Requesting a brief introduction to the landscape of the Grand Canyon of Colorado

1. Seon National Park: Turn from Highway 15 to Highway 9 and you will arrive at Seon National Park. The boulders, cliffs and red clay hills here are all worth taking pictures of.

2. Bryce National Park: From Seon National Park, turn onto Highway 89, and then go east onto Highway 12 to reach Bryce National Park. The most famous thing here is the bamboo shoot-like red clay tower forest standing in the deep ravine. You should stay for a while to take pictures of the beautiful scenery of the strange rocks in the morning and evening light.

3. Arches National Park: You can reach it by crossing the Green River and turning onto Highway 70. There are huge arch-shaped rocks everywhere in the park. American automobile and motorcycle cross-country races are often held here. Hotels here are often full during peak tourist season, so visitors need to prepare in advance.

4. Memorial Valley: All the way south from Highway 191 is the Indian Reserve, also known as the "Mexican Sombrero Scenic Spot". From here to the entrance of Highway 163 is a straight avenue, on the west side of the road It is a giant rock like a monument, so it is called "Memorial Valley". The long-distance road running scene in the movie "Forrest Gump" was shot here, and many of the black and white masterpieces of famous photographers Ansel and Adams were also produced here.

5. Lake Powell: Going west from Highway 160 is Lake Powell. If you have time to go deep into the lake, you can find beautiful scenery.

6. Grand Canyon National Park: The North Rim is at the southern end of Highway 89. It is snowy in winter and is the best place to take pictures of snow scenes. The South Rim is a tourist attraction. In addition, there are several small parks along Route 24, and you can decide whether to visit them based on time. [Edit this paragraph] Attractions Survey Grand Canyon: the largest and most spectacular erosional landform in the world

The Grand Canyon is about 330 kilometers long, with widths ranging from 6 kilometers to dozens of kilometers, and the deepest point reaches 1824 meters, nearly 2 kilometers. The altitude of the valley river is less than 1,000 meters, while the highest altitude of the valley bank can reach more than 3,000 meters.

For hundreds of millions of years, the roaring Colorado River has cut this shocking miracle from the Kaibab Plateau. Whether you are on the south bank or the north bank, looking from a high distance, you can clearly see a big crack on the tabletop plateau, which is the imprint of the Colorado River on this wild land.

It is not the deepest canyon in the world, but it is famous for its sheer size and richness. It attracts the world's attention and is the most important reason why it is listed as a World Natural Heritage. It also lies in its geological significance: the well-preserved and fully exposed rock formations record almost the entire geological history of the early North American continent. It records Paleozoic rocks from 5.5 to 2.5 million years ago. After that, they were either not deposited or have weathered.

The canyon was formed much later than its rocks (about 50,000-60,000 years ago) and is much more complicated. It is mainly caused by the erosion of the Co River, and the erosion effects of rainfall, melting of ice and snow are almost the same. important. The peculiar shape is mainly due to the different speeds of erosion on rocks with different textures. The rich colors of the canyon are caused by the small amounts of various minerals contained. Rocks rich in iron are red or reddish brown.

Until the American Civil War, the Grand Canyon was little known. In 1869, John Wesley Powell, a Civil War veteran who loved science and exploration, went rafting for the first time. Animal husbandry began to develop in the Grand Canyon area in 1880. By 1890, it was still an alpine grassland, with 100,000 cattle and 250,000 sheep grazing here. But by the time the Grand Canyon Nature Reserve was established in 1906, most ranchers were forced to change careers. Because of overgrazing, the semi-arid grasslands with fragile ecological environment had turned into shrubs and deserts, making animal husbandry unsustainable and the industry gradually declining. dominant. By 1901, the railway was built to the south bank, which led to rapid development. It became a national park in 1919 (the U.S. National Park Service was established in 1916).

Rock Arch National Park

Approached the town of Moab on the plateau where Rock Arch National Park is located.

After entering the door, turn and go uphill. The first group of strange rocks rushes in front of the car, followed by a huge group! They are all made of weathered red rock. They are continuous and naked, red and arousing visual impact, like castles, giant beasts, Ashima girls, churches, sails... This park is named after the concentration of natural stone arches. There are more than 2,000 rock arches with a span of more than 1 meter in the park, and there are also strange groups of stone pillars and stone piers scattered everywhere. The highway connects several scenic spots together, and the densely packed areas are full of beautiful scenery, making it dizzying to see.

Walking in the cool sun beside the huge rock arch, walking through the dry bushes, listening to the sound of the wind, I felt a real sense of solidity. The window area is where large rock arches gather, and several famous arches appear frequently on postcards. The Double Arch consists of two beautiful arches stacked next to each other. When viewed from the front, it looks like a chain, which is extremely elegant. Tourists were scurrying below, only to realize how high it was! A few miles away, Delicate Arch is an exquisitely isolated rock slope so famous that it is used as the image on Utah license plates. Walk a mile to see the Landscape Arch. It is one of the largest rock arches in the world, spanning 100 meters and 30 to 40 meters high. The top is only a few feet thin and may collapse at any time. The information said: "You are witnessing the sunset of a rock arch. The next time you visit, it may not exist." When I looked up again, I felt that it was not an exaggeration.

The life of a rock arch begins when wind, frost, rain and snow create small pits on the mountain, then penetrate into holes, expand, and finally collapse into dust. New rock arches are born, old rock arches die, and time flows before your eyes.

Making popular science knowledge vivid and interesting is a characteristic of North American natural scenic spots, and Rock Arch Park is no exception. Some signboards ask visitors to face a certain landscape and boldly draw shapes and colors, saying that it was originally a mountain, but later it became a huge rock arch, and then Mother Nature flattened it. The story is accompanied by a diagram, with dotted and solid lines depicting hundreds of millions of years of history, and the landscape in front of us does support that story. This mountain and thick land have been eroded layer by layer!

Yangong Park covers an area of ??only more than 200 square kilometers. It has always been known as a family park, which means that transportation and viewing are convenient, and it is suitable for family travel. The park attaches great importance to maintaining the natural ecology and does not build any commercial facilities, not even restaurants. There are only a few sagebrush growing on the vast Gobi Desert, which is also the highlight of the park. Hollywood once came to borrow a piece of treasure land, saying that it would invest 500 horses to film a fierce battle between Indians and federal cavalry, but the park collapsed and returned with two words: "No way." In fact, it is well known that the National Park System is strapped for cash, but the brainless park director still said: "I can't imagine letting them let 500 horses in to cause trouble!" This man's integrity made people look at Americans with admiration.

Indian Heritage Park

Geologists call the Colorado Plateau a "semi-desert". Most of it is wild and exposed mesas and canyons. It seems that no one will settle here.

In fact, this is not the case. Human beings have lived here for at least 3,000 years. An important cultural feature of the Four Corners area is the cliff dwelling ruins left by the Indian people. For this reason, a number of parks have been established, such as Mesa Verde in Colorado, which is the most famous Indian heritage park.

Cliff dwellings are houses built in large hollows under cliffs, ranging from a few to hundreds. A cave is a village. Scholars calculated the age by counting the growth rings of the wood in the ruins, and found that these old residences were quite prosperous in the latter part of the 13th century, but in the few years or more than ten years before 1300, all of them suddenly disappeared. Speculations vary, but it is difficult to explain how these widespread cliff dwellings were abandoned at the same time. At some sites, there is still food in the food storage jars, and unfinished work is still spread out on the ground. This shows that the owner planned to come back when he left. Most anthropologists now agree with this statement: American Indians developed into many groups after crossing the Alaska Land Bridge from Siberia into the Americas tens of thousands of years ago. The Indians of Central America were good at farming, while those in the north were good at fishing and hunting. Many of today's daily foods were first grown by Indians, such as corn, potatoes, carrots, and tomatoes. Interestingly, there were no horses, cattle, or sheep in America. These livestock were brought by Spanish colonists. The Indians riding horses today look as cool and elegant as if they have been riding for 30,000 years.

On the way from Highway 211 to the "Needles", there is a "Newspaper Rock" in a valley, which is covered with Indian rock paintings, including animals and other strange figures. Experts say some of these works are thousands of years old, while others are only a few hundred years old. As the world changes, countless stories have happened. An old man in the Four Corners area told her grandson: "A cloud and mist obscured everything. When the cloud and mist cleared, everyone was gone and nowhere to be found." The Hopi tribe in Arizona today is believed to be the Cliff Dwellers. descendants. They say that the spirits of the early cliff dwellers still live in the ruins. Tribes also come to worship their ancestors every year. Such a piece of land has its history and soul wandering around, so it has spirit.

The most famous one here is Monument Valley, which sits on the border of Utah and Arizona and is a park of the Nawehao Tribe. The vast Gobi Desert is dotted with terraces, pillars and various shapes. From a distance, it looks like a bonsai on a table. From a closer look, you can see that each of them is a giant. The most exciting part can only be entered by a local guide. The names of these caves, "Eye of the Sun" and "Ear of the Wind," make people feel dazed. When they are included in the camera and the moment the shutter is pressed, they can also feel the sacredness respected by the Indians. The sky is deep blue, and the wind blows the golden sofa and makes a low whine. This place turned out to be very isolated. Like most reservations, it was a remote area set aside by white people for Indians. In the early 1960s, a white man came to stay, take photos and do business. As a result, this place has now become the most popular place in the world for filming. The advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes are simply tourism advertisements here, and many movies have been shot here, such as the 1999 technological absurdity film "Wild Wild West" starring Will Smith.

Bryce Park: God’s Grand Staircase

From the Grand Canyon to the north to Bryce National Park, the plateau climbs up to five large steps, each named Chocolate Cliff. , Zhuya, White Cliff, Gray Cliff and Pink Cliff, they rise layer by layer, revealing 3 billion years of colorful sedimentary layers.

The Kehe River and its tributaries played a game of disemboweling the earth, taking out the oldest secrets and showing them off in the abundant sunshine. This area is called the Grand Staircase and is known as the Geological Museum.

Walking between the first and second floors of the Grand Staircase, slow down the pace, leisurely go west, then north, and wind around Bryce National Park from behind.

As the terrain rises, the air gradually cools down, and the scenery of rural houses in Xiaoqiao also appears.

Bryce NP is the smallest of the five national parks in southern Utah. It is characterized by a large stone forest on the mountainside. To use a metaphor, it is the parade ground of the gods. This platform is the top level of the Grand Staircase, which is the Pink Cliff. The edge of the platform has been eroded into a pink stone forest, which is spectacular when viewed from the top of the cliff. The groups are clustered in thousands of shapes, stretching one or two miles wide and more than twenty miles long.

The air in Bryce is cool and the woods are thick. The park’s campgrounds are busy. After people set up colorful tents, they walked around various viewing platforms or visited the stone forest.

The Devil's Garden

The "garden" is a large area, like a magical land in a Western fairy tale, with porches, wall columns, and scattered pedestals, patiently waiting for someone to arrive. Groups of puppet-like stones stand on the smooth lines of the rock base. They look playful, simple and cute. It’s hard to believe that these rocks were weathered naturally, as they look nothing like the surrounding landscape. It's like a mysterious hand was playing with them just now. The surroundings were so quiet that you could hear the sounds of clouds in the sky and shadows passing by on the ground. A few people dispersed without seeing each other.

Not many people know about this impressive scenic spot yet.

Canyon Attractions

The best way to watch the sunrise is from SouthRim. The clouds are dense and mysterious. There are many tourist routes to visit the Grand Canyon.

Tourists can choose the appropriate one according to their own plans. What is cast on the Grand Canyon is a wave of wavering light and shadow.

Yavapai Point is located on the east side of the Grand Canyon Park and is the highest point for watching the sunrise. There is also a 3D model of the Grand Canyon in the Yavapabot Pavilion next to it, where you can clearly understand the full view of the Grand Canyon.

MohavePoint is a good place to watch the sunset. And from here you can clearly see the Colorado River flowing at the bottom of the canyon.

Yaki Point is an important landscape in the Grand Canyon. Looking down, you can see the tourists on the cliff and the solidified lava.

Majestic LandscapeGrandViewPoint This is indeed a majestic landscape. In the morning, I woke up with the meandering Colorado River, and heard the wind echoing in the valley and the gurgling water singing together. A quiet and refreshing picture is slowly unfolding around you...

Lake Mead and Lake Powell

The reservoir formed by the Hoover High Dam built in 1935 is called Lake Mead (MEAD), at the west end of the Grand Canyon. The Glencanyon Dam built in 1963 formed POWELL Lake and became a new attraction on the east side of the Grand Canyon. Between the east and west dams, there is the most exciting part of the Grand Canyon.

POWELL Lake is named in memory of the pioneer who first floated the river and suggested the development of water conservancy. Its area is more than twice that of Lake Mead, with various red sandstones, stone arches, canyons and thousands of blue waves. Its scenery is far better than that of Lake Mead, and it has become a major national resort in the southwestern United States.

Scenery on both sides of the strait

Americans believe that the scenery on the north bank of the Grand Canyon is better because it is higher than the south bank (nearly 3,000 meters), and the scenic spots are scattered and the distance is longer. Only 1/4 of the South Bank is open from May to mid-October every year. There are no buses or coaches, so you have to drive there by yourself, while the South Bank is open year-round.

The north coast passes through the KAITAB National Forest and is a Nordic forest and grassland scenery with abundant rainfall, with an average annual rainfall of about 660 mm. There is also a forest on the south coast, but the average annual rainfall here is only 400 millimeters, so it is not the shade-loving fir trees on the north coast, but drought-tolerant pines and cypresses, short and prostrate on the dry rocky mountains. Regardless of the north or south shore, the view is extremely wide, and all you can see is the undulations, fractures and cuts of the earth. Being condescending often gives you the illusion of overlooking a sand table, and it is easy to have the pride of dominating the world.

Standing on the shore, the trickle of the Colorado River deep in the valley is almost invisible. It is hard to imagine that this small yellow water is the main creator of the Grand Canyon. Many dams in the upper reaches have reduced the inflow of water, but dripping water can still penetrate the stone, which shows the age of this river. The rock layering on the canyon wall is complete and clear. It is a living specimen for studying the formation of the earth's crust, and a vivid classroom for understanding geological knowledge and even the earth. The Americans took full advantage of this advantage and focused on disseminating scientific knowledge in the explanatory boards and tourist brochures introducing scenic spots in the Grand Canyon Park. They also drew cross-sections of the rock formations seen by tourists at the location where they stood, and marked the different rock formations one by one. Names, characteristics and years of formation and why these specific shapes and colors appear. However, the scenic spots in my country that are famous for their strange rocks rarely have interpretive signs with shadow figures, and the tour guides' introductions are mostly limited to what the shapes resemble or myths and legends. If we can dig deeper into relevant natural science knowledge like the United States, so that tourists can broaden their knowledge wherever they go, they will be full of interest. The Grand Canyon attracts 5 million visitors every year, and many American tourists are repeat visitors.

The numerous national parks, national resorts and national forests in the Colorado River Basin attach great importance to educational functions. Another unique feature of them is that the tickets are cheap. For non-commercial vehicles, that is, tourists drive into the park by themselves, tickets are charged per car, regardless of size, which is US$20 (of course it is impossible for ordinary people to use large cars).

Tickets for walkers and cyclists are US$10 per person, including bus and bus fares in the park, and are valid within 7 days, with no limit on the number of times you can enter and exit. The authorities do not encourage tourists to live in the park. Tourists can fully visit the park by living outside the valley. In our country's Jiuzhaigou Scenic Area, for environmental reasons, hotels are built outside the ditch. However, tickets can only be used once, which objectively forces people to live in the ditch because they can't finish the fun in one day. The entrance fee to Jiuzhaigou is 102 yuan, plus the bus fare in the park is 88 yuan, the total is 190 yuan, equivalent to 23 US dollars per person. The tickets for walkers and cyclists in the Grand Canyon are half cheaper than those in Jiuzhaigou. If a group of four or five people drive to the Grand Canyon, the total cost is only four or five dollars per person.

The Colorado River, which stretches more than 300 kilometers from the Hoover High Dam in Lake Mead to PAGE Ferry, is cut off by the Grand Canyon and is difficult to cross. There is a path from the shore to the bottom of the valley, which is 11 kilometers long and takes two days to walk. The river valley near PAGE narrows to only 20 meters, and the river bank is lowered to just over 10 meters high. It is the first place where a bridge can be built to ford the water. Now there are two small iron arch bridges side by side. Because the cliff to the north of the bridge is bright red and as smooth as marble, it is named Marble Canyon. This is also the shortest and only way to cross the river to the other side by foot or car.

Going across the bridge to the south is Route 89 to the tourist area on the south bank of the Grand Canyon. Along the way, you pass through the famous colored desert, as if the rough ocean instantly solidified into a sea of ??stone. On the undulating sand dunes, there are horizontal rocks The layers are red, white, gray, yellow and black, like a generous modern painting. Its original English name is PAINTED (painted), which is more appropriate. It's more like the Gobi than a real desert. [Edit this paragraph] Suspended Glass Bridge The suspended transparent glass viewing gallery bridge built at a cost of US$30 million in the Grand Canyon National Park will be officially opened to the public on March 20. Local Indian tribe leaders and some former astronauts have become the new viewing platform. The first tourists received.

The inspiration of Chinese entrepreneurs

This breathtaking suspended covered bridge was built on the Eagle Cliff on the southern edge of the Grand Canyon at an altitude of 1,200 meters from the bottom of the valley. It is U-shaped and the furthest It is 21 meters away from the rock wall. The covered bridge is about 3 meters wide and the base is made of transparent glass. Visitors can walk on it and overlook the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.

This idea, known as the "Wonder of the World in the 21st Century", was originally conceived by Jin Miao, a Chinese-American entrepreneur born in Shanghai.

Jin Miao said that he was suddenly inspired when he visited the Grand Canyon in 1996 and first came up with the idea of ??building a suspended covered bridge over the Grand Canyon. He immediately worked with the Hualapai Indian Tribe of the Grand Canyon to raise funds and worked with engineers in Las Vegas to design a plan.

Can withstand 72 Boeing aircraft

Constructing a suspended corridor bridge is a major engineering and technical challenge. In order to enable it to withstand strong winds of up to 160 kilometers per hour, engineers drove 94 steel columns into the limestone wall as piers and penetrated the rock wall up to 14 meters.

According to reports, the suspension bridge used 454 tons of steel beams in its construction. After completion, it can withstand the weight of 72 Boeing aircraft, and can also withstand an earthquake measuring 80 kilometers away on the Richter scale and the highest speed. It is a strong wind of 160 kilometers per hour. With the help of the humidity control system, the shaking of the building can be reduced to a minimum. According to the builders' estimates, it will attract 500,000 tourists every year.

This viewing platform is located within the reservation of the Indian Hualapai tribe. Due to the potential boost to the local economy, the Indian tribe finally gave approval, and they requested that it be considered during the construction process. to environmental factors. Some members of the Hualapai tribe boarded the covered bridge for sightseeing on the 20th. The tribal leader joked: "I can hear the sound of glass breaking."

Former American astronaut Buzz Aldrin Calling the tour "a grand first step," he said: "I feel great, it's not quite the same feeling as floating in the air." [Edit this paragraph] Problems facing the Grand CanyonFlow issues

The Colorado River has been blocked by dams both upstream and downstream of the Grand Canyon, affecting its normal flow. Upstream is Glen Canyon Dam, forming Lake Powell; downstream is Hoover Dam, forming Lake Mead, which mainly supplies water to Las Vegas in the desert. These dams not only restrict the movement of various fish and other creatures, but more importantly, they intercept all major floods. Many of the topography of the Grand Canyon were shaped by these large floods in the past. Now that the water flow has slowed down and become less frequent, much of the topography has been changed, directly affecting the ecological environment of the Grand Canyon. For example, many of the beaches at the bottom of the Grand Canyon are disappearing due to the lack of large amounts of silt brought by the floods. In recent years, scientists have begun limited experimental flood discharge at the Glen Canyon Dam, which is of great help in restoring the original landform of the Grand Canyon.