Recently PBS aired The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. The series has inspired this sequence of blog postings about aspects of my personal park explorations over the years via ArcGIS Explorer (AGX). See other national park blog posts for more.

We’re moving through my Fav 7. Today, Grand Canyon. My most momentous trip to the Grand Canyon was over Thanksgiving 1984. It was my first backpacking trip. While I had camped numerous times, this was new. I was with a group of Sierra Club friends and we were bound for Horseshoe Mesa via the Grandview Trail with a fair bit of elevation change in each direction. I remember that weather that was cooperating on the way down soon turned to rain in camp, with snow up on the Rim. Over the several days, things played between gray to partly sunny with incredible clouds wisping into and out of canyon features. I’ve not been back there until today.

Using AGX, I want to do several things: Find the origin and destination of the backpacking trip, hunt for a photo (not mine unfortunately), include a link to something that evokes the memory of the grandeur and clouds, and graphically remember why my legs ached especially on the return trip.

In preparation, I add two Add-ins: Find GNIS and Terrain Profile (See Bernie’s Add-in blog post for more.). As with other parks, I create a folder for the contents I‘m creating, and then “Go To” the Grand Canyon. Next, I need to find and place a marker at Grandview Point. While I know where it is, I use the Find GNIS add-in: Finding “cliff” features in Coconino County, AZ. Once identified, I move it to my map in the Grand Canyon folder, “X” out the other “cliff” candidates, and go to it. Using the Panaramio add-in I used earlier, I find and select a Grandview Point image (Yes, as I remembered.).

Zooming out, I see Horseshoe Mesa and the trail to it. Recollecting where we camped I place a point using the Notes menu and explore the Web for a representation of a vivid memory: A painting by a personal hero, Thomas Moran, the Chasm of the Colorado. In this 1874 painting, I saw the clouds and features I remembered 110 years in the future.

Lastly, I used the Terrain Profile add-in to give me a sense of the elevation we covered. Ouch!

Stay tuned for the next installment.

-George Dailey, ESRI Education Program Manager