Stunning Images - Colorado River, USA

Stunning Images - Colorado River, USA

The Colorado River is the primary river of the American Southwest, draining somewhere in the vicinity of 242,000 square miles of land, from the states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. The Green River is the primary tributary of the Colorado River, and until 1921 the Colorado River did not technically begin until the Grand and Green Rivers joined together in Utah. In that year the Grand River was renamed as the Colorado River, at the request of the State of Colorado .

The headwaters of the Colorado River are located in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. From here, at an altitude of 9,010 feet, the Colorado begins it's flow southwestward toward the Gulf o f California and the Pacific Ocean. By the time the river enters the Grand Canyon, at Lee's Ferry, its altitude has fallen to 3,110 feet, dropping over one mile since its beginning. The river will drop another 2,200 f eet before it reaches the other end of the Grand Canyon, the Grand Wash Cliffs, 277 miles away.

Stunning Images - Colorado River From Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah, Horseshoe Bend, Colorado River, Arizona, USA

The river contains alternating sections of rapids and calm sections. The depth of the river varies from 6 feet to 90 feet, with the average being about 20 feet. The rapids are the shallow sections and the calm sections tend to be the deepest parts. Some deep holes have also formed at the base or foot of some of the more major rapids. The rapids represent only 10 percent of the river's total length through the Grand Canyon, but are responsible for more than half of the total drop in altitude.

The Colorado River was originally named Rio Colorado or "Red River" by the Spanish. A person looking at the river today may not understand how it came to be named in this way, as the present day color of the river is more of a blue-green. The reddish-bro wn color that originally gave the river its name become a rarity upon completion of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963. The silt and sediments that gave the river its color are now trapped behind the dam in the bottom o f Lake Powell.

Stunning Images - Horseshoe Bend, Colorado River, Arizona, USA