November 21.2020
After leaving our hotel outside the North Rim of the Grand Canyon we headed for the South Rim. We had to go the long way through Flagstaff because the East Road goes through Navajo Country and they have closed access due to the alarming numbers of COVID cases on their lands.
The Colorado River
While driving over this spectacular bridge looking down at the Colorado River, we stopped to enjoy the scenery, and I found another engineering marvel. The only way to cross the Colorado River was by ferry well into the 1900s. As roads improved the government realized that this ferry was the weakest link in the transportation system of this area. A bridge was in order.
Navajo Bridge was forged with steel from, and a design by, the Kansas City Structural Steel Company. The bridge was dedicated on June 14th, 1929 and despite the ridiculously remote location 7000 people and 1217 automobiles were there for the opening. The bridge in the upper photograph is actually a newer bridge designed for today’s traffic, the walking bridge is the original Navajo Bridge.
While spending time ogling the bridge our eyes alit on something we had spent the last three days looking for – Condors!
*
The California condor is one of the rarest birds in the world, it is also the largest flying land bird in North America. They can weigh up to 25 pounds with a 9 1/2 foot wingspan. There are about 200 condors in the wild all in Arizona, Utah, California, and Baja Mexico. What a treasure and such a lucky happenstance.
From there we headed to Wupataki National Monument and the Sunset Crater Volcano. The area has a handful of Wupataki Pueblo homes.
We then headed toward the cinder cones of the Sunset Crater Volcano. Throughout this trip, every day has a WOW and at this point, I thought we had run out of them. A way down the road and I had a Holy S—- moment. The lava fields are the first thing you see, and while I have seen the results of volcanoes all over the world, this still took my breath away.
The pictures are incapable of showing the vastness of these fields. It is also fascinating to see the various types of lava. Lava varies depending on how it is projected out of the volcano.
The process that created Sunset Crater may have lasted as long as six months to a year.
Cinder Dunes
We made it to the South Rim in time for a long walk along the Rim Trail and to watch the sun go down.
Twighlight falling on the South Rim
