We at desert view, which is the eastern end of the grand canyon and, its called desert view because when you look to the east, youre looking out into the Painted Desert and you can maybe see a little bit that beyond the white tower there. So this is about a quarter of the way into the grand canyon. It starts about 70 miles east here. And from here it has another 200 miles to run to the west. And so right here is when the canyon first starts to really widen and, deepen and sort of turn into the classic views that you see in most photographs, calendars or, you know, famous images. So before now its a fairly its much narrower gorge. And then when it reaches desert view, it really opens out and so its about ten miles wide here and its about a mile deep, has another 200 miles to run to the west. It eventually ends up at lake mead, the Colorado River. I hope you can see that in the bottom know, runs all the way from the Rocky Mountains to, you know, to between california. Arizona, as it head south. So you can see the tower over there, which is called the desert view, which tower. And it is sort of tribute to the hopi tribe. Its not really there to. See the canyon better. You know, its 70 feet tall, so you get a slightly better view from the top, but its really there to be a monument to. The hopi tribe, the hopis, are one of the most famous tribes in america. They live in arizona, about 50 miles east of here. And they used to live here in the grand canyon. Their ancestors to live and farm inside grand canyon. About a thousand years ago, they were part of a very widespread culture that we today call pueblo. And back. They used to call in a sabzi. So the you know, the hope is have a very long deep connection with the grand canyon, partly from living, and its still very sacred to them. So this is where they believe that humans emerged into this world and they believe the souls of their returned into the grand canyon to reach the afterlife. So the hope is that deeper ties to the canyon than really any other group of people. It isnt all that often that science and ancient mythology agree on something, but actually science is sort of verified. The hopis perspective that this was the place of creation. So science would would that, you know, were at least seeing the forces of creation here. This is probably the best place on earth to see the forces of creation, of forces of nature from which life and humans emerged. So, you know, youre seeing first of all, youre seeing deep time here. Youre seeing almost 2 billion years of rocks here. The bottom rocks in the grand canyon are, almost 200 years to 2 billion years old, 100 or 1. 800 million years old, almost billion years old. And youre seeing all sorts of geological forces. You know, youre seeing tectonic action, which is why all of the scene was lifted up as high as it is as it is to begin with. Know youre seeing rock formations, a lot of it happening under the ocean and it was lifted up by tectonic forces. Youre seeing a lot of faulting action. Youre seeing lot of erosion. The grand canyon, of course, is a like the classic statement in the of the power of erosion to, you know, create landscapes and theres all sorts of features inside the canyon, you know, that were created by erosion. And then youre also seeing biological evolution. So the the rock layers here preserve a lot of evolution. One of the the the layers here preserves the whats called the cambrian explosion where life first became very complicated went from very shapes to very complicated. So that whole idea, you know, this is an ultimate place has gripped a lot of people. And i think it still touches tourists today. A lot of people come here just expecting sort of a grand visual spectrum of some sort, but they up feeling something more than that. They sort of their sense of the creation of primordial forces is is stirred by visiting here and and it comes out differently with different people. So if youre very religious, you see god here and, you know, different christians see god in different ways. Some will even see, you know, noahs as carving the grand canyon, nonreligious people just see the forces of nature and you know, that can touch them as well, because, you know, we spend most of our lives in cities and jobs and families have these social identities. There to be everything. You know, theres nothing outside our social identities and people come here and they see that, you know, there really is this much grander reality beyond their lives that you know that their lives came out of. So even, you know, nonreligious people end up having a somewhat religious experience here. Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. So now were standing on whats called the hermit road, which is west of grand canyon village, and were at paul point and theres a paul memorial just just off to my side here, which is a more memorial to John Wellesley powell. He was the first river explorer here in 1869. And he was sort of a passionate geologist. He just wanted to come out and explore the canyons geology and put together a do it yourself trip. You know, he he was a teacher at wesleyan university. He didnt get much support from the federal government most explorations of the American West federally sponsored, you know, because they had National Import which you know hopefully meant they would bring back maybe New Territory or Economic Resources or new transportation routes and the nation convinced that the grand canyon was worth all that much. So the town got almost no support his expedition. So he put it together his own and had nine other crew members, at least to start out with and three of them got this going all along the way and and left and in fact, there was a controversy about that because. Theres a plaque up on the memorial there and theres three names that were left off who, did almost all of the trip. But at the end of the trip, they decided that they had enough. So they walked off to some of the mormon in utah and and were never seen again. And when the people who organized the to powell thought that they you know, were disloyal to powell and they were a little bit hero worshipers of powell. So you know, they thought these guys who disappeared were, you know, deserters or cowards and they didnt deserve to be the plaque. But anyway, so theyre missing. And thats always been a source of controversy among river runners. But anyway so powell did succeed he went back to to washington and it became a pretty Important National leader. I became head of the Geological Survey for some years and founder of the u. S. Bureau of ethnology, which is studying native american tribes. Powell was actually far more sympathetic to native american tribes. And and that in the late 1800s and almost any americans were so thought their cultures were interesting and were studying and their languages that were worth preserving before. A lot of them were already starting to disappear. So but powell maybe biggest contribution in his in his washington career was that he a warning about our future National Growth in patterns and our assumptions about national. So americans always had a sense of destiny about settling the frontier. You know, a god given domain us to settle and become prosperous. S and and the settlement patterns that had worked in the east, namely the homestead act, gave gave out acreage, 160 acre farms to anybody who could claim them and you know, a lot of a lot of that was very successful. But powell saw, when he came out to explorer, the Colorado Rockies and then the southwest, the 1860s, he saw that just wasnt going to work for the west. So there just simply wasnt enough water. West of the hundredth meridian was pretty much the line he, you know, he defined as the line where a farming could not succeed, at least not the scale that it had in the east or in the midwest. So he tried to sound the warning to country that the type settlement practices that have been successful, the midwest, were simply not going to work. And in the end, the far certainly in the southwest, which was the very there was just no way that a a farm a 160 acres in arizona was ever going to be able to succeed. There just wasnt any water for a lot of places. And the soil all that great. And he sounded that warning he he made it clear that water really the secret to settlement the west and a lot of the country just did not want to hear that at all because. Powell was basically saying, youre never going to settle a lot of the in the western united states, the price to be paid was there was, you hundreds of thousands of farmers that came to high plains in the 1880s, 1890s, who, you know, tried to farm and were miserable failures, even under normal conditions. Then when you had, you know, some years of drought in, the 1890s, it was a disaster so, you know, powell was a prophet, environmental prophet before his time. And not sure were still quite hearing that message. It comes to Water Resources because were still in the southwest. You know, were really living beyond our means. The Colorado River, is it the bottom of the grand canyon . The curve of the canyon . You know, it seems like a very powerful river, but its not that big of a river compared to a lot of eastern rivers. You know, it doesnt have that big volume of water. So its now supporting, you know, 25 or 30 Million People and a lot of agricultural areas dont have any other major source besides the Colorado River. And the demands on the river, the legal obligations supposed to meet are are already beyond it actually has to supply. So the water even under normal conditions just doesnt have enough. The Colorado River doesnt have enough water to meet all the demands on it. And lately weve been in a drought and weve been in the drought for 20 years now. So the river has been growing downward like which is ahead of the grand canyon upstream from the grand canyon is down to about 50 . And lake mead, which is below the grand canyon has been down to about 40 . And were not very far from where were going to have a water where the the water supply to towns like phenix and tucson going to start being cut off and they really dont have any great alternative source. And and las vegas is involved as well. And agriculture in Southern California in the in the Imperial Valley depends entirely on the colorado water. So, you know, were not that far away from having a major water crisis. So. Powell that you know, water going to be the defining limit of western settlement and the country is still not really learned that lesson and we wanted to so now were you might imagine were in some native American Village somewhere because you can see a pueblo behind us, but were still at the grand canyon. Were actually in the heart of grand canyon village, where most of the tourists congregate. And this building is called hopi house. Its a recreation of a hopi home. You know, it is exactly what the name says. It is. It it was a, you know, a home for hopis. And theyre actually real hopis who lived here for many years there was a Family Living upstairs and they perform dances. Theres a little pavilion right next to me and there they made pottery inside and they, you know, talk to tourists. So lived upstairs. So it really was a home for for a hopi family that lived here for, i think, about 20 some years. And it was built by mary colter. This is the very first building she designed from scratch. And this building makes quite a contrast with the building right next to us, which is the fancy hotel here, tovar hotel, which was built there, built the same time and opened in 1905. And they sort of make big contrast that sort of defines of the values of the American West and what people were looking for in the American West. So mary colter built this to to honor them and this is the first building she designed, and she didnt have much of an architecture training, no architecture license at that time. You know, around 1900 her is almost impossible for women get architectural training or get into Architecture School and she was a High School Teacher saint paul, minnesota, in the early thirties and the Santa Fe Railroad sort crossed paths with her and they decided this lady has a lot of imagination and maybe shes a genius and we need somebody like that to design some of our buildings. We want some sort of native american style in our southwestern buildings. So so yeah. So the park service, when it started out out, you know, they were a very small agency. They have a whole lot of support. It took them a long time just to get a park founded. There were National Parks for decades before there was actually a park service. They were a very small agency and. They realized and were still a lot of threats to the parks and to places that should have been parks. But, you know, there were mining companies, other interests that didnt want them be National Parks. So the park service set out early on to create a political constituency that would support the creation of new parks and, you know, would support better protection for parks and better buildings, museums and ranger programs and things like that inside parks and the parks was a very small, very low budget. So they spent a lot of their first decades just encouraging tourism. So they were happy to work with the railroads to get out to the west. You know most americans lived in the east and all the national are in the west. So the only way tourists could get here in the teens and 20 1920s was in on railroads. The you know, the park service was very much in the Tourism Business there was a senator from indiana Benjamin Harrison who had never i dont think he ever visited the grand canyon in his life. But for some reason, which we dont quite he was very devoted to trying make the grand canyon a National Park. So three times he proposed bills to make it the National Park and. Harrison became president in the 1880s, and he again to make it a National Park. And he couldnt get congress to go along with that because it takes act of congress to create a National Park. So there was a lot of opposition from arizonans, because this land had been privately and they didnt want to see, you know, private land claimed by the pioneers, you know, taken away from the pioneers and turned into public land. So Benjamin Harrison couldnt do it even he was president. He did make this a national forest, though. He did manage to make the grand canyon, the national forest, which is sort of bogus, because inside the canyon theres not very many forest inside the canyon on the rim. So that was one step forward and then Teddy Roosevelt came along. He was very dedicated to the grand canyon, too. He really loved it. But in a very paradoxical way. So Teddy Roosevelt, after he was president , went to the north rim to go mountain hunting, and he was a big game hunter. So he went to the north rim and there used be a lot of mountain lions there and there were hundreds of them that were killed over the years. The First Service actually hired a ranger to kill the mountain lions and nobody was thinking ecologically then and thinking what happens if you kill all the predators . Well, the the prey, the deer are going to explode. There is massive population explosion deer. But anyway, Teddy Roosevelt know loved hunting, but but he still loved the canyon for other reasons. He tried his best to make this a National Park and he couldnt persuade arizonans or Congress Make it a National Park. So in 1908, he made it a national monument, which a president can do just by signing a bill. So that gave its certain protections, but it was still a lower level of protection than than he wanted. So it didnt remove all the private mining or or or ranching claims or timber claims on the rim of the canyon. So so he was dead for, you know, a few months before grand canyon finally out National Park in 1919. He never lived to see it. He always regretted he didnt didnt succeed making it a National Park and so it finally became a park, partly just the railroad was here first and was bringing in tourists and. They loved it. And tourists were bringing in money. Arizona businessmen were noticing, hey you know, this is worth more than those mines in the canyon, which not producing anything anyway. And its worth a lot more than ranching. So why exactly are we opposing making this a National Park . You know, gradually as tourism started up, you know, it sort of swung opinions around to you know to realizing that this was had economic value and people saw the natural value of it as well but a lot of power brokers in arizona just didnt seem to see that it took a very long time to see that. Well, today, you know, i think last year we got like 6 million visitors here at the canyon. And in the year around 2000, it was flirting with the 5 million level up and down. And and lately its been in a lot of National Parks have been up in and visitation and thats put a lot of stress on the park because a lot of them just dont have the capacity to absorb that at least gracefully. And, you know, a lot of them are foreigners, theres a lot of people from overseas just love our National Parks and, you know, they come here with the main goal. Their trips is being seeing the yosemite or the grand canyon or maybe and possibly death valley that they might throw in San Francisco or hollywood or maybe las vegas along the but its mainly about National Parks. And they go home really loving parks and seeing how Great America is, people who have some sort of gripe about america, you know, politically or culturally, you know, they may not approve of mcdonalds or whatever, you know they go home telling people how great the parks are. And and, you know, this was an american. It was a very democratic idea because otherwise, you know, its the idea that the land belongs to all of and and it will be so in the future otherwise you know, the whole rim, the canyon could be a very long series. Gated communities with security guards, with guns, you know, to keep everybody, you know, its a its a pretty profoundly democratic idea that we can be be proud of, even though, you know, today the country is pretty divided. But thats one thing that, you know, both liberals, conservatives really should be taking pride in. Weve done a really good job with our National Parks i guess if theres one message i like people, readers or to to to leave with, its just the idea you the Woody Guthrie song this land belongs you and me. You know this place belongs to us and its our our birthright at this point. And we shouldnt be, you know, looking it through through books. We should be getting and visiting it ourselves and having own experiences and, you know, its, its a great, great place to explore. You know, certainly everybody should try plan a trip here at some point in