Jaap van 't Veen's photos with the keyword: Colorado River

One of the most famous Grand Canyon National Park is one of the most well known national parks in the USA. It is considered being one of the seven wonders of nature. Millions of years ago a part of the earth's crust was pushed up, creating the Colorado Plateau of which the Grand Canyon is now a part. Over millions of years the Colorado River has made its way through the rocky layers of the plateau, where the rocks were (and still are) polished further and further. Because each rock layer consists of a different type of rock, the effects of the force of the water are different everywhere. This has created a complicated system of deep, capriciously shaped ravines. Besides the Colorado River other erosive forces, such as frost and wind, have also had a great influence. The dimensions of the canyon are enormous with a length of 446 km’s and a width between 18 and 29 km’s. The maximum depth is about 1.600 meters. The area became a national monument on 11 January 1908 and a national park on 26 February 1919. In 1979 the park was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. We visited several viewpoints of the Grand Canyon between Grand Canyon Village and Desert View. At the last one we were during sunset and could admire the beautiful colours of sky and ravine walls. Without any doubt Grand Canyon was one of the highlights of our visit to Arizona/Utah, but to be honest the (impressive) landscape at the different viewpoints was often more or less the same.

Dead Horse Point State Park is a small, yet one of Utah’s most spectacular state parks. It is best known for its magnificent views of the Colorado River, which finds its way more than 600 meters beneath the lookout around a rocky plateau with one large gooseneck. Further away lies the fascinating landscape of Canyonlands NP with vertical pinnacles and buttes. Millions of years of geologic activity created this spectacular area. Deposition of sediments by ancient oceans, freshwater lakes, streams and wind blown sand dunes created the rock layers of canyon country. The state park owes its name from an old story. In one place is the rocky plateau less than 30 meters wide, so the part further away as a kind of peninsula. In the past wild horses were driven to this point by cowboys, after which the narrow neck of the land was fenced off. The best horses were tamed, the other horses were usually released. According to an old legend, it happened once that the horses trapped on the rocky plateau were left to their fate; the animals died because of a lack of water.