Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon (Hopi: Ongtupqa, Yavapai: Wi:kaʼi:la, Navajo: Bidááʼ Haʼaztʼiʼ Tsékooh, Spanish: Gran Cañón) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (6,093 feet or 1,857 meters).The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Indian Reservation, the Havasupai Indian Reservation and the Navajo Nation. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the preservation of the Grand Canyon area and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.
Nearly two billion years of Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. While some aspects about the history of incision of the canyon are debated by geologists, several recent studies support the hypothesis that the Colorado River established its course through the area about 5 to 6 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River has driven the down-cutting of the tributaries and retreat of the cliffs, simultaneously deepening and widening the canyon.
For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans, who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site, and made pilgrimages to it. The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.

Images Gallery

A bighorn ewe at the Grand Canyon, 2008
Noon rest in Marble Canyon, second Powell Expedition, 1872
Rafters in the Grand Canyon pass one of the rapids of the (mud-)"colored" Colorado River
Image of the Grand Canyon and surrounding area taken from the International Space Station
The Grand Canyon from an airplane, with the Colorado River visible
Grand Canyon, Arizona, Nevada, Lake Powell to Lake Mead, June 27, 2017, Sentinel-2 true-color satellite image. Scale 1:450,000.
Diagram showing the placement, age and thickness of the rock units exposed in the Grand Canyon
Rockfalls in recent times, along with other mass wasting, have further widened the canyon
Ancestral Puebloan granaries at Nankoweap Creek
La conquista del Colorado (2017), by Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau, depicts Spanish Captain García López de Cárdenas 1540 expedition
William Bell's photograph of the Grand Canyon, taken in 1872 as part of the Wheeler expedition
Desert View Watchtower in 2004
1923-built steam locomotive No. 4960 at the Grand Canyon Depot
Grand Canyon covered with snow
Smoke from prescribed fires on the South Rim, as seen from Yavapai Point, April 2007.[50]
Natural fog sometimes fills the canyon, during temperature inversions
A bighorn ram perched on a cliff in the Grand Canyon
A California condor in flight, photographed from Navajo Bridge at Marble Canyon, 2008. Wild condors are numbered to aid wildlife researchers. As of April 2009, there were 172 wild California condors known.
Red-tailed Hawk flying at the south rim of Grand Canyon
An elk searching for water at Grand Canyon National Park in 2018.
Guano Point – a popular vantage point for tourists, situated on the West Rim of the Grand Canyon, Hualapai Indian Reservation
Grand Canyon rescue helicopter, 1978