Reflections on Space

From time to time, I travel to the East Coast. While driving, I begin to notice a change about the middle of Texas. The land slowly transforms from its preoccupation with space to an emphasis on trees and limited horizons. There are relatively few places where you get an open view of the countryside. In the summer, you get glimpses of farms and cities. In the winter, you suddenly realize that there are houses and people on the other side of the trees. I certainly prefer the long view. I feel more at home, standing on a hill, looking out over the huge vistas of the West, than I do driving on narrow winding roads, closeted with trees. We recently climbed the highest hill in an Eastern County and guess what? Besides the radio tower and cell phone tower, you couldn't see anything but trees.

Plateau Point, Grand Canyon, Arizona

The extensive plateau's in the Grand Canyon plunge the hiker into a different world. While hiking on these extensive miles long, almost flat areas, you feel like you are surrounded by mountains and lose most of the sense of being in a canyon. Some, like the Plateau Point, have definite marked trails, others are so remote and inaccessible as to be virtually on another planet. When cliffs are the main point of attraction, it is hard to focus on the flat areas that accentuate the huge drop off into the depths of the Canyon.

Koi

Koi are a favorite with fish ponds around the world. These colorful fish are ornamental varieties of domesticated common carp (Cyprinus carpio). the Prussian carp (Carassius gibelio) were first bred for color mutations in China more than a thousand years ago, where selective breeding of led to the development of the goldfish. The obvious problem in taking pictures from the air into water is the reflection of the water surface. A Polaroid filter will make the water appear more transparent by eliminating the surface reflection. Eliminating reflection does not always make a good photograph, however.

Devil's Millhopper Sink Hole

 OK, so this isn't Arizona again. In Arizona a sink hole is just that, a hole in the ground with rocks. I have an extensive experience with sink holes having dropped down into a number of them. But this is an entirely different experience. First, it was raining and second it has plants and is huge. You can walk down the stairs on the wooden structure to see the sink hole but cannot get off the wood to roam around. In Arizona no one cares and few people know about the sink holes. A millhopper is in a grinding mill, a hopper from which grain is supplied to the stones. I can't imagine what kind of relationship that has to this sink hole and why the Devil has anything to do with it?

Iconic

Some images are so well known, like the saguaro cactus that they become associated with a certain part of our culture. The pink flamingo is one of those icons. You can buy a plastic pink flamingo for about $5 dollars or so. This is a picture of the actual bird, not a plastic replica. Surprisingly, the Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) is found through out the entire world in warm, waterside regions. This may be why they are so popular as lawn ornaments.

A Grand Perspective

The most visited part of the Grand Canyon is called the Corridor. It is about a twenty-mile wide strip extending across the Canyon from the North Rim to the South where most of the Park's development is concentrated. At the bottom of the Canyon are two bridges, the oldest built in 1928 is the Black Bridge or Kaibab Bridge. Previous to the construction of this bridge, the only way across the Canyon was by a cableway, that is, a cable suspended over the river with a large metal cage, large enough to carry one mule or a couple of people at a time. The Kaibab Bridge's construction posed extreme difficulties since all of the materials for the bridge had to be carried down into the Canyon either by mules or human power. The one-ton 550-foot suspension cables were carried down into the Canyon on the backs of 42 Havasupai Indians walking single file down the trail. See ASU nature, culture and history at the grand canyon.

In the 1960s a second bridge, the Silver Bridge, was built across the Canyon connecting the North Kaibab Trail with the Bright Angel Trail. This second bridge is open only to foot traffic but also carries the vital water pipe line from Roaring Springs where the water is then pumped up the Canyon to the South Rim.

Into the Depths

 If you look closely (click for larger image) you can see the trail that runs from Indian Garden to Plateau Point and, yes, the trail ends at the cliff and there is no access to the river. If you want to go down to the river, you have to hike on the Bright Angel Trail from Indian Garden. By the way, Indian Garden is visible from many spots on the Rim and it is deceptively near. Indian Garden, which is not visible in this photo, is 4.6 miles down the trail from the Rim. It is 12.4 miles from the Rim down to the river on the Bright Angel Trail. It is 2.4 miles from Indian Garden to Plateau Point, one way. A round trip hike to the end of the trail you can see in the picture is 19.6 miles, but you have to remember that the hike back is all uphill.