With a view like this you might understand why we recommend a visit to the North Rim as a "Must." A little geological history we collected about Marble Canyon - the ancestral Colorado River was a primary drainage for the Rocky Mountains, some 60 or 70 million years ago. Like today, the river started its journey in Colorado and, it is thought, at one time entered the region of Marble Canyon adding sediment to this section of the Grand Canyon's geology textbook. Maybe 17 million years ago the whole area known as the Colorado Plateau began to uplift and continued for about 12 million years. At one point the Plateau is estimated to have been three miles above sea level. Then, erosion began to wear the Plateau down to what we see today and Marble Canyon was carved. Marble Canyon begins just below Lee's Ferry and visitors to the Kaibab National Forest and Grand Canyon NP, drive across Marble Canyon and along Vermillion Cliffs.
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