GRAND CANYON The Grand Canyon has been amazing humans for as long as humans have been around to lay eyes on it. The Hopi revere the Grand Canyon as the place of their emergence. Explorer John Wesley Powell declared that its beauty could not be adequately represented by speech or art. The astronaut Harrison Schmitt, trying to describe what it was like to set foot on the moon, compared the feeling to three things: falling in love for the first time, the birth of his first child and “standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon.” At 277 miles long, as much as 18 miles wide and a full mile deep, the Grand Canyon is the second-largest canyon on the planet, and its colorful walls contain rock layers—the oldest of those layers being 1.8 billion years old—that reveal a timeline of Earth’s history. In 1919, the Grand Canyon was designated a national park, and since then, the National Park Service has been preserving the culture, history and natural beauty of this immortal destination, as well as welcoming generations of visitors to experience its wonder. EXPERIENCE THE North Rim, Grand Canyon 6 VISITARIZONA.COM
Arizona Official State Travel Guide Arizona 2021-22: Page 6
