Day 3a - Grand Canyon I - Eilis and Richard

Day 3 Grand Canyon, Arizona

Intro:
On Day 3 we travelled to the Grand Canyon, Arizona.  The picture below shows the SW USA 2011 group when we arrived at the Grand Canyon National Park Monday 2nd May 2011.

The Grand Canyon is a huge dispaly of geology in Arizona, South West USA. From North Rim to South Rim it is approximatly 16km distance, it is almost 1 mile deep when measuring from the North rim, the north rim is approximatly 365 metres higher than the south Rim. The park itself is over a million acres of land, nearly 5000 km2.

The As the Most Important People (MIPs) for the day, we carried out a separate task to the rest of the group. The MIPs on this day were Eilis Hunter and Richard Nicolas. On day 3 it was our job to find out how tourist facilities over time have increased along with the amount of tourists.


On this day we found information out from various places within the park these were the park head quarters, the visitor centre and the South Kaibab trail into the canyon. This trail began at Yaki point and is a steep approximatly 6 mile round  hike. The map below shows the South Kaibab trail highlighted in yellow. We completed the trail to Ooh Aah point.

(Source:http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/upload/SouthKaibabTrail.pdf)

We first found out the information for the task and then went on the South Kaibab trail. We walked from the park headquarters down the trail until we hit the ooh ahh point. This took approximately 4 hours. On the way we saw evidence for resource management in solar panels, signs for water, information about the toilet flushing and sustainable construction. We also saw evidence of tourism in facilities such as the shuttle bus, visitor centre, shops and restraints. The trails themselves also show evidence of tourism as they are built so that adventure/eco tourists can experience the Grand Canyon in full. The grand canyon shows a remarkable evidence of the geology in the earth. By doing the trails you can see the different layers that have been created over 500 million years.

Resource Management:
The Grand Canyon National Park is managed by the United States federal agency. Examples of resource management that we have identified are as followed:
Solar Panels were located by the visitors centre to provide renewable and sustainable power to the visitor centre facilities.

Water use is regulated across the park so as little as possible is wasted. Where possible toilet flushes use 40% less water. The toilets located along trails in the canyon use systems which require little to none water and have renewable properties. Some water taps for drinking water are used only during summer periods to reduce the yearly water use.

Litter (‘Trash’) There were no bins located along the canyon trails, but we noticed no litter either. It was encouraged to ‘pack out’ rubbish until back in the visitor facilities. It works as the lack of bins means people do not expect a service that will clean or empty the paths and therefore people are not tempted to drop litter near a bin.

Sustainable Construction of the paths along the canyon trails mean the natural feel to the area is kept by not using metal railings etc.

Tourism:
The amount of tourism to the Grand Canyon National Park has increased dramatically over the last hundred years, mainly due to transport infrastructure. The building of the railroad  in 1901 and then the popularity of car travel as the majority of choice in 1928 were major turning points, increased by interstate 40 in the 1960’s.

Facilities for tourist on site include the introduction of shuttle buses in 1974 to transfer tourists between the different zones of services. The system has made 87,739,728 journeys since it was opened and has recently changed to an all year round ser vice in 2009.

There are different zones in the tourist complex such as the visitor centre which provides information and education on the geology and history of the park through models, posters, films and the knowledge of the rangers. There is a relatively large supermarket in the Market Plaza area which can cater for day trippers or for people staying in the on-site accommodation. Both the visitor centre and Market Plaza areas have gift shops selling books, gifts and souvenirs. The recently expanded car parks with 400+ spaces can expect to be filled in one day during peak season due to the popularity of the area with tourists, especially geotourists. The majority of new buildings were built 11 years ago.
Physical Geography (Geology and Geomorphology)

The Grand Canyon provides one of the most spectacular sites on the planet and also is an excellent geological showcase of the earth. The formation of the rock strata is easily apparent and by walking through the canyon the geological history can be determined. The layers of Kaibab limestone, Coconino sandstone and hermit Permian  layers are shown in the top layers of the canyon. The other layers are Supai formation, Redwall limestone Tonto Group and Vishnu Schist. The process of the river eroding the deposited layers has been increased by the action of the formation of the Colorado Plateau which provides the energy for the relatively small sized river to cut through and form the spectacular canyon. From speaking to the rangers, the canyon itself used to be higher but due to exogenic processes the rim of the canyon has been eroded.

Our MIP day was very good as we completed our task in the visitior centre at the park headquarters. We then completed a trail so that we could see the physically geography of the canyon ourselfs.

This picture shows the MIPs for day 3 at the beginning of the South Kaibab trail.


Reference:
National Park Service U.S. Department of Interior.  Day Hike, South Kaibab Trail Grand Canyon National Park. National Park Service.