Karen Halverson Photographs

DOWNSTREAM :: Exploring the Colorado River

The Colorado River rises in the Never Summer Range northwest of Denver. The Green River rises in the Wind River Range in western Wyoming. The two rivers converge in southern Utah to form the lower Colorado. Water in the Colorado River system flows 1700 miles and drops 11,000 feet before the river dries up in northern Mexico. Six major dams control and divert the river’s flow.

The Colorado is no longer a wild thing. It’s a human construct, a pipeline. Except near the sources, neither the Green nor the Colorado flows free. Colorado River water is entirely used up before reaching the delta of its own making. The West depends for its life on Colorado River water and reclamation is a remarkable feat. But there has been a heavy price. Hundreds of square miles of desert and canyon country now lie buried beneath giant reservoirs.

Downsteam chronicles my exploration of the mainstem Colorado -- the mountainous reaches, the rushing canyon waters, the stilled reservoirs, and the diminished waters of the lower river. Sometimes I find beauty, sometimes desecration, often a perplexing and absurd combination.



1. Lodore Canyon Utah/Colorado	2. Hite Crossing Lake Powell, Utah	3. Below Imperial Dam on the Arizona Side



4. Hite Crossing Lake Powell, Utah	5. Lake Havasu, California/Arizona



6. Browns Park, Colorado	7. Fontenelle Reservoir, Wyoming	8. Below Hoover Dam Arizona/Nevada



9. Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Wyoming	10. Goosenecks Colorado/Utah	11. Goosenecks Colorado/Utah