1. Grand Canyon
Dani Erm

2. Come along on a journey of discovering the history and beauty of this landscape…

3. The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona in North America. It is contained within and managed by Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, the Hualapai Tribal Nation, the Havasupai people and the Navajo Nation. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.
Did you know…?
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). 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.

4. For thousands of years, the area has been continuously inhabited by Native Americans, who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. There are 6 tribes that still live in and around the Grand Canyon. Much of the land within the canyon, but outside Grand Canyon National Park is tribal land. The Grand Canyon is a sacred place to local tribes who still live in the area and keep their cultural and traditions alive.
Hualapai  The Hualapai Tribe has inhabited the Grand Canyon Area for hundreds of years, and today has about 2,300 members.  Hualapai means "people of the pines" an appropriate name given the large pinyon-juniper forest they historically inhabited during the fall and winter seasons, where they would hunt game an gather pinyon nuts and other edibles.  The Hualapai Reservation is located in the Western Grand Canyon and is composed of about 1 million acres of land.  Although there is some timer and ranch land, the Hualapai are best know for the Grand Canyon Skywalk which is located on the Hualapai Reservation.  Their tribal headquarters in Peach Springs, AZ also operates a hotel and the only one-day whitewater trip in the Grand Canyon.  
Havasupai Havasupai means "people of the blue-green waters" and refers to the beautiful waterfalls of Havasu Canyon which is the tribes home, and their main source of industry, tourism.  Supai is the tribes headquarters and is located 8 miles below the rim of the Western Grand Canyon.  All of the supplies for the entire village as well as residents are brought in on a mule, helicopter, or via an 8 mile hike. The Havasupai and Hualapai were at one time a single tribe, who probably split off due to lack of resources.  Historically the Havasupai farmed Havasu Canyon during the summer months, and hunted game and gathered food along the rim during the rest of the year.  Toady the tribe has around 400 members.
Navajo With over 300,000 member the Navajo or Dine' Tribe is one of the largest tribes and the largest reservation in North America.  The Navajo who first made their way to the southwest over 1,000 years ago, speak an Athabascan based language that originates from the Northwest Territories of Canada, where their ancestors first migrated from.  The Navajo were originally hunters and gatherers who adopted farming practices from local puebloan tribes, and latter cared for livestock.  Navajo Traditionally lived in octagonal structures called Hogans, which are still used today.  The Navajo Nation is located in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah and is composed of 16 million acres.  Today mining, ranching, and tourism are the main industries for the Navajo People, who are well known for traditional art, which includes fine silver and turquoise jewelry, pottery and Navajo Rugs.     

5. “The sky is a meadow of wildstar flowers.”
Paiute The Paiute Indians are made up of two groups which have similar languages (of the Uto-Aztecan family and cultures), the Northern Paiute and the Southern Paiute.  It is bands of the Southern Paiute that occupy areas around the Grand Canyon in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah.  The word Paiute means "the people" and the Paiute name for the Grand Canyon is Kaibab which means "mountain turned upside down".  Kaibab is also the name of a band of Paiutes that live close to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.           
Hopi The Hopi are believed to be the descendants  of the ancestral puebloan tribes who inhabited the four corners area thousands of years ago.  The puebloan tribes were farmers who built amazing cliff dwellings, and other structures of a culture and way of life that mysteriously disappeared.  The Hopi Reservation is located in Northern Arizona and is entirely surrounded by the Navajo Reservation.  The Hopi village of Oraibi is the oldest continuously inhabited village in the US and has been occupied since at least 1150 AD.  Today there are about 7,000 Hopi people who are renowned desert farmers and artists, known for their jewelry, pottery and Kachinas.  The Hopi have long been connected to the Grand Canyon, and the Hopi Salt mines located in the Grand Canyon were a destination for Hopi Pilgrims.  Also located deep within the Grand Canyon is the Sipapu, a place that the Hopi believe their ancestors emerged from, and a import part of a Hopi Kiva, there center for religious, political and cultural life.         
Zuni The Zuni are a Puebloan Tribe who historically inhabited much of the southwestern United States.  Today there are about 12,000 Zuni people, most of which live on the Zuni Pueblo, located along the Zuni River in northern New Mexico near the city of Gallup.  The Zuni have a unique culture, and the Zuni language is unrelated to any other Native American language.  The Zuni are renowned artisans know for pottery, fetishes, and silversmithing.  The Grand Canyon has long been a sacred place to the Zuni and Ribbon Falls and Thunder River Falls are still sacred destinations to the Zuni toady. 
“The sky is a meadow of wildstar flowers.”
― Ann Zwinger, Downcanyon: A Naturalist Explores the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon

6. Joseph Christmas Ives: 1857-58
Artwork from the Ives expedition was very dark, depicting the canyon as a terrifying place.
Ives' steamboat, the Explorer
Joseph Christmas Ives:
Grand Canyon was the last largely unexplored area of the West in Often called "The Great Unknown" it was literally a blank space on maps. It was known that the Colorado River made a significant portion of its journey through this area, so the federal government funded an expedition to explore the river and determine its usefulness as a trade route.
Army First Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers took on the adventure. He navigated up river using a fifty-foot long sternwheel steamboat, the Explorer. His plan was to steam up the Colorado River from the known into the unknown.
He crashed just below Black Canyon, not yet in Grand Canyon itself, but continued upriver for another thirty miles in a skiff. Continuing on foot, his overland journey took him down into the canyon at Diamond Creek, today part of the Hualapai Indian Reservation. He is thus credited as the first European American known to reach the river within Grand Canyon.
In his Report upon the Colorado River of the West; Explored in 1857 and 1858 (Washington: GPO, 1861), Ives admires the canyon’s scenery:
"The extent and magnitude of the system of canyons is astounding. The plateau is cut into shreds by these gigantic chasms, and resembles a vast ruin. Belts of country miles in width have been swept away, leaving only isolated mountains standing in the gap. Fissures so profound that the eye cannot penetrate their depths are separated by walls whose thickness one can almost span, and slender spires that seem to be tottering upon their bases shoot up thousands of feet from the vaults below."
But he could not envision that the scenery alone would bring millions to view the wonder of the canyon. He also writes:
"The region is, of course, altogether valueless. It can be approached only from the south, and after entering it there is nothing to do but leave. Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality. It seems intended by nature that the Colorado river, along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed."

7. Although first afforded Federal protection in 1893 as a Forest Reserve and later as a National Monument, Grand Canyon did not achieve National Park status until 1919, three years after the creation of the National Park Service. Today Grand Canyon National Park receives close to five million visitors each year - a far cry from the annual visitation of 44,173 which the park received in 1919.

8. Bright Angel Trail originates at the Grand Canyon Village on the south rim of Grand Canyon, descending 4380 feet to the Colorado River. It has an average grade of 10% along its entire length. At trail's end, the River Trail continues another 1.9 miles to the Bright Angel Campground and Phantom Ranch. These two trails combined are the most common method used to access Phantom Ranch by hikers and mules.
The upper part of the trail was originally built by the Havasupai people for access to the perennial water source of present-day Garden Creek. The Havasupai settled seasonally in this area, now known as Indian Garden. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered them to leave the area, to make way for a park. However, it was not until 1928 that the last Havasupai left, forced out by the National Park Service.
Ralph H. Cameron, settled on the canyon rim in 1890 and began improving the old Havasupai trail. It was at this time that the trail was extended all the way to the Colorado River. Once official control of the trail fell to Cameron, he named it the Bright Angel Trail, commonly referred to in its early years as Cameron's Trail.

9. South Kaibab Trail
The trailhead for the South Kaibab Trail is located off of the Yaki Point Road, which is closed to private vehicles. From the trailhead, the trail heads north. Hikers begin with a steep descent through the Grand Canyon's upper rock layers: the Kaibab Limestone and Toroweap Formation. At about 1/2 mile one can observe an excellent example of a pustule dome. Here a small deposit of less dense more buoyant evaporate has punctured through a layer of harder limestone above. Through the first ¾ mile, the trail cuts through the eastern side of Pipe Creek Canyon until Ooh-ahh Point, where the canyon walls turn around Yaki Point and the view of the eastern canyon opens up. The point is named after a common reaction to the view.
From Ooh-ahh Point the trail turns around a few switchbacks in a natural break in the Coconino Sandstone until Cedar Ridge, where the trail begins to level off slightly. Below here, the trail continues north around the east site of O'Neill Butte, descending gradually through the Hermit Shale and Supai Group to Skeleton Point, three miles (5 km) from the trailhead. After Skeleton Point, the trail begins a sharp descent through a natural break in the Redwall Limestone. Despite the name, the natural color of the rock is light beige or gray. The trail cuts to the west of the point where hikers can get a view of Phantom Ranch, then quickly back to the east side of the point. There are numerous switchbacks to descend the 1,200 feet (370 m) through the Redwall Limestone, Muav Limestone, and Bright Angel Shale to the junction with the Tonto Trail, 4½ miles from the trailhead.

10. See you out on the Grand Canyon Trails!
Thank you for learning about this beautiful landscape…
See you out on the Grand Canyon Trails!