Room+5A

  N e h a a n d  B r i t t a n y ' s  A M A Z I N G  G r a n d  C a n y o n  T r i p  W i k i s p a c e !

 Neha and Brittany on the trip!

Mr. Davi's useless fact: "A squirrel can jump 10,000 feet and weigh up to 500 pounds... when thrown out of an airplane!" Neha and Brittany beleived this! It is UN TRUE!  April 16, 2009 The GRAND CANYON!! Finally… we got off the bus!!! It was a long seven hours and when we finally got to the Grand Canyon; everyone was relieved. Our journey started today at about 6:15 in the morning! I know, early right?? Well, both of us had a good time one the bus eating snacks, listening to music, taking pictures, and talking with friends! Before we stopped at the Grand Canyon we stopped in Flagstaff to eat lunch. There we had a sack lunch with some snacks and a sandwich. Turkey sandwiches. No one told me there was ham and everyone who I tried to trade with had turkey! It was awful  L   I don’t like turkey very much… actually I despise it with a burning passion! Anyways back to the Grand Canyon. It was a chilly day at the Grand Canyon and luckily we had come prepared. We had brought our jackets, hats, scarves, and gloves, and they really had paid off! Poor Brittany was on writing duty while I was taking pictures so she couldn’t wear her gloves  L   Ok so our tour guide took us to the South Kaibab trail, which was about ¾ of a mile. To get there we had to ride a crowded bus where we had to stand and I almost fell onto the person in front of me! Even though I have been to the canyon seven times already, it was a really good experience because this time there was a tour guide who could explain things to us. One of the things that our tour guide told us, which was really cool, was that at one point the Grand Canyon was under water! Two plates that made the Sand Andreas Fault, made the Grand Canyon. To prove this, there were fossils of aquatic life found on the canyon walls… we actually got to see some! All of these fossils are from animals that lived in shells. The shells are called bracupod. A fossilized shell on one of the canyon walls   Someone asked the tour guide why some of the canyon had a reddish color. The reddish powder, like sand, is called shale. It is found on the slopes of the Grand Canyon. It erodes very easily and water cannot pass through it. One of the many places with shale

 We also noticed a big black stain on some of the rocks. It looked kind of like ash. This was actually an organic stain. That is when water with carbon drips onto the rocks. The water gets evaporated, and leaves the carbon part behind. This usually happens to a rock called limestone. It can then be called murang limestone or carnivorous limestone. One limestone rock with an organic stain Another neat thing that we observed was a rock with two different surfaces. It was sandstone with quartz grain in it. The rock was glittery, sandy, and was polished quartz. The smooth part of the rock, which was in the backside, had a yellowish tinge. Katie is feeling the different surfaces of the rock! So… we hiked down to the end of the trail and back up again. It was exhausting because we basically tried really hard to sprint up to be the first ones to the top! (grrr… we still beat you Christopher Hernandez!!!  J   ) Going down we had no idea how hard it would be to come back up! It was very steep. We were able to take some really cool pictures of the beautiful Grand Canyon. Wow! Look at the awesome view of the canyon! The white stuff is snow! Wow! The Grand Canyon was really cool to see! After we toured the Grand Canyon, we satisfied our hungry bellies and had dinner at a restaurant near by. Nearing the end of the meal, we looked out of the window to see snow!!! YES!!! We all wanted to see snow!! Katie and I hadn’t seen real snow in 4 years! It was awesome!!! We also got to see what looked like 3 to 4 herds of caribou or elk!! We went by them too fast to take a picture  L   Mr. Davi was really, really happy to get to see some type of large wildlife!! That night we drove to Page and stayed at a Best Western. We had had a long day and it was time to get some sleep! That concludes our very short, but very fun time at the Grand Canyon! April 17, 2009 The Glen Canyon Rafting Trip!

We woke up super early, at 5:15 a.m., because Katie set our alarm clock! We dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready to head to Glen Canyon! We were staying in Page and it was so cold! Nothing like good old Tucson… but it was nothing like the Arctic, was it Mrs. Wilkening? When we first got to the canyon, a government official come onto the tram we had just shuffled on to and explained to us their “No Weapons Policy”, which of course, we already knew and obeyed. After that, we went through the (about) mile long tunnel. We tried holding our breath, but soon realized it was a) Hold our breath the entire time, or b) Talk and look out the holes that had been used to push debris out during the building of the tunnel. We chose B. There are a total of 18 tunnel adits that we were lucky enough to see. We got out of the tram to find out that a pebble the size of a pea can kill you when dropped from the top of the canyon! We put on our beautiful (not really) hard hats and gathered into the pontoon boats. The Colorado River is over 1472 miles long! It is about 277 river miles long. It flows all the way from Wyoming to Mexico! Our guide’s name was Frank, and although he was nice, he drove slowly. The canyon walls started out at over 700 feet tall, but at the end of the trip, it was about 14,000 feet tall! The channel, at its deepest point is about 85 feet. It was made of Navajo Sandstone! Glen Canyon Dam supports about 29 million people, and without it, it would support less then 7 million. Eight hydroelectric generators produce electricity too. Some cool facts about the dam is that it took them 3 years to fill in the concrete of the dam, and it took 17 years to fill the reservoir!

Glen Canyon Dam

When they had to let some water out of the dam, this is what it looked like! Dirk Thempcorn, the secretary of interior, through the switch! This is a picture from the day it happened.

There are many different kinds of wildlife in the channel. They have rainbow trout, so fishing is very big. They have many species of birds, such as the Golden Eye Duck, the Great Blue Herrons, the Pie-Billed Greeb, and the Snowy Egret. The sides of the canyons are covered with the un-native plant Tamarisk. Tamarisk is native to central Asia, not to Arizona. Another thing is that the darkish color of the rock is caused by the elements in the rock Oxidizing.



  Blurry picture of the tamarisk growing along the side of the river. It comes all the way from Asia! Along the channel, people are burning the un-native, forceful tamarisk trees and planting cottonwood trees, which our native to Arizona. The line of this cable is used to sample water about every three months.

Our guide said there are two ways to die in the desert: Thirst and Flash Floods.

At our first stop, we saw ancient petroglyphs, not pictographs. You should know two very important definitions. **Pictographs** are a painting done with the pigment from a rock and **Petroglyphs** are pictures scratched or etched into the rock. Either the ancient Puebloans or the ancient Anasazi left these petroglyphs over 3000 years ago!

Petroglyphs on the wall. They were so cool! These look like bird things.

A squiggly line and some more animals!

An animal, a person, and a cool design! When we got back into the boat, we grabbed our lemonades, which were really good, and Frank told us about some butterflies. The smallest butterfly in the world is the Pigmy Blue. We also learned that Craig loves hot tubs. <span style="color: #cc00ff; font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"> J We learned that Lake Powell was named after John Wesley Powell, the Grand Canyon’s first explorer. (duh!) He was the one who named Horseshoe Ben because it makes a 170° turn and from a photograph from the sky, it looks like a horseshoe! At Horseshoe Ben, the walls were up to 100 feet high! There were NO Eels, NO hippos, and NO whales on this trip. No hot tubs either! Sorry Craig. Horseshoe Ben- taken from an airplane! It makes a 170° turn!

John Wesley Powell was here, at Needle Arch, on August 4th, 1869! It is 1400 feet high up!

Above the large sand dune is Echo Peak!

The holes in the Kienta Sandstone are from erosion. **Erosion** is where the water erodes, or wears away, at the rock and causes it to slowly break off.

This is Hislop’s Cave. Hislop carved his name and the date at the back of the cave. This is a picture of a picture <span style="color: #00ccff; font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"> J

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;">This is Poison Rock. It is named Poison Rock because one drop will kill you. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #00ccff; font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"> J

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;"> April 17, 2009 <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: fuchsia; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;">Wow! Can you imagine getting to go inside a 900 year old building that was still mostly standing?!?!?!? It was incredible! We bustled out of the bus, and right when we got up Brittany and I were very cranky. I was just beginning to fall asleep when our tour guide, Michael, said that we had reached Wukoki. Yah, not a good idea to wake me up when I’m just about to fall asleep. Then you will be feeling the wrath of the mighty, stubborn, angry, grumpy, and cranky Neha! The building was made from sandstone and a mud mixture. Since it is still standing after a very long period in time, we can assume that the builders used very good building materials. At the building people find pottery and hidden things beneath the Earth all the time! We know that the tribe that lived here had great trading skills as archeologists found remnants of pottery and other things form all over the world! There are many stories told by the Hopi and Zuni tribes about what happened to this civilization. Since there were a lot of rooms, this building may have been used for storage but no one is quite sure. Also, because it was pretty big which meant it could have belonged to a wealthy family or a group of extended families. <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: fuchsia; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;"> Here it is! <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: fuchsia; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #ff00ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">The building had very tiny doors… but open rooftops. This led people to believe that they could have used tall ladders to get from room to room, through the top.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;">We look so big compared to the door!

The rooms in the building were pretty small, but there were many of them. Houses back then, like now, had rooms that served different purposes like a kitchen, bedroom, etc. This house in particular was very big, and unlike others was multi-storied. Archeologists also found what is called an astronomy wall. It can predict what will happen in the next 150 years! We didn’t get to spend a lot of time here either… but it was still really cool to see! Annie and the back of Katie's head at Wukoki!

Look! You can see the slabs of sandstone and mud!

We are standing in the "plaza" part of the building

Sunset Crater April 17, 2009

After visiting Wukoki, with the very CRANKY Neha in tow<span style="color: lime; font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"> J, we headed to Sunset Crater! Sunset Crater is a 1000-foot high cinder cone volcano! It is over 1 mile at the base. It is a gigantic stack of loose cinders! If we had tried to walk up it, which we all wanted to try, we would have just slipped down with huge amounts of ash! This would have been a very bleak and dirty experience. When it erupted, you could see it glow all the way from Phoenix! This is Sunset Crater. John Wesley Powell named it.

This yellow stuff is superheated limestone!

This is a hardened lava river. As you can see, the lava flowed through this, and because for lava to not cool, it would need to be over 2000° F, the lava cooled in these “cool” formations! It cools fast, and forms a crust on top first. Sunset Crater’s lava was full of silica, which is one of the most common minerals. A baby could out-crawl lava while it is flowing!



This is an ice cave! A few decades ago, people used to chip ice from it, and bring it to Flagstaff! Now a colony of bats, and SUPERMAN, live there! <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; text-align: center;">

Arizona is one of the places that has all 4 types of volcanoes, though they might all not be active. There is 1 shield, 1 strato, and over 100 cinder cone volcanoes!