On our travels in the past two years, we've visited six National Parks. Three of those have been in Arizona within the space of two months! While there may be more National Parks in California (9), Alaska (8), Utah (5), and Colorado (4); and while Florida and Washington may each have just as many National Parks (3); and while North Carolina/Tennesse may have the most visited National Park (Great Smoky Mountains); Arizona is no slouch with three uniquely beautiful National Parks.
We visited the first, Saguaro National Park, in January 2022. The Park encompasses 91,327 acres of land in two separate sections, just east and west of Tucson, each with a driving loop and with over 150 miles of hiking trails between them. The Park protects around two million Giant Saguaro cacti within its borders; saguaros can also be found outside the Park in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico, but they are native to nowhere else on Earth. These large cacti normally grow to some 40 feet tall, but have been measured up to 78 feet tall. They are very slow-growing, long-lived giants: 70 years until their first flower, 100 years until they may sprout their first arm (although some never sprout any arms, for unknown reasons), and 150 to 200 years total lifespan (a few have been recorded to live 300 years). During their lives, birds nest in them and animals eat the fruit and seeds; Native Americans also have harvested the fruit, and once used dead saguaro ribs to build dwellings, furniture, and tools.
We weren't able to spend long at the Park, but enjoyed a scenic drive and a short hike in the West (Tucson Mountain) District.
In addition to the views of saguaros stretching into the distance, we were able to get quite close to the Signal Hill Petroglyphs, a collection of prehistoric Native American rock art carvings.
Our second Arizona National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, also contains petroglyphs, but our short visit in March 2022 did not include that hike. Instead, we focused on getting up close to the petrified wood.
The Park is named Petrified Forest, but a more apt title would be Petrified Logjam. Over 200 million years ago, flooding washed logs downstream and buried them in river sediment. Without oxygen to decompose the logs, quartz silica gradually replaced the organic wood, leaving stone "logs" with details such as growth rings and insect trails intact. Beginning around 60 million years ago, the land was uplifted into a plateau, and subsequent erosion exposed the stone "logs". The beautiful colors of the petrified wood come from impurities in the crystalline quartz, such as iron, carbon, and manganese.
The Petrified Forest National Park is also home to the Painted Desert. As at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, an uplifted plateau has been weathered and eroded so that layers of soil and stone from millions of years ago can be seen (200 million years old at Petrified Forest, 65 million years old at Theodore Roosevelt).
The Petrified Forest National Park is also the only National Park with a stretch of the storied Route 66 within its boundaries. From 1927 through 1985, Route 66 was part of the original U.S. Highway System, until it was replaced mainly by I-40 (Interstate Highway System). Starting in Chicago, Illinois, and comprised of 2,448 miles of road that were mostly flat, straight, and paved (completely paved by 1938), the road west to Santa Monica, California, carried farmers escaping the Dust Bowl in the 1930's, war materiel and employees in wartime industries in the 1940's, and vacationing families in the 1950's.
And, finally, the National Park on many a bucket list: The Grand Canyon.
The numbers themselves are grand: About a mile deep at the South Rim (1.2 miles at the North Rim), up to 18 miles wide, and encompassing 227 miles of the Colorado River and two billion years of geologic layers.
Most everyone has seen pictures of the Grand Canyon. It is indeed as picturesque as photos make it seem. But in person, the immensity of the thing really strikes home.
The geologic story is fascinating. Two billion years ago, volcanic magma solidified into hard igneous and then metamorphic rock, known as The Basement of the Grand Canyon. These are the rock walls that Colorado River rafters see. Over the following hundreds of millions of years, a variety of inland seas laid down both sand and the shells of sea life, which became sandstone and limestone. About 70 million years ago, the land was uplifted - and, unlike in the Rocky Mountains, in a fairly straight and flat manner, without much tilting or crushing. Then, about six million years ago, the Colorado River and its tributaries began cutting through the harder rock layers and leaving softer layers open to erosion from both water and wind.
A mysterious aspect of these layers is what happened to the rock in the period from about 500 million years ago to about 1.5 billion years ago - it's simply missing ("The Great Unconformity"). One recent hypothesis is that the breaking apart of an early supercontinent (Rodinia) tore apart the top of the land and then it subsequently washed away. This might be supported by the evidence of tilted rock just below the missing layers.
Newer rock also has been eroded away over time. The layers of rock from 270 million years ago to the present aren't part of the Grand Canyon.
So, in brief, one possible timeline is the following:
Two billion to 700 million years ago - igneous rock solidifies and metamorphic rock is formed
700 million to 500 million years ago - Some process "disappears" one billion years worth of rock
500 million to 70 million years ago - Sediments are deposited by inland seas and eventually are compressed into sedimentary rock
270 million years ago - upper rock layers begin to erode away, a process still continuing
70 million to 30 million years ago - Uplift creates the Colorado Plateau
6 million years ago - The Colorado River and its tributaries begin cutting down through the land, creating the Grand Canyon
We e-biked on one day and walked on the next. With snow coming in, we didn't attempt hiking even the beginning portion of Bright Angel Trail:
The South Rim's Grand Canyon Village also includes historical lodges and photography studios, founded by adventurous entrepreneurs and artistic daredevils. One tip: The sit-down restaurants require advance reservations. We ended up eating our day-and-a-half of meals from the cafeteria at the Maswik Lodge.
Our overnight stay at the Grand Canyon was part of a package with the Grand Canyon Railway. The first and third nights we spent at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel in Williams AZ, another town on historic Route 66, with our parked rig winterized-in-place (water lines blown out with a special air compressor attachment, as we had done for a few days in Tucson in January). Here's an RV-life tip: If you have your propane tank filled to be prepared for freezing weather, remember to re-open the propane valve so you don't think your furnace is broken...
The Grand Canyon Railway Hotel was lovely, situated right next to the train station, a small outdoor space for the interactive wild west show, and a buffet restaurant (with very tasty and customizable food, and with live music both nights we dined there). The Railway itself takes a little over two hours to travel north to the South Rim, and we enjoyed the changing scenery of Ponderosa pine forest to the high desert to pinyon-juniper forest, our assigned viewing coach as well as the dining and historic Pullman cars, our coach's informative and helpful attendant, the strolling cowboy musician, and the "train robbery". While a car drive would take only about an hour, during busy times the Park has long waits at the entrance, limited parking, and some areas off-limits to private cars. The Railway dropped us in Grand Canyon Village (our lodging package included luggage transfers at both ends), and we used our e-bikes and the free in-Park shuttle service to get around. Maswik Lodge reminded us of ski resort lodging; it was comfortable if not luxurious, and we could park our e-bikes inside our room.
While up at the Grand Canyon, we saw mule deer and an unexpected herd of elk (we didn't react quickly enough to get pictures). We also saw the hard-working Canyon mules in their paddock, as well as cheeky rock squirrels and Abert squirrels.
Arizona also provided other sights. The cotton fields around Tucson; a handwoven rug purchased for our rig; domesticated goats at our Maricopa campground; spring arriving in the desert; and the trucks and trains that cross the vast western expanse:
From Arizona, our plan was to head gradually east toward New York City, where our younger daughter Isabel will be graduating from college in May. But some unexpected health issues in Alison's family brought first her, then Doug and the rig, to Texas for several weeks. Before that, though, Doug and Isabel traveled along more of Route 66. More about that in the next blog post!
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