What year did the first person see the grand canyon?

Answer 1

Impossible to know, as humans first saw the Grand Canyon over 10,000 years ago and we have no record of who was the first OR when it was first seen.

The first European to see it did so in 1540.

Answer 2

Approximately 12,000 years ago, when it was discovered.

The first Europeans came many millenia later, in 1540, when Captain Garcia Lopez de Cardenas found The Canyon by accident. Other Europeans stumbled upon it over the years.

Joseph Ives led a scientific, mining survey expedition into the area in 1857, and declared this about The Canyon: "The region last explored is, of course, altogether valueless. It can be approached only from the south, and after entering it there is nothing to do but to leave. Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality. It seem intended by nature that the Colorado River[sic], along the greater portions of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed."