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Note To Dkos Readers: If you are just joining me for this series of diaries on, please read the introduction in the first diary (http://www.dailykos.com/...). I also recommend reading the ensuing diaries. It will help explain the essence of both the adventure and the social politics behind same.
The Green-To-Grand River Odyssey: At 6,100 feet above sea level, Green River Station to the bottom of the Grand Canyon was quite a drop in elevation. At the western province where the canyon terminates (at the Grand Wash Cliffs), the mean elevation is something like 700 feet above sea level. That expansive domain, aptly called the Great Unknown at that time, was the destination Major Powell and his men would one day explore. That is, if all went well. When he doffed his hat to the well-wishers who stood along the banks to see them off, the major felt his chances were good that he and his men would end up safe and sound. Then again, reports based on hearsay and laced with pessimism around that time suggested another outcome. In short, all bets were off the men would survive the ordeal. The odds also increased when it was discovered the commander of the expedition and his crew were not seasoned veterans of this kind of exploration. Yet the major gambled they would prevail and his also men bet on the same outcome.
Of the two rivers, the Colorado (which was then known as the "Grand River") and its deeper canyons was said to be the roughest by the few who ventured close to where the frenzy of its rapids could be seen or heard. The Colorado was also the least known, especially above Black Canyon (present day Lake Mead country). The characteristics of any river depend on the four features described earlier (i.e., the gradient, bed topography, constriction, and c.f.s.), also the debris and other hazards that account for rapids to form in select places. Through the Grand Canyon, the Colorado is classified as a pool and drop river, with long, serene stretches obstructed here and there with whitewater. Thus behind the whitewater the river pools and smoothes out.
Rapids form about ten percent of its length through the Grand Canyon. Yet they account for some fifty percent of the river’s drop in elevation. Because the pools of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon are lengthy in places, the river drops about eight feet a mile through the canyon’s mile-deep interior. But just like measuring canyon mileage by way of trails, any kind of measurement in this domain can be seriously misleading, especially for novices who ply the river or the trails. These twenty or so miles of the Colorado River’s total rapids, that is, if they were all strung together, means (on average) the river falls a far more daunting forty feet per mile. Yet the overall drop seems far steeper than it really is.
