Room+18B

yler Nahhas & Johnathan Oleson ** Day 1: ** **2:15 pm:** The first thing that we did was go to Stephen Tyng Mather Point, the most visited spot in the canyon, and we are looking at what I think is the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. While walking to the trail we saw a deer with giant ears that uses the blood in its ears as a cooling system. **3:13pm:** We are getting ready to go over to the Kaibab trail, the most common and steepest trail in the whole Grand Canyon. **3:15pm:** We just boarded the shuttle to get to the trial and our guide told us a couple of really cool facts: · One person dies on average at the Grand Canyon per year. · The California Condor is found in the Grand Canyon and is the 2nd biggest bird in the whole world, behind the ostrich. · In the 1940’s a famous model named D.D. Johnson was posing for pictures and fell off of the edge but landed on a little ledge. When they pulled her back up she was screaming but because her shirt was torn off. · The Grand Canyon is one of the only geographic landmarks visible from space. · The most common injury in the Grand Canyon is squirrel bites. **3:35pm:** We just saw some of the mules that were used for the trail and our guide said that they were trained in Tennessee for 10 years and then sent to the Grand Canyon. They are supposed to be the best of the best. **3:45pm:** we just started the trail and our guide taught us the DUDE of the Grand Canyon, which helped us learn how it was formed. **D**= Deposition, when sediment is laid down, the Grand Canyon is formed of Decomposed sea life, so it used to all be under water. The layers in the canyon are from different layers in the ocean. **U**= Uplift, where continents collide and land is pushed up. · The Colorado Plateau is the 2nd biggest in the world **D=** Down Cutting, the river cutting through layers in the canyon. · Our guide compared this to a knife cutting into a layered cake. **E=**Erosion, water erodes canyon walls away and makes the canyon wider. It’s not necessarily the Colorado river that did the eroding, no one really knows. Scientists are trying to find out why the Grand Canyon is so big in comparison to every other canyon in the world. One of the most common theories is that there was a giant flood. **4:52:** We just finished the hike and it was the toughest hike that we have ever done. Coming back up was steep was already breathing hard the first 10 yards.



South Rim



** Day 2 ** **9:47am:** We started our boat trip from the Glen Canyon Damn and we learned a couple cool facts: · There is enough concrete in the damn to be able to build a 4 lane highway from Phoenix all the way to Chicago. · The most common tree on this river is the Tamarisk Tree, but it is not native and it takes all the water and kills all of the native plants. They recently introduced a beetle that only eats this tree and they are hoping that it kill the Tamarisk. We saw a group of rocks that formed a face. We also saw one rock that looked like a monk. our favorite though was a rock that looked like an Abraham Lincoln PEZ dispenser. **10:35am:** We are about to go see ancient Anasazi drawings. We are now going to go see an ancient city named Wupaki that is from about 900 years ago. Wupaki comes from the Hopi language and it means house cut up into segments. These Indians were very advanced. Here they had their own A/C units where they pulled air in and it cycled throughout the rooms. The city was a great treading place so they had several cultures and several gems and stones were found here. No one really knows why they left here and why they left so much but thereare several theories. Several people think drought is the answer, and some might think warfare but there are no signs of war. The most common idea is that they were getting so greedy with their money and power that they were starting to forget about their religion so they decided to go and start a new life. We also saw also saw a blowhole where air is sucked or blown from a small hole in the ground depending on pressure. We also learned 2 sad facts: · 3-5 Indian children died in Wupacki · Only about 10% of the Indians lived past the age of 40 in the harsh climate. The last stop on our trip was Sunset Crater. This giant volcano is a 1000 feet high and it grew about 1000 years ago. Sunset Crater is a Cinder Cone volcano and back in the 1960s people used to be able to walk up the volcano, but now we can’t because the volcano is made of loose cinder and it slowly falls apart when people walk on it. When people used to be able to walk up the volcano they would be covered up to 6 feet in the cinder, but when they did make it up they got to see the 300 foot deep crater. On the hike we could see exactly where the lava flowed from the volcano. We also saw an ice cave which has ice in it all year round, yes even in the summertime. Sadly, it was time to go and we started our long bus ride back to Tucson.