Cool Arizona Places: The Colorado River

"Horseshoe Bend TC 27-09-2012 15-34-14" by Paul Hermans - Own work.

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The Colorado begins at La Poudre Pass in the Southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado, at more than 2 miles above sea level. After a short run south, the river turns west below Grand Lake, the largest natural lake in the state. For the first 250 miles of its course, the Colorado carves its way through the mountainous Western Slope, a sparsely populated region defined by the portion of the state west of the Continental Divide. As it flows southwest, it gains strength from many small tributaries, as well as larger ones including the Blue, Eagle and Roaring Fork rivers.

In Arizona, the river passes Lee's Ferry, an important crossing for early explorers and settlers and since the early 20th century the principal point where Colorado River flows are measured for apportionment to the seven U.S. and two Mexican states in the basin. Downstream, the river enters Marble Canyon, the beginning of the Grand Canyon, passing under the Navajo Bridges on a now southward course. Below the confluence with the Little Colorado River, the river swings west into Granite Gorge, the most dramatic portion of the Grand Canyon, where the river cuts up to one mile  into the Colorado Plateau, exposing some of the oldest visible rocks on Earth, dating as long ago as 2 billion years. The 277 miles of the river that flow through the Grand Canyon are largely encompassed by Grand Canyon National Park and are known for their difficult whitewater, separated by pools that reach up to 110 feet in depth.

At the lower end of Grand Canyon, the Colorado widens into Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the continental United States, formed by Hoover Dam on the border of Arizona and Nevada. Situated southeast of metropolitan Las Vegas, the dam is an integral component for management of the Colorado River, controlling floods and storing water for farms and cities in the lower Colorado River basin. Below the dam the river passes under the Mike O'Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge – which at nearly 900 feet above the water is the highest concrete arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere – and then turns due south towards Mexico, defining the Arizona–Nevada and Arizona–California borders.

After leaving the confines of the Black Canyon, the river emerges from the Colorado Plateau into the Lower Colorado River Valley, a desert region dependent on irrigation agriculture and tourism and also home to several major Indian reservations. The river widens here to a broad, moderately deep waterway averaging 500 to 1,000 feet wide and reaching up to one-fourth of a mile across, with depths ranging from 8 to 60 feet. Before channelization of the Colorado in the 20th century, the lower river was subject to frequent course changes caused by seasonal flow variations.

The Lower Colorado River Valley is one of the most densely populated areas along the river, and there are numerous towns including Bullhead City, Arizona, Needles, California, and Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Here, many diversions draw from the river, providing water for both local uses and distant regions including the Salt River Valley of Arizona and metropolitan Southern California. The last major U.S. diversion is at Imperial Dam, where over 90 percent of the river's remaining flow is moved into the All-American Canal to irrigate California's Imperial Valley, the most productive winter agricultural region in the United States.

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