Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA, 30th October 2014.

There are trails that you can take all the way down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  Most of the time you are likely to need a hat and lots of water.  We went on one of these but did not go all the way down.

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At one place there were pictograms beside the path.

There have been many peoples living in the Grand Canyon over a long period of time.  Clovis hunters 10,000BC to 7,000BC hunted large mammals and left behind their stone spear points.  Archaic Indians 7,000BC to 500BC were hunter-gatherers, hunting smaller animals and gathering wild foods.  The Basketmaker Culture of 500BC to 800AD used bows and arrows, introduced agriculture, lived in pit houses and made pottery.

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Note the line of deer going down the stone.

Puebloan cultures from 800AD to 1300AD grew corn, beans and squash.  Ancestors of Hualapai, Havasupai, Southern Paiute and Navajo Indians arrived in the area between 1300AD and 1500AD.

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I think a Pinyon Pine, growing on the canyon rim.

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Over time immemorial, layers and layers of different sediments were laid down.  Then 70 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau rose up.  The Grand Canyon was cut by erosion from the Colorado River.  This is mainly thought to have occurred from about six million years ago and would have been more intense during period of glacial decline.  The rocks at the bottom of the canyon date back to pre-Cambrian times.

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What do you see here?  A dolphin?  A tortoise?

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This reminds me of a Stupa, as though there were Buddhist Indians in ancient times.

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That’s a fire in the distance, not clouds.

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I’d like to say that’s an ancient Egyptian pyramid in the background but I’m afraid someone might believe me.

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It is now late afternoon and the sunset is drawing closer.  This is looking past the canyon at the distant landscape.

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Here we see Desert View Watchtower, built in 1932 and intended to mimic an Anasazi watchtower.

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The sun has gone down.

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Walking back to the bus, I had an encounter with a dead tree and the moon…

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