Room+16B

Room 16B ~ Alejandra Katz and Amy Winkel



Kaibab/Southern Rim - Once we arrived at the Grand Canyon, we met our guides, who told us to close our eyes so they could lead us to our first look at the Grand Canyon. The view was amazing! The colors in the canyon ranged from blue to light pink, and when you looked down it seemed as if you were going to fall in.



Our hike down Kaibab trail was exhilarating - the hike back up, however, was exhausting. While we hiked down the trail, we learned that the Grand Canyon is the longest canyon in the world, being about a mile deep, and about a thousand miles long. The guides also told us that the oldest rock in the Grand Canyon was about 2 billion years old.

We only hiked 1 mile down the Canyon, although we did get to see a lot of exciting sights. When we reached Ooohh Ahhh point, which marked the end of our trek down the Canyon, we rested on some huge rocks/boulders that were fun to climb.



Colorado River/Glen Canyon - 

The river was our favorite part of the whole trip. Not only did we get to see the inside of the Canyon up close, but we got to raft on the river as well! Even though we got extremely wet, it was worth it.

The big dam (Glen dam) was constructed in order to produce electricity. Glen Dam also keeps back most of the sediment from flowing into Lake Mead, along with the Colorado River. The Colorado river used to be a brown opaque color, but after the dam was constructed it became a more transparent green color.

While we were rafting we noticed some peculiar black markings that looked as if someone had dumped a pail of black paint over the canyon wall. Our guide told us that scientists used these markings to find out how old the Grand Canyon was.





We stopped halfway through the trip and hiked a bit along the “coastline” of the river. There we got to see some petroglyphs, made by the people that used to live in the Grand Canyon thousands of years before us. The petroglyphs were a bit faded away, but you could still see them.



We also noticed some burnt trees that were situated along another coastline. When we asked our guide, he told us that they weren’t originally from the Grand Canyon – they were from Australia, and they were called Tamerisk. The Tamerisk trees were formerly put in the canyon to reduce the amount of erosion going on – the scientist soon realized, though, that the trees were altering the natural environment around them ,so they were burned off before they could cause anymore harm.

Wupatki Ruins -

The Wupatki Ruins were extremely interesting and fascinating – it was amazing how all those people could survive through the extreme heat! The ruins were made out of clay, and were incredibly steep. You had to watch your step there, or else you would go head first down the ruins.

In the ruins, there were some windows that you could poke your head through and see the spectacular view. There was also this secluded room that you could enter by ducking through this small entrance. Our guide told us that a really long time ago (like 1,000 years ago) a huge volcano had exploded (the explosion was so big that it reached Kansas) and all the people over there thought they were angering the gods, so they made offerings to try to calm the god.



Sunset Crater National Monument -

The Sunset Crater National Monument had huge forests and black sand (that was igneous rock crushed up)



While we hiked up the mountain, we were told that we wouldn’t be going up the whole way, and that we would just go up part the way. We were also told that Sunset Crater wasn’t a crater, but a volcano.

Sunset Crater’s lava (now igneous rock) seemed to have low silica content, and must’ve had low viscosity.