Room+23A

South Rim of the Grand Canyon

The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is a magnificent place to see. There are some famous buildings on the rim such as the Kolb Studio built in 1904. The Bright Angel trail is one of the most walked trails in the Canyon. Hiking the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was one thing that we did. This was very difficult for a lot of people including me. We also saw some fossils and a huge fault line. Surprisingly, there are not many earthquakes at this fault line. There is about 1,737 vascular plants, 167 different types of fungi, and 64 kinds of moss in the Grand Canyon. There are 34 different mammals living along the Colorado River. The South Rim was very cool, but it was cold up that high. The fault line was the best part of the South Rim; I thought this because a fault line is like a big crack in the earth.
 * Erosion is how the Grand Canyon formed, billions of years of Erosion.
 * About 10,000 years ago, paleo-hunters were known to have lived and hunt in the Grand Canyon due to all the animals that live in the Canyon.
 * Some pottery found in the canyon, have been carbon dated to 4000 years ago. This does mean that people did use to live in the Canyon.
 * **John Wesley Powell ** became one of the first to raft the Colorado River in 1869. John and his crew traveled about 1,000 miles down the river in wooden boats. A few men did die on this exploration.
 * In 1971 he went a second time with a totally different crew.
 * About 900 hundred years ago prehistoric Pueblo- Peoples lived in the canyon.
 * President Theodore Roosevelt established Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908.

River Trip on the Colorado River

Our river trip was very interesting. We started at the beginning of the Dam. The rock around the river look so high up. The canyon from the bottom looks bigger when you look from the bottom then the top.

We started at the beginning of the Dam. When we were walking to our rubber boats we had to wear hard hats, because people like to throw things off the top of the canyon. We got on the boats and started down the Colorado River.


 * The average depth of the river is 20ft, but some spots can reach as deep as 90ft.
 * This river is made up of fast, crazy, and deadly rapids, but cam also be smooth and relaxing parts of the river.
 * The Hoover Dam(is where we started) is 726 feet high and was finished in 1936.
 * The Hoover Dam is 660 feet thick at the bottom.[[image:gctrip2012/en2.jpg width="312" height="229" align="right" caption="The dam is right behind "us". This is when we first got on the boats."]]
 * It is 1,224 feet long.
 * This river supplies water to over 25 million people.
 * The Colorado River is 1,450-mile-long river.

This river rafting part of the trip was my favorite. It was a little cold in the shade, but once you got out in the sun it was perfect.

Wupatki National Monument

Wupatki National Monument is a two- story dwelling with more than 100 rooms. This “house” was made out of sand stones. When we were at this location we looked at the dwelling, the blow-hole, the ball court, and the place where they had meetings. This place was not that interesting to me. Personally, I thought the dwelling was just an old house. The best part of this stop was the Blow hole.
 * This is one of the driest places in the Colorado Plateau.
 * Thousands of years ago, this was a great trading place. They know this because they found a Macaw feather and these birds don’t live in Arizona.
 * Wupatki was first inhabited around 500 AD.
 * Wupatki, means "Tall House" in the Hopi language.
 * This dwelling housed over 100 people.

 Sunset Crater National Monument

Sunset Crater is a cinder cone volcano. About 900 years ago, the eruption of this volcano changed the surrounding landscape, the lives of people, plants and animals. The landscape of Sunset is very rocky, to sandy, then to sharp rocks


 * About 75% of the magma erupted at Sunset Crater erupted explosively.
 * Between A.D. 1064 and 1180, a series of eruptions brought the dormant San Francisco Volcanic Field back to life.
 * The eruption at Sunset Crater covered and area of 800 square miles with ash.
 * The Volcano made the Sinagua Indians that lived in the area, temporarily leave.

Because we where late we did not get to see this volcano so I can not tell you my thoughts. But the few things that I saw were really cool.

(Project done by Emilee Nahhas)