Did you know that there are two Colorado Rivers in Arizona? There is of course the famous one that enters the northern end of the state and flows west and south towards the Sea of Cortez, but there’s also a second, the Little Colorado River, that rises in the high country of eastern Arizona and flows northwestwards to join its larger brother as a tributary in the upper portion of the Grand Canyon. The Little Colorado has carved a formidable canyon in its own right, and in some ways it’s even more impressive since it is so extremely deep and narrow while also being virtually hidden from the plateau country that surrounds it. Much more than a mile or so from the rim, there is almost no indication that if you were traveling on foot across the flat terrain that you would be unable to go much farther thanks to a canyon over 1000 feet/300 meters deep that is in most places not more than a half mile/800 meters wide.
Gazing down on the muddy Little Colorado River, which has a watershed that drains much of the Painted Desert of northeastern Arizona. Monsoon rains have contributed to a higher water level in mid-August 2014, and elevated levels of silt suspension. This view is to the southeast as seen from a Navajo Tribal Park scenic overlook. The gorge is over 1000 feet deep at this point, and maybe a half mile wide or so.
Looking down into the chasm from the overlook. The cliffs are almost 1000 feet tall before tumbling down a steep talus slope to the banks of the river itself. You can see my shadow on a jutting limestone ledge about 200 feet below where I am standing. The drop is sheer, and I believe that most of the canyon walls consist of Redwall Limestone, a thick layer of sedimentary rocks also highly prominent in the Grand Canyon west of here.
Why is the Little Colorado River Canyon not more widely known or appreciated? The answer is probably that most of it lies upon the Navajo Nation, and the Tribe restricts casual access to the lands outside of a few scenic overlooks. (It is a designated Navajo Tribal Park, however.) The river itself seldom carries enough water for commercial applications such as rafting so running it in boats is nearly impossible. Lands on the rim are occupied by Navajo people who have lived there herding sheep and goats for generations, and since this is their home tourism and hiking is controlled by permits when it is granted at all.
The Little Colorado is quite muddy much of the time, especially in spring and summer when snowmelt and monsoon rains dump huge loads of silt. At other times in the lower canyon just above confluence with the Colorado River, the water is a clear aquamarine blue thanks to springs carrying dissolved limestone minerals such as travertine. It’s really a fairly unique river that flows through some of the most geologically interesting terrain in the United States, even though you may never have heard of it.
No kidding! I had never actually seen the gorge in person, and was surprised at how deep and narrow it was, and at how suddenly it appears.
Someday that leaning tower of Redwall Limestone is going to collapse. Who knows how long it can stand?
I am sure that once in awhile a huge block of limestone peels off of the cliff faces above and crashes down to the river below. Imagine something like these house-sized boulders coming at YOU!
A view to the northwest of the Little Colorado River Canyon as it heads towards its meeting with the mainstem Colorado River.
From Wikipedia, the image above shows the confluence of the brown Little Colorado River with the greenish Colorado River in the upper portion of Grand Canyon National Park. The two rivers were once similarly colored, but Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell upstream have trapped the sediments contained in the mainstem Colorado and turned the water clear. The Little Colorado now contributes most of the silt to the Colorado as it flows through the Grand Canyon. At low water times of year (such as early summer) the Little Colorado will also flow clear, albeit more of a powdery blue color due to dissolved minerals. It is particularly beautiful when it does that.
I got the photo above from Grand Canyon History. org, photo courtesy of the National Park Service, showing how pale blue the Little Colorado River is when it doesn’t carry much sediment from rains upstream. Striking!
And one more photo from the web, this one from Western River. com, illustrating the intensely blue color of the river. The reason for this coloration is the diffracted light of the sun in the water caused by abundant levels of dissolved calcium carbonate minerals (aka travertine) and copper sulfate minerals. The dissolved molecules scatter blue light, making it particularly visible when the water isn’t tinted brown by sediments. Some day I will have to take a journey to the river’s edge to see and photograph this for myself.
This is what most of the eastern part of the Upper Grand Canyon and Little Colorado River canyon looks like: Vast skies, a flat tableland with low sagebrush and xeric grass vegetation, and sudden, plunging canyons that are barely visible until you come across the rims. As noted earlier, most of these lands are on the Navajo Nation and are not typically accessible without special permission from the local Tribal Councils.
A parting shot of a glowing mid August sunset underneath dissipating monsoon clouds at the trading post in Cameron, Arizona, which is the closest community to the Little Colorado River Gorge.