08/11/2026
If you'd like to learn more about this it's covered in the IMAX movie, Grand Canyon: Rivers of Time.
On this day, August 10, in 1869, the Powell Expedition reached the confluence of the Colorado River with the Little Colorado River (Day 79 of their expedition)
"Pulled out at 7 o'clock and ran 14 miles, passing 20 rapids, many of them bad. Came to the mouth of the Flax or Little Colorado River; as disgusting a stream as there is on the continent. 3 rods wide and about 3 ft. deep. Half of its volume and 2/3 of it weight is mud and silt. There are a few mesquite bushes growing on the south side of the Flax River. Walls about 4000 ft. high, inaccessible except on a very few points." —John Colton Sumner.
"We have cut through the sandstones and limestones met in the upper part of the canyon, and through one great bed of marble a thousand feet in thickness. In this, great numbers of caves are hollowed out, and carvings are seen which suggest architectural forms, though on a scale so grand that architectural terms belittle them. As this great bed forms a distinctive feature of the canyon, we call it Marble Canyon.
At two o'clock we reach the mouth of the 'Colorado Chiquito'. This stream enters through a canyon on a scale quite as grand as that of the Colorado itself. It is a very small river and exceedingly muddy and saline. I walk up the stream three or four miles this afternoon, crossing and recrossing where I can easily wade it. Then I climb several hundred feet at one place and can see for several miles up the chasm through which the river runs." —John Wesley Powell.
NPS Photos:
Left - the confluence of the Colorado River with the Little Colorado River, appearing muddy in this photo, during spring runoff.
Right - the Little Colorado River winding its way between canyon walls.
