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Grand Canyon Journal By: Aubrey Olivarez Our trip began at 6:15 A.M. on Thursday morning. We drove to Flagstaff where we stopped at a beautiful park where we had lunch. It was cold and there was a little snow on the ground.

We continued on to the Grand Cnyon where we stopped at the South Rim. It was big and beautiful and full of wonderous things. The Grand Canyon was created by the Colorado River as it flowed through the canyon. John Westley Powell discovered the Grand Canyon in 1869. In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt made the Grand Canyon a national monument. The Grand Canyon goes from Colorado to Arizona. Five different indian tribes live here. They are the Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai, Paiute, and the Hualapai. The canyon can be up to 18 miles wide and as narrow as 1 mile wide. It is also 277 miles long.

As I looked over the edge I saw some big beautiful rocks that looked like they were ready to fall. I don't know how they stayed put.

Next we hiked down to OOOOH, AAAAAH Point. It was an amazing hike. It was a really steep hike. It was a lot harder going up then it was going down. It was kind of scary looking down to the bottom of the canyon. I couldn't believe that mules actually walk down the same trail we walked down. It was so narrow. We learned that they used dynomite to blast the rock so that they were able to built the hiking trail. You can still see where they put they dynomite when they were blasting.

One of the funniest things was when Colin got all freaked out when a squirrel started running toward him. He actually screamed like a girl. When we stopped at the point to rest, I felt like I might fall over the edge if I got to close.

After our hike, we went to dinner. When we came out it was snowing. I have never seen it snow like that. It was so white and beautiful.

The next morning we got up and drove to Glen Canyon Dam. It was really cool. Before we could go down to the dam, we had to be checked for weapons and bombs. Then we had to travel through a 2 mile long tunnel to get to the river. It was was cut right through the mountain. One crew started at the top and one started at the bottom and they met in the middle. They were only off by inches. During the Cold War, they built tunnels out from the main tunnel and filled them with supplied because they thought that it would be a good bomb shelter if war broke out.

When we got to the bottom, we had to wear a hard hat until we got to the raft. They told us we had to wear them because people at the top throw quarters and knock rocks down and if it hit us in the head we could be really hurt. We then loaded into the rafts and started our trip.



The dam was huge. I couldn't believe I small I felt. It is 563 feet high. They began to build the dam in 1956. They picked this spot because the walls of the canyon were strong enough to support the weight of the dam and the water. Once they began pouring the concrete, they continued to pour it day and night for the next three years. It took 17 years for LAke Powell to fill up all the way. The dam is bigger at the bottom than it is at the top. It is 25 feet widw at the top and 300 feet wide at its base. It collects 100 million tons of sediment every year. They finished building the Glen Canyon Bridge in 1959. This made traveling over the Colorado River much more convenient.



The 18 mile trip down the river was really cool and facinating. It was also very beautiful. There were many different rock formations. There was pretty little waterfall and there were some intersting little canyons off to the side.

We made one stop along the way. We stopped to look at petro glyphs. They were left by indians over 900 years ago. They were really cool to see.





We ended our river journey at Lee's Ferry. This is where people came to cross the river before the bridge was built. People came here from1872 until 1928. The ferry sank killing 3 people. They didn't get another ferry because they were going to build the Glen Canyon Bridge. You can still see part of the ferry captin's house.

We left Glen Canyon Dam and drove over to Wupatki. Here we got to see This was a building where the Hopi Indians lived and held there meetings. This is where the Hopi Indians built wupatki pueblos. These were big houses where 80-100 indians could live at one time. The pueblos are red in color and are made from Moenkopi sandstone. They were built more than 900 years ago. I was surprised because they didn't look that old. Our guide told us about the blowhole. He said that it is a vent that is connected to an underground cave and it either blows out or sucks in air depending on the temperature inside and outside of the cave. I really wish we could have seen it. I think that it would be really cool.



After we were done visiting Wupatki we went to Sunset Crater. Sunset crater is a cinder cone volcano that erupted about 900 years ago. It was discovered by John Westly Powell in 1887. He named it Sunset Crater because of all of its beautiful colors. These colors were created by the lava and ash from the erupted volcano. I thought that Sunset Crater was awesome! I liked see all of the lava beds. I have never seen anything like it before. The petrified trees were cool too. When we went on our hike, I like seeing all of the different colors and how the land changes. I would like to go back there and visit again some day.







This trip was exciting and memorable. I really learned a lot. I have many good memories from this trip and I would like to take my family to visit the places we went some day.