page_title: Course of the Colorado River
section_title: Arizona
hierarchical_section_title: Course of the Colorado River / Arizona
caption_attribution_description: English: From the west side of the Toroweap area. There is about a 900 meter (3000 foot) drop to the Colorado river. sw2 538 (Note the small volcano on South Rim, above river, part of en:Uinkaret volcanic field, caused by the Toroweap Fault-(and the break-off Hurricane Fault)) Toroweap Point, 6,293 feet (1,918&#160;m), and below it, Toroweap Overlook, is at the southeast of Toroweap Valley, mostly a due-north trending valley, north side Colorado River, Grand Canyon, with small Uinkaret Mountains, on west border of valley (valley not in photo, Tuweep, Arizona in valley). (west side of Uinkaret Mtns is Hurricane Fault location. Sources: Roadside Geology of Arizona, and AZ atlases.
context_page_description: The Colorado River is a major river of the western United States and northwest Mexico in North America. Its headwaters are in the Rocky Mountains where La Poudre Pass Lake is its source. Located in north central Colorado it flows southwest through the Colorado Plateau country of western Colorado, southeastern Utah and northwestern Arizona where it flows through the Grand Canyon. It turns south near Las Vegas, Nevada, forming the Arizona–Nevada border in Lake Mead and the Arizona–California border a few miles below Davis Dam between Laughlin, Nevada and Needles, California before entering Mexico in the Colorado Desert. Most of its waters are diverted into the Imperial Valley of Southern California. In Mexico its course forms the boundary between Sonora and Baja California before entering the Gulf of California.
context_section_description: Glen Canyon Dam, which creates Lake Powell, is situated in the town of Page in northern Arizona only about 15 miles (24 km) by river from the Utah border. The 710-foot (220 m) dam impounds the Colorado primarily for hydroelectricity generation. In front of the dam the Glen Canyon Bridge carries U.S. Route 89 over the Colorado River. Below here the Colorado flows through the last 16 miles (26 km) of Glen Canyon, passing the scenic Horseshoe Bend, before emerging briefly from its canyons at Lee's Ferry, where it is joined by the warm, shallow, muddy Paria River. Historically a ford used by Native Americans, explorers and settlers, Lee's Ferry serves as the dividing point between the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins, which were each allocated one-half of the Colorado River flow in the Colorado River Compact of 1922.
  Below Lee's Ferry the Colorado begins to trend more south than southwest, through the vertical-walled Marble Canyon which is crossed by the twin Navajo Bridges as it enters Grand Canyon National Park. At the southern end of Marble Canyon, the river is joined by another tributary, the capricious Little Colorado River, which drains the Painted Desert region of northeast Arizona and western New Mexico. Although normally a calm and clear spring-fed stream, it can rise dramatically following monsoon storms over the Colorado Plateau.
  Then the river then turns abruptly west directly across the folds and fault line of the plateau, through the Upper and Lower Granite Gorges of Grand Canyon, which is 217 miles (349 km) long and from 4 to 20 miles (6.4 to 32.2 km) between the upper cliffs. The walls, 4,000 to 6,000 ft (1,200 to 1,800 m) high, drop in successive escarpments of 500 to 1,600 ft (150 to 490 m), banded in splendid colors toward the narrow gorge of the present river. The river itself is a nearly uninterrupted series of violent rapids separated by calm, short pools. Deep inside the canyon it is joined from the north by Kanab Creek, which flows from southern Utah, and then from the south by Havasu Creek, known for the waterfalls it forms on the Havasupai Reservation. Further downstream it passes the Uinkaret volcanic field, where basalt eruptions millions of years ago formed huge lava dams across the Colorado. Although the dams have mostly been erased by erosion, a small portion remains as Lava Falls, generally considered the most difficult and dangerous rapids for boaters on the Colorado River.
  The Colorado then swings sharply south and turns northwest north of Peach Springs, emerging from the Grand Canyon at the Grand Wash Cliffs, where it widens into the upper reaches of Lake Mead. The area also marks the general boundary between the Colorado Plateau and the Mojave Desert. Shortly west of that point it begins to form the border of Nevada to the north/west and Arizona to the south/east.
caption: Colorado River view at Toroweap, with Lava Falls in the center
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD850 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2011:05:20 11:25:09", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x1001": "3264", "Image Tag 0x1002": "2448", "Image ExifOffset": "2258", "Image XPKeywords": "[115, 0, 119, 0, 50, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Image OffsetSchema": "4162", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "8", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:05:20 11:25:09", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:05:20 11:25:09", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "213/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "43520/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2448000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "2112"}