Marble Canyon

Now we have been climbing from west to east, and each ascent has been made at a line of cliffs.

Crossing the Kaibab Plateau to the East Kaibab Cliffs, the country falls down once more to the top of Marble Canyon Plateau.

Crossing this plateau to the eastward, we at last reach the Echo Cliff Fault, where the rocks fall down on the eastern side once more.

But the surface of the country itself does not fall down.

The Echo Cliffs displacement is a flexure.

Just over the zone of flexure, a long ridge extends from north to south known as the Echo Cliffs.

It is composed of a comparatively hard and homogeneous sandstone of a later age than the limestones of the Marble Canyon Plateau west of it.

But the flexure dips down so as to carry this sandstone, which forms the face of the cliff presented westward, far under the surface, so that on the east side rocks of still later age are found, the drop being several thousand feet.

and scattering wreckage over remote areas, but they had other more pressing matters on their minds.

Arriving by bus at Marble Canyon, a tiny outpost close to Lee's Ferry, Neil had gone looking for someone willing to drive himself, Frank and their six large duffel bags of gear the six miles down to the river.

While waiting, Frank chatted with the locals and what they said seriously unnerved him.

One man told him that the canyon was crawling with scorpions and rattlesnakes and warned him darkly not to sleep under any ledges.

The manager then told the professor that he'd sent someone down to check the trail for an injured hiker just in case but assured him that no one would be found.

It was all enough to at least remind Neil and Frank that they should probably tell someone where they were going, lest they get into trouble and fail to make it back themselves.

And so, shortly before leaving Marble Canyon, Neil mailed a postcard to park administrators with brief details of their planned trip.

That postcard would come back to haunt them in the most unexpected way.

On April 5th, 1909, in that week's edition of the Arizona Gazette, there was an article about two archaeologists who were on an expedition in the Grand Canyon, which was said to be funded by the Smithsonian.

The men claimed that in the Marble Canyon section of the Grand Canyon itself, they found an expansive system of caves and caverns, and, upon exploring further, found remnants of some ancient and lost civilization that once inhabited there.

The Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology was said to have funded the expedition, and the men stated that, upon descending approximately 1,500 feet down into the vials of the canyon and a wall of pure cliff, they came to a very remote and seemingly untouched area.

They described it as not only being almost inaccessible, but said it was surrounded by an almost forbidden area of wilderness, which shocked and amazed them both.

Amen.

Have you been down to Marble Canyon?

Oh, yeah.

We went down there and stayed last night.

Just beyond Lee's Ferry, about five miles downriver, you're gonna hit something called the Navajo Bridge.

Um, you're gonna be going through Marble Canyon, which is the beginning of and a part of the Grand Canyon, but it's normally referred to by its more micro name, Marble Canyon.

It's in Arizona.

Now, after it goes under that bridge and heads on down, it goes almost three hundred more miles through what most of us think, um, as the Grand Canyon.

But the Marble Canyon itself is spectacular.

Um, it is just glorious.

There's some red cliffs, the Vermilion Cliffs.

Now we have been climbing from west to east, and each ascent has been made at a line of cliffs.

Crossing the Kaibab Plateau to the East Kaibab cliffs, the country falls down once more to the top of Marble Canyon Plateau.

Crossing this plateau to the eastward, we at last reach the Echo Cliff Fault, where the rocks fall down on the eastern side once more.

But the surface of the country itself does not fall down.

The Echo Cliff's displacement is a flexure.

Just over the zone of flexure, a long ridge extends from north to south, known as the Echo Cliffs.

It is composed of a comparatively hard and homogeneous sandstone of a later age than the limestones of the Marble Canyon Plateau west of it.

But the flexure dips down so as to carry this sandstone, which forms the face of the cliff presented westward, far under the surface, so that on the east side, rocks of still later age are found, the drop being several thousand feet.

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in northern Arizona is indeed a world wonder, and there is no other chasm in the world worthy to be compared with it.

It is more than two hundred miles long, including Marble Canyon, is from ten to thirteen miles wide in the Granite Gorge section, and is more than a mile deep.

It was created ages and ages ago by the erosive action of water, wind, and frost, and it is still being deepened and widened imperceptibly year by year.

The Colorado River, which drains a region of three hundred thousand square miles and is two thousand miles long from the rise of its principal source, is formed in southern Utah by the junction of the Grand and the Green Rivers, and flowing through Utah and Arizona to tidewater at the Gulf of California, it dashes in headlong torrent through this titanic gorge, this dream of color, tinted like a rainbow or a sunset.