Photography by Chris Schiller
From a July 2003 trip
Click on thumbnails for a larger view
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Water in astonishing places.
The Colorado River cuts so deep into the
Colorado Plateau
that water collected years before in the
high pines on the
rim springs forth from limestone walls,
sometimes in drips
sometimes in floods.
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The river itself has many moods, many hues.
Green, cold and sterile as it issues from
the bottom of Glen Canyon Dam, it slowly warms
and may, in monsoon season or spring snowmelt
up the Little Colorado, gain the brown-red
color of its name. With each flash
flood in a side canyon upriver the river takes on a new
tint. We were treated, day after
day, to metallic gray, to coffee brown, to dull peach,
and one magical morning to a copper red
bordering on blood.
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Four views of Trinity Canyon.
Deep in the Inner Gorge, Trinity bites
through the Vishnu Schist and Zoraster Granite
of the basement stone, some of the oldest
exposed rock in the world. It is a delight
of bent metamorphosed pink granite against
an unforgiving black schist.
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The green and white of Thunder River spring.
Calling the source of Thunder River a
spring is like calling the Sahara
a sandlot. It shoots, double-bored,
from the Redwall cliffs, with more water
than most desert rivers. You climb
dripping sweat out of the 115 degree heat
of the surrounding canyon into a halo
of coolness and green. The temperature
near the source is a good 20 degrees cooler
than the air just 100 feet away.
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Bass camp is a hot camp. We were
fortunate to have a brewing storm shade the sun
soon after we arrived. The wind
blew, as it does when rain is imminent in the Canyon,
and then the rain came, but nothing too
heavy. After a break in the precipitation, near sunset,
a hole opened in the clouds and shone
a mighty beam upon Dox Castle, high to the east.
One rainbow appeared, bridging the whole
canyon, and then another appeared above it.
The rain came again, heavier this time,
and my dear friend Jeanette stood by me
with her patterned cotton chiffon skirt
as I took these images. I'd shoot a frame and then
use the hem of her skirt to dry the front
of my camera lens before the next frame.
The castle looked like it was built of
polished gold instead of sandstone, just as it
does in the images. No Photoshop
trickery here, just Nature beaming.
Near Bass Camp, before the storm.
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Matkatamiba is one of the defining slot
canyons of the American Southwest.
Though short, the cut layers of Muav Limestone
produce what has been called
a mindbending topography. While
the others prepared butt dams above,
I searched for different perspectives
in this much-photographed canyon.
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Three perspectives in the primary colors
of blue, red and green.
Everywhere in the Canyon, a different
view can be found. As
Barb Storey, a former Grand Canyon river
guide, has been known
shout: "Don't forget to look around;
it's the Grand Canyon!"
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Blacktail Canyon during and after the flood.
Just above Blacktail, we were treated
to a massive storm. After the wind blasted
us, the squalls of rain swept down Conquisquidor
Aisle at amazing speeds (see the
people picture pages linked below for
a few shots on the river). The rain dumped
on us and then swept up through the short
drainage of Blacktail. I thought for sure
it would flash, given the massive amount
of water sheeting from the sky. On the
picture on the left, you can see the waterfalls
pouring off the high Redwall rim
and into Blacktail. But despite
all the water, there was only a minor flood.
After the danger of further rain diminished,
we hiked and photographed it.
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Anchen at the dryfall in Trinity
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After the trip, Jeanette and I visited
the Museum of Northern Arizona, where they
had a great exhibit of a species of swimming
dinosaur called a Plesiosaur.
Nasty and beautiful creatures. There's
also a wonderful bronze sculpture there
by Clyde Ross Morgan of John Wesley Powell
in the Emma Dean in the middle of
Sockdolager Rapid. The thumbnails
beside the banner at the top of this page
are a detail shot of the sculpture.
See his website
for more.
The crew from the upper, happy to be safe
in the middle of Silver Grotto.
I'm on the far left.
Click
here to go to people pictures from the trip