Travel notes of four women crossing the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell.

Mountains are like thousands of miles apart, and clouds fly like Wan Li. Wild horses have nowhere to go in the sun, and there are lycopodium in the cracks.

Yi Cui yi Xia

We named it "Four Women Brave America". Cong Mei, who has been an immigrant for the longest time, has already made a travel strategy before going out.

The destinations this time are the Grand Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. Among them, Lake Powell was named after the explorer General john wesley powell. 1869, john powell, a one-armed retired general, came here to inspect the area in detail. He wrote in his diary: "Looking around, there are canyons everywhere, and the canyons are not big. Let's call it Glen Canyon. " Glen Canyon means small canyon in English.

The grand canyon dam is magnificent, and we feel a little dizzy standing on the guardrail wall. Obliquely inserted under the steel bridge, inserted into the rock walls on both sides of the river bed and canyon, and cut off the Colorado River. Upstream of the dam, the river is as blue as a crystal sapphire. Looking from the dam, the river gradually turns dark green. The horseshoe bend is located downstream of the dam. The river is like an emerald, with seaweed and grass on its edge. The Grand Canyon Dam controls the flow of the Colorado River in arid areas. The task of the dam is to store water resources for this particularly arid area of the United States. The dam is 2 16 meters high, with a vault of 470 meters long and a total weight of 800,000 tons. /kloc-started in June, 1956, with an investment of 16 trillion USD, and was completed in 10. It is the second highest dam in America.

The dam is under the management of the US military. For a hundred years, the US Congress and local governments have always believed that it is an unforgivable waste of resources to let the rivers in the western United States flow directly into the sea. In addition to agricultural irrigation and hydroelectric power generation, these water resources can also be introduced into lakes to become attractive tourist resources, so that these lakes have the function of regulating water quantity. Driven by this belief, the United States federal government and relevant state governments, combined with the strength of private businessmen, built more than 600 large and small dams in the barren western United States in the past century.

1963, after the completion of the Grand Canyon Dam, the floodgates were closed to store water, and water was introduced from rivers in Colorado, San Juan and escalante, thus forming Lake Powell in the upper reaches of the dam. In fact, when the Grand Canyon Dam was built, the U.S. government had already started to build the lake, and it was not really completed until 1980. According to the survey, this lake covers an area of 65,000 hectares, with a depth of 170 meters and a length of 300 kilometers. At the same time, it has a coastline of 3,500 kilometers, which is longer than the entire Pacific coast in the western United States.

The area of Lake Powell is more than twice that of Lake Mead, with all kinds of red sandstone, stone arches, canyons and blue waves. Its scenery is far better than Lake Mead, and it has become a major national holiday resort in the southwestern United States. Lake Powell is one of the largest artificial lakes in the world.

The lake is rich in fish and shrimp, as well as many small islands and 96 canyons of different shapes. This canyon is very distinctive. The rock wall above the water is white, and the one near the top is red. With the blue lake, you can see the miracle of nature and carve the earth into a magnificent cake. It feels like being on the horizon, and people are as small as a grain of dust.

Lake Powell is a unique canyon lake in the world. Ships float across the fjord like lobules, flashing in the crystal. Sunny waterfalls in the mountains and peaks are flying with hot air. Americans seem to like basking in the sun. They stopped and strolled in the orange valley. Sailing boats in the clear and transparent lake are full of mystery and hope.

Speaking of fjords, we have to mention horseshoe bend, which is a short section of the Grand Canyon. Because the boulder around the river bend is shaped like a horseshoe, it is called "horseshoe bend". Because horseshoe bend is also a U-shaped section of the Colorado River in Arizona, some people call it the Colorado River Bend.

Although there is only one wait-and-see point in horseshoe bend, it is difficult to find a second one in the world in terms of the degree of shock at this point. Its soil is like that of Utah, because it contains a lot of iron and manganese metals, so it shines beautiful metallic red in the sun. Secondly, the Colorado River cut by this bay is emerald green, and the red soil and the green river complement each other, and the color is very pleasing to the eye. In addition, fjords and rock walls are stacked, and the cliffs are red, yellow, orange and gray, and the gullies are ever-changing, which is beyond our reach.

1972, the local government established the Grand Canyon National Tourism Resort, which covers a large area and spans Utah and Arizona, and has developed many water sports, with more than 3 million tourists from all over the world every year.

You can take a boat trip, fish and swim in the lake. Those self-provided boats drive remote canyons, then paddle into the depths of the canyons and camp on the island at night. American tugboats, RV camping tents and family trips are typical middle-class lifestyles.

According to the website of NASA, during the period of 10 from the end of 1990s to 2000, the upper reaches of the Colorado River Basin experienced many years of drought, which led to a sudden drop in the water level of Lake Powell. People's demand for river water far exceeds the supply speed of river water. In 2005, the storage capacity of this reservoir was only 33%.

It is reported that at that time, in addition to the Grand Canyon Dam, the U.S. government also planned to build two other dams at the dinosaur National Memorial in the upper reaches of the Grand Canyon. The dam construction plan was strongly opposed by the mountain club organized by nature lovers at that time. They believe that human demand for resources should not be at the expense of important natural landscapes and historical and cultural heritage. To this end, the two sides launched a fierce struggle. After seven years of argument and hard work, led by the leader David brower, they successfully stopped the commemoration in the dinosaur national memorial site.

It can be said that the Grand Canyon Dam is a miracle, but there are different opinions about it, which directly urges the US government to reassess the impact of the dam on the environment. In view of the huge impact of large dams on the environment and ecology, the US government will no longer build any similar dams, and some dams in the western United States are already being demolished. It can be said that the demolition of some dams is the awakening of human consciousness and the beginning of human learning to respect and adapt to nature.

Gully valley is 80 thousand feet, and white clouds are not diligent.

The peaks and mountains are Chu, and the pearl of the sea is unknown.

The cliff runs like silk, and four women are like flowers.

There is no wind and rain in the ancient wasteland, and several poems float across the canyon.

Light smoke floats around people, and the wind marks on the rock wall ask the original.

Who dares to be crazy when the dust settles and have a bird's eye view of Ganoderma lucidum?