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Grand Canyon Nat. Park
KNOWLEDGE OF Grand Canyon Nat. Park
Like a giant slash in the earth cut by nature's knife, the Grand Canyon exposes millions of years of the planet's history, normally buried under gigantic layers of rock. This grandest of all gorges has inspired admiration, awe and terror in those who came to stand on its edges and gaze into the mile-deep chasm down to the two-billion-year old Pre-Cambrian rock at the bottom.
All geologists today agree that the canyon was created by the Colorado River's incessant cutting action, with the gradual uplifting of the Kaibab Plateau allowing it to cut even deeper. The Kaibab is part of the Colorado Plateau, a permanently shifting chunk of earth that has formed the magnificent natural features of Northern Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The plateau itself is not flat, but sloping to the southwest, putting the northern rim of the canyon at a markedly higher altitude (8,200 feet) than its southern edge (7,000 feet). The river is twice as far from the north than it is from the south rim, with the south side much steeper than the north, as any hiker struggling up the steep South Rim switchbacks will confirm.
No one knows for sure where the first humans descending into the canyon came from, but certain archeological finds in the park suggest that people visited the gorge as far back as 10,000 B.C. It seems that a nomadic hunter-gatherer people known as the "Desert Culture" inhabited the area between 6,000 and 2,000 B.C. Centuries later, the Anasazi people, most likely descendants of the Desert Culture, began settling on the rims and in the depths of the canyon. They developed a system of agriculture that allowed them to live deep within the ravine, growing grains on river’s banks and mesas. Granaries and ruins of their houses have been found along the cliffs. Archeological research now suggests that the Anasazi abandoned the area around the 12th century A.D., either because of droughts or attacks by hostile neighbor tribes.
The first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon were the Spanish conquistadors. In 1540, explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, prompted by rumors about golden cities to the north of present-day Mexico, started on his famous trek into Arizona and dispatched Garcia Lopez de Cardenas to find an Indian village supposedly close to a great river canyon. With the aid of Hopi Indians from the village of Tusayan, now the name of the tourist town at the gateway to the park, Cardenas finally got to the South Rim, only to turn back after deciding that it was impossible to cross the gorge. Two centuries passed until the Spanish returned to the area. In 1776, Francisco Atanasia Dominguez and Sylvestre Velez de Escalante left from Santa Fe in search for an overland route to California; they did not see the Grand Canyon but crossed the Colorado a couple of hundred miles north at Glen Canyon.
All geologists today agree that the canyon was created by the Colorado River's incessant cutting action, with the gradual uplifting of the Kaibab Plateau allowing it to cut even deeper. The Kaibab is part of the Colorado Plateau, a permanently shifting chunk of earth that has formed the magnificent natural features of Northern Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The plateau itself is not flat, but sloping to the southwest, putting the northern rim of the canyon at a markedly higher altitude (8,200 feet) than its southern edge (7,000 feet). The river is twice as far from the north than it is from the south rim, with the south side much steeper than the north, as any hiker struggling up the steep South Rim switchbacks will confirm.
No one knows for sure where the first humans descending into the canyon came from, but certain archeological finds in the park suggest that people visited the gorge as far back as 10,000 B.C. It seems that a nomadic hunter-gatherer people known as the "Desert Culture" inhabited the area between 6,000 and 2,000 B.C. Centuries later, the Anasazi people, most likely descendants of the Desert Culture, began settling on the rims and in the depths of the canyon. They developed a system of agriculture that allowed them to live deep within the ravine, growing grains on river’s banks and mesas. Granaries and ruins of their houses have been found along the cliffs. Archeological research now suggests that the Anasazi abandoned the area around the 12th century A.D., either because of droughts or attacks by hostile neighbor tribes.
The first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon were the Spanish conquistadors. In 1540, explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, prompted by rumors about golden cities to the north of present-day Mexico, started on his famous trek into Arizona and dispatched Garcia Lopez de Cardenas to find an Indian village supposedly close to a great river canyon. With the aid of Hopi Indians from the village of Tusayan, now the name of the tourist town at the gateway to the park, Cardenas finally got to the South Rim, only to turn back after deciding that it was impossible to cross the gorge. Two centuries passed until the Spanish returned to the area. In 1776, Francisco Atanasia Dominguez and Sylvestre Velez de Escalante left from Santa Fe in search for an overland route to California; they did not see the Grand Canyon but crossed the Colorado a couple of hundred miles north at Glen Canyon.
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