The Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River

Last week, I drove up to northern Arizona for a few days to meet up with family coming down to Tucson for a visit. (The reason for my lack of posts lately.)  One of their goals was seeing the Grand Canyon, which I'm always happy to visit.  I don't find myself so much awed by the Grand Canyon anymore, it's more like visiting an old friend, though it has been 20 years since I visited the "touristy" area of the South Rim.

But my main goal of the journey was the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River, located 30 miles or so northeast of Flagstaff.  Many descriptions lament over the rough nature of the access roads...obviously written by travelers with a higher comfort level of travel.  Wh-what's wr-wrong with a b-b-bit of w-w-washboard for something this cool?  That said, it is really rough right at the viewpoints...but any vehicle can get out there in decent weather.

If these falls flowed all the time they might as famous as Niagra Falls, of which the Grand Falls are bit higher but not as wide.  Most of the time the Grand Falls are just a trickle, the nature of their desert environment.  I knew that with all our winter snows and spring rains in Arizona that the falls would be flowing this year.  It's not a record-breaking flow by any means, but still impressive.  Here are a few more photos and a video.
 

In the right-hand photo, you can see two adventurous young men that have hiked down to the falls.  I probably would have done the same at that age.

Yeah, it is really muddy!
The name "Colorado" is interpreted to mean "red" but really refers to this ruddy-muddy color of desert rivers in flood.

Finally, here's a video...turn down the volume because the most of the roar is from the wind:




Of course, I did a few more things on that trip up north, but you're going to have to wait a few more days for that...just a bit busy this week.