The Grand Canyon

The problem with sharing photographs of the Grand Canyon is that they are all beautiful.

I took over seven hundred photos over a few days, and we only visited a few spots on the South Rim: some of Bright Angel trail, Hopi Point, the Abyss, Shoshone Point, Mather Point, Navajo Point, Desert View, and Hermit’s Rest; the sunset photos are all from Yavapai Viewpoint.

The Grand Canyon deserves its name, and anyone who says it is “overrated” is a fool.¹ Yes, Edward Abbey would hate that you can drive around it and park within feet of the gorgeous views. He’s right, but not everyone can walk ten miles or bike around a three-hundred-mile canyon. And they deserve to see it. There are five billion years of geology on display there, the history of the Earth turned into living art, and humans are but a scrim of dried dung on the uppermost level.

Shoshone Point, Bright Angel Trail. Western Bluebird and Mountain Goat

It’s a good thing that it generates millions in revenue, otherwise they might fill it in and build a housing development on it. Popular Mechanics estimated that it would take 1,000 cubic miles of dirt to fill the Grand Canyon, which is three hundred miles long, eighteen wide in places, and one mile deep. It is the second largest canyon on Earth that’s not under the ocean; the Yarlung Tsapo Grand Canyon in Tibet is even deeper, and mostly untouched by humans. That one might be destroyed by a future Chinese dam project. To fill the Grand Canyon in the United States, you would need to bulldoze all the land in Arizona to a depth of fifty feet deep into it, which would be a shame.

Mathers, Hopi, Navajo Point, others. Raven over the Canyon.

We took a Pink Jeep tour to see the sunset, and that was a waste of a few hundred dollars. It’s nothing you can’t do by yourself in a car. But good on them for fleecing us, the United States is a country of grifters, so I can’t blame them for getting the best of me.

Ravens and Bluebirds and Goats oh my!

I am thankful for the stars and celestial objects, especially Luna, Venus, Jupiter, and the Dog Star, who are there even in the blinding lights of human habitation. Oddly enough, we were in Joshua Tree and the Canyon when the Aurora Borealis was in full swing, and we saw neither. I heard you had to look through your phone, which to me sounds like cheating. I saw the lights in the ‘90s when driving back to Minneapolis from a nerd convention in Chicago; green curtains shimmering from the firmament to the highest heavens, the evening gown of the goddess as she sashayed across the universe. Their memory will tide me over until I see them again.

The changing light alters the palette subtly at first, like a mist or a veil settling upon the canyon. Then darkness falls with a wash of rust, sienna and umber.

Sunset at Yavapai Point

I am thankful for family and friends, including online ones. And anyone who isn’t an asshole online, as they have become rarer these days. Everyone is on edge, because they know the uncertainty and chaos will be worse this time. Many are weathering grief, or anxiety over family, health, and livelihoods. All we can do is help one another.

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I am thankful for the ravens and all the birds, for which many humans seem ungrateful. This raven croaked at us by Hermit’s Rest, and no one seemed to notice or care. True, they are common at the canyon and their song is not beautiful, but despite all their chatter, they remain a mystery, because they keep their own counsel. Observing a raven up close is a privilege I will not disrespect with ingratitude.

Someday they may decide to dam the Yarlung Tsapo, or fill in the Grand Canyon. Until then, they are due our awe.

1. I first wrote that they should be forcibly launched into it from the rim level to feed the ravens, but that’s the sort of violent authoritarianism that a brutal government wants to engender in its populace, so I called that back.