Shinumo Altar and the Birthplace of the Grand Canyon

In  the middle of this image horizontally is a unique view of the Grand  Canyon. This is House Rock Valley in a place named Marble  Canyon, This is where the Grand Canyon begins, at this point the canyon is barely one mile wide. 

If you follow my work then you know to open the image full screen for full effect. 

Following the  canyon from the left, the first cut away is called Shinumo Wash and  right about where it slices out of the main canyon you can see above it a  small protruding mesa by itself out in the middle of the dessert valley.

This is called Shinumo Altar, a 600 foot mesa that sits alone in the  middle of the valley just south of the Grand Canyon. And it has a very  interestingly named formation with a somewhat strange naming convention.

 It was originally named Snake Gulch but Frederick Dellenbaugh, an  American explorer in the period between 1870 and 1926, actually named it  such because in his words; “it looked very much like a great altar and  the Paiute called the former occupants of the country “Shinumo”,  therefore I applied the name Shinumo Altar, purely on a descriptive, not  on an archaeological, basis.” 

The First Nations Paiute peoples  called the former ancestral nations “Shinumo”, also known as the  “Anasazi” and as well the “Histatsinom”… all these names have the same  meaning “people who lived long ago”. And their ancient ruins and  petroglyps can be found all over this area.

I am flying  directly over Little Mountain, the base of which can be seen below to  the right. That is Rock Canyon Creek coming out from the base of the  Little Mountain. Above that you can see where the canyon starts to  widen, this is where Vaseys Paradise, Stantons Cave, Bedrock Canyon and  Fence Canyon all meet.

This is also the boundary of the House  Rock State Buffalo Ranch, the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve and  the National Game Preserve.

Stanton’s Cave, is named after  Brewster Stanton who used the cave to cache tools during an 1889 retreat  from the canyon, is home to a summer maternity colony of Townsend’s  big-eared bats (Corynorhinus townsendii).

Past exploration of  the cave’s contents and a door installed to keep out looters put the  bat’s survival at risk. 2,000 pounds of steel were welded on site in  1997 to create a gate that keeps out the looters, but allows easy access  for bats.

Bus Hatch joined early Grand Canyon explorations to  Stanton’s Cave where he identified several split twig figurines in 1934.  Some of the figurines were later recovered by the Park Service and date  to be over 4,000 years old.

In addition to the figurines,  there are remains of ancient horses, Harrington mountain goats, humpback  Chub fish, California Condors and extinct vultures, among other items.

Everything on the foreground side of the canyon is part of the Kaibab  National Forest. Everything on the distant side of the canyon is part of  the Kaibito Plateau and part of the First Nations Navajo (Diné) and  Hopi Reservations.

Across the distance we can see Eminence  Break, Blue Moon Bench, Von Dat Mountains and the Red Point Hills. This is the beginning of the Painted Desert.

This image was taken in  the late afternoon in mid winter, hence snow on the ground on Little  Mountain in the right foreground, in the distance the sun is further  over the horizon so the alpenglow effect has already begun to cast a  purplish hue onto the distant clouds whereas the clouds directly in  front of us are still daytime cotton white.

On of the things  that excites me about shooting long range wilderness landscape images is  the relative view of time seen in exactly this sort of effect. It is  beautiful to behold.  

From "Where Eagles Fly - The American Wilderness Expedition" my    personal project of exploration in the North American Wilderness.   

I am  on a mission to raise awareness of our Iconic Natural Heritage Treasures  of North America.   

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Yehaw!