THE WEST END

(This page is now in working order except

for the Introduction on maps)

 

THE WESTERN ENDING: A GUIDE AND DISCUSSIONS

West End, Explore and Delineate

In recent years, I have focussed again on some Greater Grand Canyon boundaries -- the western Navajo line, the over-blown Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument, for two.

  The lack of a match between the boundaries of the physical Canyon and the National Park out at the western end has also been problematic, reflecting as it does our ignorance in the 1960's of how to match the topographic and political boundaries.

In 2021, and more intensely in 2023, colleagues and I visited the southwest corner of the Arizona Strip to see better how theory can be turned into fact; that is, how to draw a National Park line that highlights the western topographic ending of the Canyon, the actual landforms and access routes. Though remote, this corner is only mildly difficult to access and deserves to be visited as another aspect of this immense, varying feature comes to an end.

The blog entries I wrote after these trips are intended both to gather information about the West End, the west exit, of the Grand Canyon, to encourage visitation to this important point, and to contribute to establishing boundaries that correspond to the Canyon's topography, thus helping to guide the visitor.

 

Your cursor on a blog entry line will show it live; click on that to go to it. When done, closing that tab will come back to this contents list.

 

 Preface to the West End

Looking anew at Canyon boundaries, 5/27/25

And what if the boundaries were corrected?

Some thoughts

Introduction: Some Maps To Be Our Guides

    The maps are divided up in several entries, to avoid one long post;             some are repeated in later entries where appropriate.

 

AAA Indian Country as locator

     Greater Grand Canyon

     Associated Tribes

Google for topography

Geology map

USGS National Map

BLM Arizona Strip map

Topographic for west end: 

     large area

     detail  of west exit; ways down: ridge, gulch bottom

        Grand Pipe

        Exit buttes, north & south

The next posts derive from and discuss our November 2021 trip:

  (Just a reminder to read 001-004, all published on 1/20/22, in order)

    no content                

 

 001. A discussion of good Grand Canyon names -- 

     and a bad one

002. Checking out the Westernmost Canyon

     in maps, photos, and words      

003. Working on western Canyon boundaries that make sense   

    drawing some lines trying to follow what the land tells us

004.  History of the turkey wattle    

    What is that funny little piece south of the Colorado River?

Later, a detailed trip out to the Canyon's Westernmost High Point

     and the Sanup Plateau 

Working out Grand Canyon's western boundaries

       A detailed discussion of the problems, 3/2/23 

and, October 2023, Exploring the Canyon's West End 

including what some of it looks like up close           

Photos from the visit and a walk

I learned more thanks to geologists' perspectives:   

A Grand Canyon leader, Karl Karlstrom

     On the Canyon’s Age; a 5/27/24 draft

Reprise: How the Grand Canyon makes its west exit: 

A map walk on how the Canyon ends     2/22/24

Down along the Colorado   12/7/23

   Landmarks at river level

 

An Extra, though not in the Grand Canyon

Putting Pearce Canyon in its Place