<P> According to the San Francisco Herald, in a series of articles run in 1853, Captain Joseph R. Walker in January 1851 with his nephew James T. Walker and six men, traveled up the Colorado River to a point where it joined the Virgin River and continued east into Arizona, traveling along the Grand Canyon and making short exploratory side trips along the way . Walker is reported to have said he wanted to visit the Moqui Indians, as the Hopi were then called by whites . He had met these people briefly in previous years, thought them exceptionally interesting and wanted to become better acquainted . The Herald reporter then stated, "We believe that Captain Joe Walker is the only white man in this country that has ever visited this strange people ." </P> <P> In 1858, John Strong Newberry became probably the first geologist to visit the Grand Canyon . </P> <P> In 1869, Major John Wesley Powell led the first expedition down the canyon . Powell set out to explore the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon . Gathering nine men, four boats and food for 10 months, he set out from Green River, Wyoming on May 24 . Passing through (or portaging around) a series of dangerous rapids, the group passed down the Green River to its confluence with the Colorado River, near present - day Moab, Utah and completed the journey with many hardships through the Grand Canyon on August 13, 1869 . In 1871 Powell first used the term "Grand Canyon"; previously it had been called the "Big Canyon". </P> <P> In 1889, Frank M. Brown wanted to build a railroad along the Colorado River to carry coal . He, his chief engineer Robert Brewster Stanton, and 14 others started to explore the Grand Canyon in poorly designed cedar wood boats, with no life preservers . Brown drowned in an accident near Marble Canyon: Stanton made new boats and proceeded to explore the Colorado all of the way to the Gulf of California . </P>

How many feet above sea level is the bottom of the grand canyon