Room+4A

Room 4A ( Max and Andy )

Welcome to the Wiki! This is the Wiki for our Grand Canyon Trip photo journal.  The Grand Canyon trip was a field trip our class took. On the first trip, all of Mrs. Wilkening’s kids went (that included us). On The second trip, the other science class went. On the first day of our trip, we hiked down into the epic Grand Canyon. The Canyon is a vast trench in the Earth’s crust, around a mile deep. We hiked into it on the South Kiabab Trail for about ¾ of a mile. Our guide showed us several interesting things and helped expand our knowledge of the Canyon. Believe it or not, the Grand Canyon was once underwater. There is proof in the Rocks. Fossilized sea sponges and old bits of shells are imbedded in the canyon walls.







Rocks can be found in very odd positions here. One of the three major types of rocks that make up the Grand Canyon is shoal, which crumbles and erodes very easily. When the shale erodes underneath the bigger rocks, they tumble down the cliff side.



The trail we hiked on, as well as all the other trails, are constructed on fault lines in the canyon. A fault is a break in the Earth’s crust.

The trail happened to be a mule trail, so it was covered in poop. Besides that, the Grand Canyon was a truly amazing place.

After the hike, the group went to a hotel in the town of Page to stay the night. On the second and final day of our trip, we headed over to Lake Powell.

The artificial lake, protected by homeland security and home to the government’s national dam bureau, is created by the dam in the above picture. The dam is an impressive 700 feet tall. Although you can only see 500 feet of it, the rest is still there, embedded in the rock below it. The dam and river were quite the impressive place. We went through a two mile tunnel deep inside the rock on a bus to get down to the Colorado River.







These holes in the canyon wall were used to extract rocks while building the tunnel.

The canyon we were in at that point was Glen Canyon. We got on boats and prepared to ride down the river.



These trees were brought in from California, since then they have invaded the banks of the river. These trees suck up as much water as an acre of corn does in a year. The only way we can get rid of them is to burn its roots.

This part of Canyon we were on was the deepest part of our trip. The water is 85ft deep. The water we were on was green because of the algae on the bottom of the river.





At our rest stop on the beach we able to find some petroglyhs. The pertroglyphs you see here are three thousand years old. Our guide told there is a slim chance of anyone living down here and that if ther was, there might have been some sort of outpost along the bank of the river.



The River trip was really fun and we got to learn a lot about the river and the Canyons. Our next stop was Wupaki National Monument.

Wupatki isn’t actually a monument it is almost like a like a town that the Navajo left behind. At Wupatki there were many pueblos but we choose a pueblo that you could go inside. The guide at Wupatki said that this pueblo that we visited might have been there observatory. The pueblo was really interesting there was a courtyard area in front of the Pueblo then there was the actual building. The Pueblo had a usual size of rooms, but the doors to get in them were very small. The guide said that their main entrance was using ladders to get to the top and then drop down.











Wupatki was really interesting and fun. The next stop was Sunset Crater

Did you know that Sunset Crater is not actually a crater? It is actually a cinder cone volcano that erupted a long time ago. The area around it is still covered in ash from the blast. There was at one time limestone in the volcano. When the volcano blasted it destroyed the trees around it. When John Wesley Powell went glen canyon he saw the volcano and named it Sunset Crater. When we got there we took a hike to Sunset and then came back.









Sunset Crater was really interesting and fun. The next stop was dinner then home.

Overall the trip was really fun and enjoyable. We hope you learned a lot about the places we went to from this Wiki.