View of the Grand Canyon, Arizona, taken from Mather Point on the southern rim of the canyon. The Grand Canyon on the Colorado River is a spectacular natural monument to the forces of uplifting & erosion. At its greatest width it measures 28 kilometres from rim to rim, with a depth of 1737 metres. The North Rim, visible in this view, is about 300 metres higher than the South Rim. Until 1963, when a dam was built upstream of the Grand Canyon at Glen Canyon, the load of suspended solids in the river could exceed 27 million tonnes per day in times of heavy flooding.