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♪♪♪
Sheer sandy cliffsides,
a chasm formed by millennia of rushing waters,
it's one of the Seven Natural Wonders
of the World: The Grand Canyon.
It may be in our own backyard,
but have you ever seen it from up here?
This is Papillon Grand Canyon Tours.
These guys go out all day long.
For them it's an all-day job.
For people like us,
it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I'm in Boulder City
hopping on a 30-minute helicopter ride
to the Grand Canyon with a bird's eye view
of everything in between.
Chris, I know you've been getting everything ready.
What do we need to know?
(Chris Kimmel) Before we get going, we have to do
a safety briefing.
We have to wear this fashionable flotation device.
I'm going to hand it to you.
-Flotation device because we're over the river.
-Over the river and over the lake, yeah.
My pilot is Chris Kimmel,
and he's been flying helicopters
for over five years
and gets to do this every day.
Sometimes when you're doing something like this,
you feel like you're maybe getting out
of your comfort zone,
or something you've never done before,
it's always good to have a guy you trust.
You know he knows what he's doing.
Let's go for a ride.
♪♪♪
Scoot on over there beside me, copilot.
-All right.
Copilot? Hey, I like the way that sounds.
We're ready for takeoff.
What's our altitude?
-Right now only about 300 feet above the ground;
above sea level about 2,700 feet.
Up ahead of us is Lake Mead, one of the largest
man-made reservoirs on the planet.
That was created back when they built Hoover Dam,
which we'll see here in a few seconds.
The lake is really popular for recreation:
Swimming, fishing, sailing, you name it.
Lake Mead was constructed
as a byproduct of the Hoover Dam,
and water actually flows through the Grand Canyon
in order to get there.
You'll see the Hoover Dam up here to the left
behind this bridge coming into view in a few seconds.
It was completed in 1935, and it's about
220 meters tall, about 730 feet high.
It's a hydroelectric dam.
The way that works is water will flow through the dam
and spin giant turbines which generate electricity.
During the Great Depression,
the Hoover Dam was instrumental
in putting Nevadans to work, and it served
as a major advancement in American architecture.
Today it attracts tourists from all over the world.
We've been up about two minutes,
and this is breathtaking; it's phenomenal.
Am I seeing different states?
-We're actually in Nevada right now,
and that's Arizona across the river there.
That is the Colorado River down below us.
This is where the river leaves the lake.
It's hard to believe that 20 million years ago,
this temperate river was carving through
and eroding the surrounding rock,
effectively forming the Grand Canyon.
If you look close above the water there
on the high side of the dam,
you can see that white line on the rocks.
We call that the bathtub ring.
That's how high the lake used to be.
It is losing water, the lake,
and they estimate in about seven years,
there won't be enough water in the lake
to power the dam.
You can see how large it used to be
if you look out there.
You see those dark little hills out in the valley?
The lake shore used to go the whole way
to the bottom of those.
The last time the lake was full was 1983.
California, New Mexico and Nevada
depend on Lake Mead for water.
Seeing the depletion from up here
makes it clear that we need to conserve it.
All right. Here's the big question:
How did this thing get formed?
-There's a few different arguments,
but the most widely accepted theory
is the erosion theory where the Colorado River
cut down through the land over the millennia
along with the wind whipping away at the walls.
They estimate the canyon
to be about 17 million years old,
and it was formed solely from erosion
from the river and wind.
That is the most widely accepted theory.
Layers of the canyon date back to over
1.8 billion years ago.
That's the pale pink layer you see on the bottom.
You can identify the age of each layer by its color.
It's interesting how the rock formations
have different colors, like that orange.
-Yeah, a lot of iron minerals
in the soil gives it the red color.
That red wall limestone formed there
340 million years ago.
You can drive through it,
have that experience maybe with your family,
but until you've done this,
you haven't really seen its magnificence
in a way that is breathtaking.
-Yeah, it's really, really breathtaking.
♪♪♪
I'm just going to make our descent here.
Time for us to touch down.
I'm going to give this to you,
and I'm going to do some exploring.
-All right. Enjoy it. -Thanks.
♪♪♪
Chris, I was just checking out the river
and the walls, the height of the walls,
you can't stop looking at them.
-Mind blowing, right?
I like to point out the layers for everyone.
It's one of the best places on the entire planet
where the Earth's crust is in layers like this,
so paleontologists and geologists
come from all over to study it.
-What do you take from this?
-I'm out here every day,
and I try to remind myself how fortunate I am.
I try not to take it for granted.
Everyday there's something new,
and I get to show people from all over the world
the Grand Canyon,
one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
I'm very fortunate, and I love it.
-That's what I find about great experiences
is the first thing you want to do is share it.
You're a great tour guide.
You took me to the perfect spot.
I just want to thank you for this, Chris.
♪♪♪
I can't stop looking at it.
Part of my job description
is to relay an experience like this to you,
but sometimes words just fail.
So you and I are going to make an agreement:
You're going to come here,
and you're going to do this.
You're going to put down
your sunglasses and your cellphone.
You won't even try and take pictures,
and you'll just soak the whole thing in.
You're going to find an experience that's so good,
so great, so profound, it'll change you forever.