When you see the Grand Canyon, you cannot see it in its entirety. It is more than 270 miles long and at some points it is nearly 20 miles wide. It is well known to be over a mile deep in some parts-its rugged terrain defines the landscape for hundreds of miles around. It took six million years for it to form-the winding erosion of the Colorado River slowly cut into the face of the desert, producing the mighty absence with its persistence. The magnitude of the erosion has enabled scientists to see levels of rock laid down billions of years before humans ever lived. The study of the Canyon has dramatically advanced the science of geology.

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.

- 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.