Grand Canyon

Cutaway illustration of the Colorado River at Lees Ferry with a USGS streamgage station on the bank, satellite beaming its 15-minute stage readings skyward, and a labeled rating curve floating beside the channel

River Gauges: The Boxes That Watch the Colorado River

How USGS streamgages, sediment sensors, sandbar cameras, and flood alerts track the dam-controlled Colorado River.

Cutaway illustration of Roaring Springs showing the cave intake, pumphouse, and pipe running down into Bright Angel Canyon

Roaring Springs: the Spring That Ran the Whole Park's Water

A North Rim spring that supplied all of Grand Canyon’s piped water for decades, staffed by a live-in caretaker for 33 years, now off-limits and mid-rebuild.

Tiny purple-flowered milk-vetch mats grow in shallow limestone cracks behind a protective fence near a public canyon overlook.

Sentry milk-vetch: the protected ground at the Grand Canyon rim

Why a South Rim plant area is closed, how parking-lot removal aided restoration, and why old population figures and recovery targets mislead.

Labeled cutaway map-style illustration of the Grand Canyon South Rim showing paved public highways alongside a maze of gated dirt fire roads behind locked gates

Service Roads and Restricted Government Roads of the Grand Canyon

Behind the two public highways sits a second network of gated fire roads, firing-range roads and wilderness closures. What’s shut, to whom, and why.

Illustrated cutaway of a river-mile marker on a sandy creek-mouth beach next to faint ghosted ruins of an old cable crossing and orchard rows on the far bank

Shinumo Creek: A 100-Yard Camping Rule Over a Torn-Down River Crossing

A narrow modern setback rule sits where William Bass ran a cable crossing and orchard that completed the canyon’s first rim-to-rim trail.

Cutaway illustration of a fenced firing range on the South Rim with a closed gate, warning signage, and a distant ranger silhouette on the firing line

South Rim Firing Range — Why It's Closed Around the Clock

A fenced range and access road on the South Rim, closed to the public at all hours so rangers can train and qualify on firearms without endangering visitors.

Labeled cutaway illustration of a compressed natural gas shuttle bus at a South Rim stop next to a fenced dispatch compound with a fuel tank and maintenance bay

South Rim shuttles: the nation's second-busiest park transit system

7.6 million riders a year, one contractor since 2000, and a bus compound fenced off from the very visitors it moves.

Labeled cutaway illustration of the South Rim wastewater treatment plant showing screening, aeration, clarifier, and filtration stages with water splitting three ways at the end

South Rim Wastewater Treatment Plant — process, lagoons, and a 2025 PFAS finding

The South Rim’s fenced 1972 wastewater plant, its lagoons, and a 2025 USGS study that traced PFAS and drugs from its effluent into a nearby spring.

Cutaway illustration of two fenced steel water tanks near Trailer Village on the Grand Canyon South Rim, with labeled pipes showing water arriving from the Transcanyon Waterline and flowing out to a treatment plant

South Rim Water Tanks: Storage, Stage 4, and the 2026 Water Emergency

Two fenced tanks near Trailer Village hold all the South Rim’s water. In 2025-2026 they ran low four separate times.

Illustrated creek entering a larger river, with distinct day-visit and backpacker camping panels and no route markings

Tapeats Creek: Day Visits, Designated Camps and the River Rule

Tapeats Creek is open for river-trip day visits, but not river-trip camping at the confluence. Backpacker sites and a separate Thunder River camping closure follow different rules.