Dreams of Summer: If there's a Little Colorado River, is there a Little Grand Canyon?

In the last post, I noted that there is a lot more to the Colorado Plateau than the Grand Canyon. The Canyon (it just has to be capitalized) is more than 200 miles long, but it cuts through just a part of the Colorado Plateau Province, a vast region encompassing 130,000 square miles (337,000 sq km), and containing 27 national parks and monuments. The Grand Canyon is a starting point, a jumping-off place so to speak, for learning the complex geological story of the American West. Our field studies course would eventually include five states beyond California.

As we left Grand Canyon National Park, we followed Highway 64 east onto Navajo Reservation lands near Cameron. The geographic region is known as the Navajo Section, and is generally lower than the high plateau that contains the Grand Canyon. For the most part the section contains flat barren badlands, although parts are very colorful (this area is sometimes called the Painted Desert). There is an exception to the flatness, where the Little Colorado River approaches the Grand Canyon. That was our next stop.

The Little Colorado River is by watershed area one of the most important tributaries of the Colorado River, but the area it drains is so arid that the river contributes little overall to the discharge of the main river. The smaller river is actually dry along most sections for most of the year. The exceptions are during the spring runoff, and during the summer monsoons. Flash floods on the small river can be monstrous. Our local river back home, the Tuolumne, is considered a fair-sized river (by California standards). It reaches flood stage at a discharge of 9,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). The highest flow ever recorded on the Tuolumne was around 70,000 cfs. During a flood in 1923, the Little Colorado River recorded 120,000 cubic feet per second!

So, as I asked in the title, if there is a Little Colorado River, is there a little Grand Canyon? In a manner of speaking, the answer is certainly yes. The lower part of the Little Colorado where it approaches the main river is a stupendous gorge 3,000 feet deep. If the Grand Canyon didn't exist, the canyon of the Little Colorado River would probably be a national park all its own. That said, the gorge of the Little Colorado River wouldn't exist without the Grand Canyon nearby. It was the rapid downcutting of the Grand Canyon that caused the gradient of the Little Colorado River to increase and carve downwards. The nature of the river canyon tells us it once flowed over a relatively flat floodplain. The evidence lies in the presence of entrenched river meanders.

Goosenecks of the San Juan River in southern Utah

Meanders are the characteristic loops and bends of a river flowing over a relatively flat surface. They are very common on rivers like the Mississippi. If the land rises, the river speeds up and starts to erode the channel downward while maintaining the shape of the meander. Eventually the river erodes a deep canyon that has intricate loops. The lower reaches of the Little Colorado has a lot of them. The San Juan River in southern Utah has also done the same thing, and a spot called the Goosenecks provides a bird's-eye view. I've included a shot of the Goosenecks above.

A distant view of the canyon of the Little Colorado River from Highway 64

If the Grand Canyon is awesome by virtual of distance and open space (a yawning chasm a mile deep and 10-15 miles wide), the canyon of the Little Colorado River is awesome by intimacy, in an odd way. The canyon where we visited had vertical walls a thousand feet (~300 meters) high, but was almost narrow enough to fling a pebble across (it least it looks that way). When you stand at certain points, you are looking straight down on the the river, as can be seen in the picture below. There aren't a lot of places where one can do this sort of thing.
It had been years since I had seen water flowing in the Little Colorado River, but last summer was remarkable in terms of the monsoons. They began early and produced a number of flash floods throughout the region. When we arrived, the river was flowing, although the term "river" barely applied to the viscous mixture of mud and silt in the canyon below.

Mouth of the Little Colorado River in Grand Canyon

The mud certainly influences the Colorado River. The Little Colorado River may not provide prodigious amounts of water to the system, but it is one of only two major sources of sediment to the river now that Glen Canyon Dam prevents mud from flowing downstream of the reservoir. When we rafted to the mouth of the Little Colorado in 2013, the main river was almost clear, but silt was pouring from the tributary. For a short distance, the river was bi-colored, but within a mile or so the water and silt were thoroughly mixed and remained that way for the remainder of our trip, another nine days!

Two rivers in one, the green Colorado, and the brown Little Colorado

The Little Colorado River is a fascinating part of the plateau country. It gets lost in the broader scenery at times, but is well worth the bit of effort to explore a few of its secrets.

A Rock Outcrop, a River, and Sand flow into a Point Bar...

And the bartender said "is this some kind of joke?"

But it's not a joke of course, it's a simply stunning example of what happens when water flows over stone for a long time. What you are seeing here Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River a few miles downstream of Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell outside of Page, Arizona.

A point bar is a real thing with rivers. When a river loops back and forth as a series of meanders, point bars form as sand ridges develop on the inside of the loop where the water flows more slowly. In the most technical sense, the sand bars in the picture above can be consider an example of the feature, although they are more familiar where rivers are flowing in flat floodplain.

It's obvious that Horseshoe Bend is no longer a flat floodplain! It may have been one at one time, but uplift of the Colorado Plateau (or the subsidence of the lands around the edge of the plateau) caused the river to speed up and start to erode downwards, forming an entrenched meander.

The approach to Horseshoe Bend is a sandy trail about three-quarters of a mile up from a parking lot about five miles south of Page on Highway 89. Although views are wide-ranging along the trail, there is barely a hint of the incredible view that awaits when one arrives at the brink of the cliff and looks down nearly a thousand feet to the river. Stunning is the only word for it.

My old camera couldn't show the entirety of Horseshoe Bend, so I was thrilled I was able to get these wider angle pictures with my new one. It's almost like looking at a petrified rainbow, although it should be said, this view is not entirely natural.

When Glen Canyon Dam was completed in the 1960s, the river was changed forever in terms of a human lifetime. Instead of the normal red silt-laden water, the river flows clear and cold (almost refrigerator cold, about 46 degrees; I can attest to this as I almost drowned in the river last year). As a result, green algae grows in the unnaturally blue river. It's beautiful to look at, but is kind of sad to consider what it should have been. Many of the native species of river life are in decline and cold-loving invasive species are thriving.

A trip-planning note just in case you are headed out to the region this summer: Highway 89 between Bitter Springs and Page was closed down by a serious slope failure along the Echo Cliffs Monocline. It may be years, if ever, before the highway will be repaired. In the meantime, the Arizona Department of Transportation has constructed a newly paved highway replacing Navajo Route 20. Although the detour is supposed to be temporary, I suspect it is permanent despite any feelings of the Navajo Nation about a new busy highway in a formerly isolated part of the reservation. There are far fewer engineering problems where the new highway crosses the monocline.

Where are the Ten Most Incredible Places You've Ever Stood? My Number 1: Roads End at the Edge of the World

There's an empty quarter within the bounds of the lower 48 states. It's a vast area, a swath of land across southern Utah and northern Arizona where towns are few, and the vistas are wide. It's bounded by Blanding on the east, Mexican Hat and Kayenta to the south, and Lake Powell off to the west. Outside of these few villages there are some reservation lands and ranches. There is a national monument (Natural Bridges), and a national park off to the north (Canyonlands), but mostly it's uninhabited Bureau of Land Management land. In other words, lands held in trust for all the people of the United States.

I've been going through a list of the ten most incredible places I've ever stood, and so far in this series we have explored the Alaka'i Swamp of Kaua'i, Hawai'i, the lava flows at Pu'u O'o on the Big Island, Frame Arch in Arches National Park, the moment of global death in Gubbio, Italy, and the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. There was Siccar Point in Scotland, Kartchner Caverns of Arizona, Dante's View in Death Valley, and Hance Rapids on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. I also cheated a little and insinuated that Glacier Point in Yosemite was one of the ten (which it is, even if all of these add up to eleven; didn't you all see "This is Spinal Tap"?). Some of these I chose because of their geological significance, and some because of their incredible scenery. A few were chosen from sheer emotion and personal spiritual reasons, and that is also the motivation for my number one choice. Not many people know of the place. It's not a national park or monument, and the geology, while interesting, is not exceptional. It's in the center of the empty quarter of Utah on the edge of Cedar Mesa. It's called Muley Point.

Standing on the edge of the world at Muley Point, one looks down several thousand feet into the mysterious gorge of the San Juan River, one of the major tributaries of the Colorado River. The canyon is an intricate twisting maze of curving gorges called entrenched meanders. The river once flowed as a meandering stream channel over a flat plain relatively close to sea level. When the land rose, the gradient of the river increased, but the water was trapped in the meandering channel, so the curve was preserved as the river cut ever deeper (below).

The rocks making up the cliffs are part of the Cedar Mesa Sandstone, a Permian-aged unit that preserves some coastal sand dunes, and the occasional bone or track of some pre-dinosaurian reptile like Dimetrodon.

Entrenched meanders of the San Juan River below Muley Point

In the distance beyond the canyon of the San Juan stand the buttes and mesas of Monument Valley, the scene of so many iconic western movies (below). The valley is administered as a tribal park of the Navajo people. The farthest horizon reveals the margin of Black Mesa, the heart of the Navajo Reservation and the home of the Hopi Nation as well. The spiky monument in the far distance just left of center is Agathla's Needle, the core of a deeply eroded volcano. This volcanic neck, or diatreme, is similar in age and composition to the better known Shiprock a few miles away in New Mexico.

The view to the east extends across the Raplee Anticline to the Chuska Mountains of New Mexico, and the Rocky Mountains of southeastern Colorado. The scene below is taken from the top of the Moki Dugway on Utah Highway 261, the precarious road that provides access to Cedar Mesa and Muley Point.

The view east from the top of the Moki Dugway, the spectular road that provides access to Muley Point

North from the Moki Dugway one can see the deeply incised edges of Cedar Mesa. Looking at this barren desert landscape, it is hard to accept that Cedar Mesa was once part of the "fertile crescent" of the American Southwest. An arc of land extending from Mesa Verde to Cedar Mesa was in the "sweet spot" elevation of being not too hot and not too cold and having just enough precipitation to produce high yields of maize, squash and beans. It was a thriving agricultural region for the Ancestral Puebloan people for hundreds of years. Most of the surface of Cedar Mesa was under cultivation, and thousands of archaeological sites dot the region (unfortunately making it a target for illegal pothunters). The Puebloans moved on eight hundred years ago, and the mesa has been more or less deserted since then. The juniper and pinyon trees sprouted and covered the ancient corn fields.

Years ago I learned the craft of leading field studies with the staff and crew of Santa Barbara City College, days I remember fondly. We used to take a one-day raft trip down the San Juan River from Bluff to Mexican Hat, and the night before we would spend the night at Sand Island on the river. We would spend a few moments at Muley Point before descending to the hot, humid, and buggy campsite. One year someone pointed out that we were fully equipped to camp anywhere, so why not stay on the rim of Cedar Mesa where the view was indescribable, and the air was fresh and clean, and gloriously free of biting deerflies and mosquitoes? From that time on we camped on the edge of the world. What had been just another spot with a nice view became for me a yearly pilgrimage.

What makes this place so different? It's magic, I think. It is the top of the world, and the edge of the world. One can stand and see a vast region occupied by a mere handful of people, a land that shows little of the damage (at distance anyway) that people can do to a landscape. It's colorful and ever-changing, especially in the light of dusk or twilight. There aren't many places where one can experience the full drama of the Earth through sunset, night and sunrise, and have a completely unobstructed view of the sky from horizon to horizon to horizon.

Usually when we pull into a campsite on our field trips, the students and crew jump out, unpack, and set up their tents and the cooking area. I learned long ago that Cedar Mesa and Muley Point are different. The people emerging from their vehicles disappear. I wander along the edge of the mesa and I find them, sitting alone or in small groups, just contemplating and staring at the scene before them. I often take on the task of preparing the evening's meal just to give them more time to be out there.

I've spent a total of two weeks on the mesa over the last three decades and every night is different. We've seen warm clear days and nights, we've had windstorms (equipments blows over the edge never to be seen again), thunderstorms, and rain.

Have you ever spent an entire night taking in a special place? Have you ever watched the progression of the cosmos over hours and hours of time? We constantly insulate ourselves from the darkness, but there are certain times and places where we can revel in it. There is nothing quite like watching moonlight reach deeper and deeper into canyons below the rim. What had been featureless darkness below becomes an intricate pattern of complex beauty. I've awakened in the early hours of the morning to watch the moon setting or watching the long drama of sunrise. Some nights there are thunderstorms over the Sleeping Ute or Chuska Mountains. The fire in the sky is an incredible sight.

Sometimes there are eerie things as well. Rational people can still feel the echoes of the lives that were played out on this mesa. I've been keenly aware of the spirits that exist in and around the canyons, whether real, or constructs of the imagination. We sat on the edge of the mesa one night nearly thirty years ago and saw mysterious lights. I still to this day don't know what to make of them (and you can be sure that I've watched for their return ever since!). Yet, I've never felt scared or nervous in this place. Just curious.

The morning inevitably comes, and once the sun rises high in the sky, the mesa becomes less mysterious. We are ready for a day of seeking the Ancestral Pueblo ruins that are hidden in literally every side canyon on the mesa. Spending a night exposed to the environment that they called home enlightens our explorations.

It was hard to pick the top ten of my most incredible places, and I couldn't begin to rank them, but I do know that I might not see the Burgess Shale or the Gubbio clay layer or Siccar Point again in my life. They were memorable, and I will always cherish that fact that I got to see them. But I didn't experience them, not in the way that I've experienced the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Cedar Mesa.

That's the thing I guess. Any place in this wide world can become the most incredible place you will ever stand. It won't be that tourist destination that is famous worldwide, because those are the places that you visit once or twice and never get to know. The special places are those which you experience in the fullest sense in all kinds of situations and conditions. That's what Cedar Mesa is to me.

So, what has me worried? I was digging through the tons of old topographic maps in the old department as we prepared for the move to the new Science Community Center. And I found a topo map of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area, and noticed that a small corner of Cedar Mesa extends over the boundary of the GCNRA. Muley Point is "protected"! But in small print were the following words: "Slated for future development". Chilling words, but thus far unrealized. A paved road, interpretive signs, restrooms, and parking lots would ruin this incredible place. I hesitated about even making its presence known, but in the end I did, because unknown places are the easiest to destroy (just ask Glen Canyon). Such places will need friends in the future.

In the meantime, revel in the discovery of your own most incredible places, and if you are ever near the town of Mexican Hat, seek out Muley Point. It's not too hard to find, the road is okay for most cars even if a bit bumpy at times. And don't just look and drive away after a few minutes. Lay out a sleeping bag, find the appropriate rock (you'll know the right one), and let this place fill you. You won't regret it.

PS: After I posted this, Ron Schott let me know he had a 360 degree gigapan of the view from Muley Point. Check it out at  http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/52566 !

Hidden Right Under My Nose: A gem outside Page, Arizona

It must have been so frustrating to be among the first Europeans to explore the Colorado Plateau, whether a Spaniard, a Mormon, or Mountain Man. It is so easy to get around on a vast plateau, because everything is so flat. Except that this is no normal plateau. Every time an explorer came to a river, it was almost always ensconced in a valley hundreds or thousands of feet deep, with vertical cliffs separating the travelers from the life-giving water below. Even worse, the deep canyons were a serious impediment to travel. Even as late as 1928, there was only one place where a vehicle could cross the Colorado River between Moab, Utah, and Needles, California, and that crossing was by ferry (Lee's Ferry to be specific).

The rivers were just as confusing for the first geologists who explored the region, like John Wesley Powell, Grove Karl Gilbert, and Clarence Dutton. To geologists who had grown up with well-integrated river systems like the Mississippi or Ohio, these western rivers made no sense at all. The rivers crossed mountain ranges, or entered mountain ranges, only to swing around and exit the mountain range on the same side. The general landscape would slope north, yet the rivers flowed in canyons that sloped south. Huge abandoned dry channels littered the landscape, with no rivers anywhere nearby that could have carved them. It was a puzzle to be sure, but the work of Powell, Gilbert and Dutton to try and solve that puzzle led to our understanding of many basic principles of geology, including graded streams, antecedent streams, superimposed streams, base level, and isostasy. But as hard as they struggled, they could not completely comprehend the history of the Colorado River. Even today we still don't have a complete picture of how this landscape evolved.

What we do know is astounding. For nearly a billion years, the earth's crust in this region has been near sea level and stable, but in the last few million years, that same crust was uplifted en masse some 2 vertical miles. Ancient rivers were rejuvenated, and new rivers formed as headward erosion tore away at the edges of the plateau. The entire river system that may have existed for tens of millions of years had been upended, and some rivers, the Colorado in particular, ended up flowing in a totally opposite direction of the original watercourse. The old meandering rivers were trapped in their channels as the land rose, so they cut straight down, maintaining the original river loops in what are called entrenched meanders.

We were in the vicinity of Lee's Ferry during our reconnaissance journey last week. I was looking for interesting stops to add to our AAPG field seminar in July (a trip you are welcome to consider joining!). A volunteer at the Navajo Bridge Visitor Center pointed out that I might want to check out Horseshoe Bend outside of Page, Arizona. I have to admit I have never really explored Page all that much. I never got a chance to see the original Glen Canyon, and neither did anyone else except the few hundred people who had rafted the river through the canyon by the time that Glen Canyon Dam shut the floodgates in 1963. It was apparently one of the most beautiful river canyons in the world, but it now lies beneath hundreds of feet of stagnant water and silt. Page was the town where the dam workers lived during construction, and to me it represented everything that was wrong with the choices we've made in land and resource use (the giant coal burning power plant on the outskirts of town doesn't help). And with the ongoing decade-long drought, the dam and reservoir are in danger of becoming totally useless as far as their intended use as water storage and power generation.

I walked the sandy three-quarter mile trail in the hot late afternoon sun, and reached the edge of the precipice. At this point, the Colorado River is flowing through a thousand foot deep gorge cut into the thick Navajo Sandstone. It is just a few miles downstream of Glen Canyon Dam, and a few miles upstream of the Echo Cliffs and Lee's Ferry where the river briefly flows along a stretch without cliffs. It almost immediately plunges into Marble Canyon, and the Grand Canyon. Taken in pieces, like the shot above, and the one below, the canyon is scenic, colorful, and spectacular. It is always stunning to stand on (or lie on, for the acrophobics) a thousand foot vertical cliff. But taken as a whole, Horseshoe Bend is special...

From the viewpoint at the end of trail, we are standing at the outer edge of one of the entrenched meanders, so we have the spectacle of the river running in a nearly complete circle. It's hard to photograph without a wide-angle lens, but it is an incredible sight.

I was there at one of the harder moments to take pictures, though. The late afternoon sun was directly ahead of me, and it had been a dusty day, so all my pictures have lens flares galore. I can certainly imagine a serious photographer spending an entire day at this one spot, catching all the moods and sun angles.

Horseshoe Bend is accessed along Highway 89 just a few miles south of Page, Arizona. There is a parking lot on the west side of the highway. The hike is just 1.5 miles round-trip, but it is almost all in loose sand. Take water!