Arizona's Grand Falls

Arizona's Grand Falls Cataract Higher Than Niagara Is Spectacle Witnessed By Few White People

AR up in Northern Arizona where the Little Colorado cuts its way through the mighty Coconino plateau is a giant waterfall, higher than Niagara. After the season of heavy rains in the northern mountains, the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado crash and rage as the mighty torrent drops 185 feet, sending out mists of beautiful yellow spray. It was the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado that halted the river journey of the Sitgreaves expedition in 1851. Here the government surveyors stopped to camp and enjoy a brief rest before braving the San Francisco mountains. Sitgreaves was sent out by the War Department to discover whether or not the Little Colorado was navigable to the sea. One mile above the falls he decided that navigation was impossible and set out for California over-land.

The Sitgreaves expedition probably crossed through the region which is now known as Wupatki National monument. At any rate his records describe Indian pueblo ruins and pottery relics. The route, according to his map, was somewhere near Wupatki. Evidence of Pueblo III Indian cuture are noticeable throughout this area.

From here the Sitgreaves party circled the San Francisco Peaks, elevation 12,655 feet, encamped at a spring near what is now Flagstaff, and buried a member of the party. Because of the fact that Sitgreaves was following the Little Colorado we know that the first place he crossed what is now United States highway 66, was just east of Winslow. He crossed this road at another place west of Flagstaff because maps show he passed Bill Williams mountain on the south side.

Sitgreaves was the first white man to see Grand Falls. Beaver trappers, early hunters, and pioneers must have encountered the falls. What record they kept, however, were lost when death sealed their lips. A deer skin map in the Museum of the city of Mexico records the country to the Verde River and farther north. Montezuma Well is on this map, so is Montezuma Castle. Other Spanish expeditions' reports and records are also available. None, however, approached Grand Falls. All either passed far to the north or far to the south.

Perhaps they arrived at the spot during the spring, before the rainy season. If today we choose this time of the year to visit the falls we will see Indians watering their livestock in the muddy little pool at the bottom of what appears to be a high cliff. Little sign of the falls is noted at this time. The limestone cliffs are baked red and we wonder why.

The geological story of Grand Falls is told by the report of Dr. Harold S. Colton of the Museum of Northern Arizona. Colton shows that in an early day the Little Colorado River excavated a trough through the red Moenkopi sandstone and through the resisting Kaibab limestone into the yellow Coconino sandstone. This canyon for many miles led north from the neighborhood of Leupp to a point nine miles northward of the Grand Falls. The peaceful history of the river was interrupted by the activity of a certain volcanic cone lying between the river and the San Francisco peaks whose pyramidal summits cut the Western sky. This cone, called Rodin's Crater, sent down a stream of glowing basalt. Reaching the canyon rim, it plunged as a fiery cataract into the river, blocking the course of the stream. We see that the molten rock flowed down the bed of the river for nearly 20 miles. We can imagine that it also flowed up the canyon a short distance, but this part of the flow is now buried in sediments. We can imagine, also, the river water blown into the air as a turbulent cloud of steam. The observant visitor may note that the limestone walls of the canyon have been baked a reddish color by the intense heat of the molten lava stream.

After the lava had cooled, the river, seeking its outlet to the sea, flowed around the tongue which effectively dammed the canyon and plunged over the canyon wall back into its old canyon, now partly filled with basalt. Finding a crack between the basalt stream and the limestone and sandstone wall, the river has excavated a secondary canyon, the basalt forming a terrace on the west bank.

The canyon of the Little Colorado had been blocked before by lava from a volcanic vent. About ten miles above Grand Falls, west of the ruins of the Presbyterian Mission of Talchaco, an earlier flood of lava from another cinder cone plunged into the canyon of the Little Colorado. So long has the river worked sawing a new channel through the resisting rocks that the falls once there are obliterated and the river flows peacefully in a new canyon. The old (Continued on Page 22)