Believe it or not-all the pics in this blog are from one day! We were busy while we traveled northeast because there was a lot to see along the way. We think we were in Arizona the entire day but Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Recreation Areas span Utah & Arizona. We definitely saw parts of Glen Canyon & Lake Powell while we were in Utah but today, we stayed in Arizona. As a reminder, Glen Canyon covers 1.25 million acres, so we couldn't get away from it quickly.
Our day began @ 45 degrees, hey this is still August but I know it is colder in higher elevations. We drove scenic Highway 89 and that is where we found all of these amazing sights. Our first stop along the red Vermillion Cliffs was at the Cliff Dwellers Lodge. These buildings constructed under, next to and near giant boulders were completed around 1920 by homesteaders. We thought this would be a good project for our friend Craig.
Our second stop along this scenic byway was the Navajo Bridge which crosses the Colorado River's Marble Canyon near Lee's Ferry. We saw some river rafters go by from the bridge. Before the first bridge was built in the 1920's, all had to cross by ferry @ Lee's Ferry.
Many folks we met along the way, told us we needed to see Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon & Lake Powell, even though none of these are a National Park. We always do what we are told and since we were headed that direction anyway, it worked into our schedule. So glad that we listened; all are definitely worth a stop.
Horseshoe Bend was our next stop right along Rte 89. The overlook is 4,200 feet above sea level and the Colorado River is a 1,000 feet below it. It is located 5 miles downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam & Lake Powell. It is a beautiful overlook that warrants a short ¾ of a mile hike. Doug called it the pilgrimage because so many people were parked and walking to the overlook.
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| The entrance to Antelope Canyon |
There is an Upper and Lower portion of Antelope Canyon, we chose to tour the Lower portion, after Doug did some research. This beautiful sandstone slot canyon is owned & operated by the Navajo Nation. We paid to drive into the parking lot and then we paid to go on a guided tour. Our tour guide was so good, we tipped him well when our tour was completed. He set our cameras so we were able to capture these colors. Some facts regarding this lower canyon: length is about 1,335 feet, floor elevation: 3,700 feet, depth about 120 feet. Formed by erosion of Navajo Sandstone primarily due to flash flooding. Right now as I am researching this, I just found out that in August 1997, 19 years ago during summer monsoon season, eleven visitors were killed during a tour from a flash flood in the Lower Antelope Canyon-yikes-guess we're glad we didn't know about that before our tour. When you look out across the horizon, you can not see any evidence of these canyons.
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| The exit to the Antelope Canyon |
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| Above Antelope Canyon |
Glen Canyon Dam was the next sight along our trek. The Dam was completed in 1964 and is located 8 miles below the Utah/Arizona border on the Colorado River. It took 7 years & 400,000, 24 ton buckets of concrete to complete. It is the second tallest concrete-arch dam in the US, Hoover Dam being the first. Glen Canyon Dam stores water & produces hydroelectric power from the Colorado River that is critical to the survival of cities, industries and agriculture throughout the West & Mexico. Lake Powell is the storage area for this water and has become a great recreational spot.
Lake Powell is 186 miles long & has 1,960 miles of winding shoreline. It took 17 years for the Lake to fill, starting in 1963 and filling completely in 1980. By 2004, the water level was down as low as it was in 1969, when it was just beginning to fill. This year 2016, the reservoir stands at 57 percent capacity. It does fluctuate year to year depending on rain & snow fall.
We camped the night in Wahweap Campground along the shore of Lake Powell. The sand on the beach is a bit coarse, but it's a wide beach due to the water level being down.
The rest of these are pics are from our tour of Lower Antelope Canyon: the colors are amazing! If my background is too busy with these pics, you can just tap on the picture & it will enlarge-I suggest you do that with these anyway because the canyon is so beautiful!
After all that adventure & beauty yesterday, where do we head today? The South Rim of The Grand Canyon. Along the way though, we still had one stop to make: the small town of Cameroon at the famous Trading Post-and wow, did they have a lot of merchandise and I would like to believe them when they say it has all been made by local Native Americans. The blankets & rugs were beautiful and way out of our price range. The Art Gallery was truly inspiring.
The Grand Canyon really makes one realize what a short time on earth we have and how long this world has been evolving. Geologists have dated some of this rock in the canyon back 1,680 million years ago, that is almost 2 billion years. Don't ask me how they can do this-my mind is overwhelmed already. The layers of limestone, mudstone and sandstone are visible in different areas in the park. The landscape combines desert with Joshua trees, Pinyon-Juniper forests, Ponderosa Pines and Mixed Conifers. The all important Colorado River has carved this Grand Canyon. The Colorado River is about 1,450 miles long, of which 277 miles passes through the Grand Canyon. Today the flow of the Colorado River is dramatically reduced but rainfall & snowmelt are continuing the erosion.
Our first stop inside the South Rim of GCNP was the Watchtower @ Desert View. The Watchtower was built in 1932 & is 70 foot tall affording a great view of the canyon & Painted Desert. The South Rim is much more tourist focused, so there was a couple of gift shops and busloads of people there.
We had reservations at the Mathers NP campground & we were pleased with a nice woodsy site. The South Rim offers a free shuttle bus system and we could ride our bikes to the Visitor Center and grab buses from there easily. Elk roam freely around the busy park, so we were rewarded with up close & personal sightings, even right at our campsite.
We were able to ride our bikes quite a bit at this NP-great bike trails and not a lot of elevation change. With the help of our bikes and the shuttle buses, we made it rim to rim. So we are proud to say; we made it rim to rim at both the North and South rims of the Grand Canyon-yahoo, pretty good for seniors (love the discounts)! The night skies were awesome-could see the milky way and many constellations.
The weather has been great, so we have hiked, biked, picnicked and just plain relaxed. The South Rim does not get as much precipitation as the North, so no thunder storms in the afternoon here. We loved hearing about & seeing the architectural designs of Mary Coulter from back in the 1930's. The Hermit's Rest Stop and Watchtower were our favorites. At one of the many gift shops in the park, we perused a book that was written about the tourist deaths @ the Grand Canyon-there have been 55 people who have fallen to their deaths from the 1930's to 2011, when the book was published. Watching some of these visitors' daring behavior during our stay, we can definitely understand how it happens. Speaking of tourists, during these last 2 months, we have felt many times like the foreigner in a foreign land due to all the worldwide travelers and many languages being spoken around us. We think this is great-just wish the U.S. would do a better job helping with the language barrier by using more signs & tour info in other languages than English. 
Now that we have visited both the North & South Rim of the Grand Canyon, we can say we liked both but the North Rim's scenery was more dramatic and it was less crowded and touristy. 
