Landscapes of the Western US 07: North Rim

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Cold as a mug, the Grand Canyon North Rim in early winter see's relatively few visitors. As the first snows arrive the National Park closes for the Winter, leaving the spires and cliffs alone with the biting wind and frost. Perhaps one of the most spectacular physiographic visions on the face of the planet, the geological enormity of a mile-high straight vertical elevation of the Colorado Plateau has created one of the best examples of antecedant drainage. Throughout the inexorable rise of the Plateau the river has succeeded in cutting downwards at the same rate and in so doing has exposed in a single cliff, one of the most complete geological sections ranging from the Pre-Cambrian to the Jurassic, a span of close to one billion years!