly be a surprise. The Canyon attracts millions of people each year with its colorful landscape, immense size, and awe-inspiring geology. This natural wonder presents obstacles that can leave even the experienced hikers emerging sore and fatigued, including the scorching heat during the summer months, an altitude of 7,000 feet and steep, rocky, winding trails.
Aerial shots of the grand Canyon provide a great view and can really give you an idea of the scope and size of this massive creation of Mother Nature's, but what about the waterways that make up a good portion of the Canyon floor?
Most Grand Canyon tour guides will tell you about the Colorado River and how it is responsible for the formation of the gorge, but do you know anything about the lakes, dams, reservoirs, and tributaries that are connected to that river? The Colorado drains 242,000 square miles of land and goes through the states of Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, California, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada.
The headwaters of the Colorado River are in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, an elevation of 9010 feet. It flows west from there and eventually empties into the Pacific Ocean in the Gulf of California. By the time it reaches the Grand Canyon the elevation has dropped to 3110 feet and it goes down even further to under 1000 feet when it reaches the end of the Canyon at Grand Wash Cliffs. The distance from the beginning of the Grand Canyon to the end is 277 miles.
Ah, the Grand Canyon; one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World and one of the most awestriking sights to behold on the Earth. Some people claim that if you have seen it once, you have seen it enough. I, however, disagree wholeheartedly. It is more than just easy on the eyes, it is a miracle.
- The Grand Canyon stretches across 277 miles of the northern Arizona plains. It has an average depth of about one mile and at one point is over 18 miles across from rim to rim.
- The canyon houses over 250 species of birds, five species of reptiles, and almost 100 species of mammals, several of which are native and exclusive to the canyon.
