Mt. Whitney, Death Valley, Hoover Dam

It's Thursday about noon and we're sitting in the Las Vegas airport waiting to board our flight to Atlanta.  I'm going to make the final post for this trip while we wait to board.

On Tuesday we saw Mt. Whitney, at well over 14,000 feet, the highest mountian in the contiguous 48 states and a couple of hours later we were in Death Valley which has the lowest elevation in the U.S.  We didn't get to the lowest point which is a little more than 250 feet below sea level, but we did get to a point that was below sea level.  Below are a few pictures from Tuesday.

On Wednesday we visited Hoover Dam.  In Boulder City which is just west of the dam, we saw mountain sheep grazing along side the road, this was one of the better looking ones.

Hoover Dam is a familiar site to many folks.  Lake Mead is the lake created by Hoover Dam.  The water level is much lower than it has been for some time.

About a half a mile west of the dam there is a new bridge under construction.  This bridge is going to be a very pretty bridge when it is completed.  When this bridge is finished, traffic will no longer be allowed to drive across the dam.  After 911 it was decided that the traffic on the bridge was a high security risk.  Traffic inspection stations were set up and only personal vehicles are allowed on the dam at this time.  Trucks and buses are re-routed via another highway until the new bridge is finished which is expected to be sometime in 2010. 

Giant Sequoias - Yosemite

We often see unusual and interesting things and take pictures of some of them.  On Sunday we travelled from Visalia, CA up to Kings Canyon and the Sequoia National Park. On the way we were driving through an area with lots of citrus groves and we came across a very ornate iron gate at the entrance to a home.  It is made to look like a sprawling oak tree.  The gate splits in the middle to swing open.  

In Sequoia National Park there are numerous very large trees, the largest of which is also the largest tree on earth when measured by cubic feet of the trunk.  This tree us known as the General Sherman and it is 275 feet tall, 36 feet across at the base and contains 52,500 cubic feet of trunk area.  It is difficult to show how large these trees are in a picture, but below is picture of the General Sherman from the ground up and another which shows the upper portion of the tree.  There are also large Ponderosa Pines and other varieties of trees, but the Sequoia are by far the largest.

Below is a picture of another very large Sequoia in the park, this one has two trunks which are joined together at the bottom.

On Monday we went to Yosemite National Park.  Below are pictures of El Capitan, Briday Veil Falls and Half Dome.

Grand Canyon South Rim - McKee Distribution Center, Kingman AZ

On Thursday we visited the western end of the south rim of Grand Canyon.  In a previous post I mentioned that the north rim of Grand Canyon is very different in appearance from the south rim, in that the south rim is more arid.  I guess my previous impression of the south rim was based on visits which were primarily to the eastern end of the south rim which is indeed arid, but the western end of the south rim looks very much like the north rim.

On Friday we passed through Kingman Arizona, so I had to stop and take a picture of the McKee Distribution Center located there.

 

Coal from Black Mesa Mine - Monument Valley in Utah and Arizona

When we left Page Arizona on Tuesday we drove by Navajo Power which is a large modern coal fired power generation plant that is owned and operated by the Navajo Nation.  Their coal is mined at Black Mesa Mine on the Navajo Nation Reservation and transported on a private Electric railroad which runs for a distance of 78 miles.  The railroad uses electric locomotives that were built by GE back in the mid-70's specifically for this purpose.  These locomotives have a boom on top that goes up to electric wires above the rails, much like street cars do in some large cities.  These trains run 24/7 to keep the Navajo Power generation plant supplied with coal.  The coal is mined in Kayenta Arizona, then transported by a conveyor belt 17 miles long, to the railhead where it is deposited in three large silos.  The train drives under the silos and the train cars are filled with coal, then the train returns to Page to unload. 

Black Mesa Mine also provides coal slurry to a power generation plant in Laughlin Nevada.  Coal slurry is ground up coal mixed with water, which is then pumped by pipeline, in this case over a distance of 273 miles!

Below are pictures of the silos.  The openings where the train drives under the silo are hidden from view by an earth berm in the foreground.  A section of the 17 mile long conveyor belt which passes over the highway is also shown and the third picture is of a couple of the locomotives.  One of them is marked BM&LP which stands for Black Mesa and Lake Powell.

On Wednesday my folks joined us.  They are driving to California to visit college friends and their trip time and route coincides with where we are for a couple of days.  Here is a picture of them, on the right and Jane's folks, on the left, with the rock formation known as Mexican Hat directly behind them.  The next picture is a close up of Mexican Hat.

 

We toured the Monument Valley area of southern Utan and northern Arizona.  This area has large outcroppings of rock that look like something underneath just pushed them up out of the surrounding landscape.  They have eroded over time which has created the sloping areas around the base.  Most of these formations are what is referred to as Navajo sandstone. 

The sky was heavily overcast much of the day so we didn't take near as many pictures or get near as many nice pictures as we would have if we'd had more direct sun on the rocks, but we have to work with what we get as far as weather is concerned. 

Antelope Canyon - Page Arizona

Page Arizona is in northern Arizona and the home of Glen Canyon Dam which creates Lake Powell on the Colorado River.  Lake Powell stretches for 186 miles and has more than 1,900 miles of shoreline.  This lake is a very popular destination for folks with any type of water craft.  There are also several marinas where you can rent most any type of water craft.  Below are pictures of the dam and the marina just above the dam. 

Page is also the home of several "slot" canyons.  You have probably seen pictures of slot canyons but may not have realized that is what they are called.  The pictures below were taken at a slot canyon named Antelope Canyon today.  We rode from Page to Antelope Canyon in the back of a pickup truck outfitted with seating to accomodate 14 passengers.  Once we arrived at the Navajo Nation parksite, we traveled another 3 miles up an arroyo or dry wash to arrive at the entrance of the canyon.  The walk through the canyon is about a quarter of a mile long and as you look up you see beautiful sandstone canyon walls sculpted by wind blown sand at some times and flood water at other times and lighted by sunlight coming in through openings at the top of the canyon.  I took about 150 pictures in the canyon and below are about a dozen of the nicer ones. 

East Zion Canyon, Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon North Rim

On Saturday morning we drove over to East Zion Canyon.  You pass through a 1.1 mile long tunnel and when you exit the tunnel, the Park looks completely different.  Instead of shear sandstone cliffs a couple of thousand feet high all around you, there are sandstone mounds several hundred to several thousand feet high.  These mounds are much lighter in color and much more gradual in slope.  Many of them have vertical and horizontal cracks which form checkerboard patterns visible on the surface of the rock and are referred to as checkerboard mesa.  The first picture below is typical of what the terrain looks like on the west side of the tunnel, the next several pictures are typical of what the terrain looks like on the east side of the tunnel.

I climbed up a ways and took a few pictures from my elevated position.

The picture below is a typical checkerboard mesa.

In the center of the following picture you can see the early stages of an arch being formed.

The next three pictures are from Red Canyon which is between Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park.  It is easy to see why it is named Red Canyon.

We entered Bryce Canyon mid-afternoon and it was somewhat overcast and rained a little off and on.  We managed to get a few nice pictures though.  While Zion Canyon is viewed from the canyon floor, Bryce Canyon is viewed mostly from the rim except for some points where you can hike down into the canyon if you are so inclined, we aren't.

The next three pictures were taken at an area called Sunset Point.  It was late in the day and somewhat overcast so the lighting is a little different.

On Sunday we went to the north rim of Grand Canyon.  Most people are familiar with the sights of the south rim of Grand Canyon, but are surprised at the difference in the appearance of the terrain at the north rim, it is much greener and the canyon doesn't seem to be near as expansive as it does from the south rim.  It was overcast and rained a little so the color isn't as good as it could be in be better light.

In the sunroom at the Grand Canyon Lodge at the north rim, there is a bronze statue of a burro, a tribute to a particular burro named Bright Angel but generally referred to as Brighty, who spent about thirty years transporting water from a spring in the canyon to the lodge in the late 1800's and the 1900's.  He also gave rides to children who were always delighted.  I got Jane to pose with Brighty for this picture.