The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile.
The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
John Wesley Powell was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He is famous for his 1869 geographic expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, including the first official U.S. government-sponsored passage through the Grand Canyon.
The Little Colorado River is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona, providing the principal drainage from the Painted Desert region. Together with its major tributary, the Puerco River, it drains an area of about 26,500 square miles (69,000 km2) in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico. Although it stretches almost 340 miles (550 km), only the headwaters and the lowermost reaches flow year-round. Between St. Johns and Cameron, most of the river is a wide, braided wash, only containing water after heavy snowmelt or flash flooding.
The Green River, located in the western United States, is the chief tributary of the Colorado River. The watershed of the river, known as the Green River Basin, covers parts of the U.S. states of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The Green River is 730 miles (1,170 km) long, beginning in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and flowing through Wyoming and Utah for most of its course, except for a short segment of 40 miles (64 km) in western Colorado. Much of the route traverses the arid Colorado Plateau, where the river has carved some of the most spectacular canyons in the United States. The Green is slightly smaller than Colorado when the two rivers merge but typically carries a larger load of silt. The average yearly mean flow of the river at Green River, Utah is 6,121 cubic feet (173.3 m3) per second.
The Dirty Devil River is an 80-mile-long (130 km) tributary of the Colorado River, located in the U.S. state of Utah. It flows through southern Utah from the confluence of the Fremont River and Muddy Creek before emptying into the Colorado River at Lake Powell.
The Escalante River is a tributary of the Colorado River. It is formed by the confluence of Upper Valley and Birch Creeks near the town of Escalante in south-central Utah, and from there flows southeast for approximately 90 miles (140 km) before joining Lake Powell. Its watershed includes the high forested slopes of the Aquarius Plateau, the east slope of the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the high desert north of Lake Powell. It was the last river of its size to be discovered in the 48 contiguous U.S. states. The average discharge is approximately 146 cfs.
The known human history of the Grand Canyon area stretches back 10,500 years, when the first evidence of human presence in the area is found. Native Americans have inhabited the Grand Canyon and the area now covered by Grand Canyon National Park for at least the last 4,000 of those years. Ancestral Pueblo peoples, first as the Basketmaker culture and later as the more familiar Pueblo people, developed from the Desert Culture as they became less nomadic and more dependent on agriculture. A similar culture, the Cochimi also lived in the canyon area. Drought in the late 13th century likely caused both groups to move on. Other people followed, including the Paiute, Cerbat, and the Navajo, only to be later forced onto reservations by the United States Government.
Expedition Island is an island in the Green River at downtown Green River, Wyoming. The island, now mostly taken up by a public park, is the place where Major John Wesley Powell and Vitaly Develvis started an expedition down the Green River and Colorado River in 1871. The park is also believed to mark where Major Powell started his earlier expedition down the two rivers in 1869. Expedition Island was designated a National Historic Landmark for this historic association on November 24, 1968.
Vermilion Cliffs National Monument is located in northern Coconino County, Arizona, United States, immediately south of the Utah state line. This national monument, 293,689 acres (118,852 ha) in area, protects the Paria Plateau, Vermilion Cliffs, Coyote Buttes, and Paria Canyon. Elevations in the monument range from 3,100 feet to 6,500 feet above sea level.
Mount Carmel Junction and Mount Carmel are unincorporated communities located 12 miles (19 km) east of Zion National Park and 17 miles (27 km) north of Kanab in Kane County, Utah, United States. They lie in close proximity to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.
Ten Who Dared is a 1960 American Western film directed by William Beaudine and starring Brian Keith, Ben Johnson, John Beal and James Drury. It was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution. It tells the story of United States Army officer John Wesley Powell, who was the first to travel down the Colorado River, and the dangers that he and nine other men had to face while making a map of the region during their 1869 expedition. Hired by Walt Disney Studios in 1959 as a technical adviser, Otis R. Marston led a film crew through the Grand Canyon to film river running and background scenes for the film.
John Karl Hillers was an American government photographer.
Sam Adams who referred to himself as "Captain", was an early explorer of the American west, who claimed to explore the Colorado River over a number of years. He made a number of unsubstantiated claims and sought to get $20,000 from the government, which was never paid. He returned to Pennsylvania and worked as a lawyer.
Cataract Canyon is a 46-mile-long (74 km) canyon of the Colorado River located within Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in southern Utah. It begins at Colorado's confluence with the Green River, and its downstream terminus is the confluence with the Dirty Devil River. The lower half of the canyon is submerged beneath Lake Powell when the lake is at its normal high water elevation of 3,700 feet (1,100 m).
The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons by John Wesley Powell is a classic of American exploration literature. It is about the Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869 which was the first trip down the Colorado River by boat, including the first trip through the Grand Canyon.
Almon Harris Thompson, also known as A. H. Thompson, was an American topographer, geologist, explorer, educator and Civil War veteran. Often called "The Professor" or simply "Prof", Thompson is perhaps best known for being second in command of John Wesley Powell's Second Geographical Expedition (1871–1875), a federally funded scientific expedition that retraced the route of Powell's original expedition in order to further explore and map the drainages and canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers in what is now southern Utah and northern Arizona. Thompson's diary of the expedition was originally published in the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1939. Through his work on the Powell expeditions and later as a geographer at the U.S. Geological Survey, he was responsible for naming many geographic locations in the Western United States. Thompson is also known for being a founding member of the National Geographic Society.
John Colton Sumner (1840–1907) was an American explorer who took part in the Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869. An experienced marksman and boatman, he was chosen by John Wesley Powell to lead the first boat of the expedition. He eventually had a falling out with Powell over differences in personality, and was troubled through the rest of his life over the disappearance and deaths of three other men in the expedition. His remorse and resentment became so great that, in 1902, he castrated himself.
Harriet Emma Dean Powell was a botanist and ornithologist, and the wife of John Wesley Powell. She accompanied and cared for him after the loss of his arm during the Civil War and was with him during many of his trips to explore the Western United States serving as a scientific assistant collecting samples. John Wesley Powell's personal vessel for the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition was named the Emma Dean in her honor.
The Howlands Butte, elevation 5,572 feet (1,698 m), is a minor butte in the southeast drainage of the very large Clear Creek drainage. Clear Creek is a medium length flowing creek, just upstream of the major Bright Angel Creek outfall into the Colorado River, Granite Gorge. The Howlands Butte was officially named in 1932 for brothers Seneca and Oramel G. Howland, members of the Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869. Just two days from the expedition's intended destination, the pair and William H. Dunn left the expedition, fearing they could not survive the dangers of the river much longer. They hiked out of the canyon and were never seen again. Separation Rapids on the river is where they departed from Powell.
