Early Morning Light #1

The north rim has two main viewpoints towards the east, reached by the side road. One is Point Imperial, the highest in the park at an elevation of... more

by Robert Bales

Title

Early Morning Light #1

Artist

Robert Bales

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

The north rim has two main viewpoints towards the east, reached by the side road. One is Point Imperial, the highest in the park at an elevation of 8,803 feet, which apart from the canyon, here relatively shallow and less branched, also overlooks large areas of the Painted Desert and the Navajo Reservation. The second is Cape Royal (7,865 feet), perhaps the best of the north rim sites. The cape is 20 miles from AZ 67, right at the end of the road which becomes rather narrow and twisting over the last couple of miles as it runs along a steep sided ridge. There is a large carpark and a short nature trail leading to the point, where the ground drops away steeply in most directions affording superb views east, south and west along the Grand Canyon. Nearby is the short path to Cliff Spring.
The known history of the Grand Canyon area stretches back 10,500 years, when the first evidence of human presence in the area is found. Native Americans have inhabited the Grand Canyon and the area now covered by Grand Canyon National Park for at least the last 4,000 of those years. Ancestral Pueblo peoples, first as the Basketmaker culture and later as the more familiar Pueblo people, developed from the Desert Culture as they became less nomadic and more dependent on agriculture. A similar culture, the Cohonina, also lived in the canyon area. Drought in the late 13th century likely caused both groups to move on. Other people followed, including the Paiute, Cerbat, and the Navajo, only to be later forced onto reservations by the United States Government.

Uploaded

December 30th, 2015