Archive for January, 2008
January 3, 2008 – The Grand Canyon
No trip to Northern Arizona would be complete without a look-see inside the Grand Canyon!
This is the view from the south room near the Desert View observation station. With an elevation of 7,000 feet, the rim of the canyon is not warm in January, but the crowds are not so overwhelming.
Oh, the horrors of the abyss!
We even saw some obligitory wildlife, including this cow elk along the road to Hermit’s Rest.
I don’t get to post many photos of Linda and I unless we’re on vacation, so here’s another one. This was my third trip to the canyon – a few years ago with Linda and back in college on a geology field trip we hiked to the bottom. To this day, the orange I ate upon getting back to the top was the most flavorful and delightful “meal” I’ve ever enjoyed!
January 2, 2008 – Cathedral Rock, Montezuma’s Castle and Tuzigoot
Linda and I started the day with a pre-breakfast hike to Cathedral Rock.
The trail to the top was very steep and we elected to go back for breakfast rather than go to the top!
The earth-colored arrow shows the location of the house we rented for the week – on the Back-o-Beyond road, with stunning views of Cathedral Rock.
We drove south today to visit Montezuma’s Castle, another ruin of cliff-dwellers.
Linda and sis yak it up with the park ranger.
The view from another ruin – this time from the top of Tuzigoot National Monument.
Emma and Nana through a window of the ruin.
Mark and Linda at the top of Tuzigoot.
January 1, 2008 – Paint in a Petrified New Year!
Today was another day along the new Route 66, I-40 in Northern Arizona.
The first stop was Walnut Canyon, site of more ruins of cliff-dwellers (visible in the distance just above Emma’s elbow). The trail to the ruins was closed by a recent large rockslide and boulders. The national parks geo-hazard team was on the way to assess the possible remedies. I asked the ranger why wouldn’t they just dynamite the trail clear? Evidently, they think that blowing stuff up might damage the ruins in the canyon, either from the blast or continuing journey of the house-sized boulders further down the canyon! So we were limited to the rim trail.
Next stop was the Painted Desert National Park.
These badlands are brightly colored and a delight to the eye.
Nana and Emma and Martin pose in front of the Painted Desert Inn, now a National Landmark. When the building was originally built, the walls were composed of pieces of petrified wood. A later renovation covered the original walls with a layer of earth-colored abode – but they were mindful to leave one section unplastered in adobe so the original could still be viewed.
The badlands really vary in colors from many shades of red to grays and blues.
Finally, a six year old’s dream playground – petrified logs as old as dinosaurs! Here Martin contemplates the series of geological events that had to happen to bring these fossilized logs to the surface.
Martin and Emma pose on “Old Faithful” the largest petrified log in the park.
A cross section reveals a galaxy of colors. In brief, the petrified wood was formed when big trees fell in a huge river and washed down to the delta. All the leaves and branches were stripped away on the tumbling journey. They came to rest and were buried by more mud and the final, necessary piece was a layer of ash from a distant volcano. Then, through time the minerals from the ash and mud above replaced the cellulose one cell at a time. The petrified logs were then uplifted and the surroundings washed away to be revealed 225 million years later.
one year ago…
