Grand Canyon

I have visited both the south rim and the north rim several times. I can say I have walked alone the rim and enjoyed new and grand vistas every 50 yards or so. I can say I have even been "in" the Grand Canyon.

However, I was never able to take the mule trip or get anywhere near the bottom. I did walk down the mule trail a distance and saw many wonders. As I get older, my recollection indicates I walked down about 1/4 mile, but that distance gets longer as I age.

Years ago, circa 1869, a famous explorer, John W. Powell, boated down the Colorado and his account is rather famous, and if memory serves, one of his actual boats is on display at the south rim.

This trip was thought to be the domain of men, with the sentiment the treacherous Colorado is "no place for a women" being the cultural norm even as late as after the first world war concluded in 1918. But our culture began to change, such as notably women obtained their natural right to vote. Amelia flew airplanes. Women smoked in movies.

Instead of all "White Anglo-Saxons Protestant males" were created equal, more reality started to fill the promise of all people are created equal. Another step toward creating equality among peoples took place in 1938. Two botanists, who happen to be women, climbed into sixteen foot homemade boats, along with several men, and headed down the Colorado, raging with snow-melt, and filled with silt. They were going to study the flora of the Grand Canyon, and "Brave The Wild River."

The terrific account is found in that new book, and as one who loves the Southwest, I am enjoying the read.

Here is a link:
Summary and reviews of Brave the Wild River by Melissa L. Sevigny

 

Great picture and commentary, Deacon, in your post #2!!

I remember "hugging" the rocks as a mule train of visitors passed by.

The "Brave the Wild River" account has brought back many memories. Driving by Mexican Hat and marveling at the geologic Sombrero. Eating "Grape-Nuts" for breakfast. Thinking of females as women rather than as human as me. Visiting Yosemite and watching the now discontinued "Fire Falls." Eating Prickly Pear fruit and being completely surprised by how good it was.

And beyond the walk down memory lane, page after page of discovery, such as Tumbleweed not as hopeless bundles blowing across the highway, but as an invasive army traveling rapidly, spreading seeds across the land.

 

One of the purposes of our National Park System is to leave sections of our land (and water) "unimpaired." The fly in the buttermilk is our understanding or definition of being "unimpaired."

Consider the dilemma of a "natural state." Should we bulldoze beaver dams because some animal has "impaired" the natural state, or should we consider the actions of animals to alter conditions for their benefit to fall within the meaning of an unimpaired natural state. We would then have no need to exterminate woodpeckers who make holes in plants.

However, if we consider the actions of that predator primate, referred to as the human species, are those actions "natural" or "impairment?" When the indigenous peoples were kicked off their farm land, because that land was declared by law to be within a National Park, was that removing an impairment or causing an impairment?

Just one of the discoveries or insights explored as readers "Brave the Wild River" in a grand national park.

 

One of the truths of the Western United States is that the Colorado River Basin does not supply as much water as needed. In Cubic Feet per Second (CFS) the average flow is at or under 22,000 CFS for the Colorado. A recent deal was made for the Federal Government to use funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to pay uses not to use Colorado river water. No mention of any efforts to bring additional water from other sources to the problem.

The Colorado average flow is less than 4% of the flow of the Mississippi into the delta.