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Celebrating the Grand Canyon | page 1, 2
From the rim, the canyon looks impenetrable. You stare out and see infinite layerings of sediment and gradations of color. You see shadows the height of skyscrapers and a shining sliver of water incomprehensibly far below. But then you descend into the canyon. You peer down into the unimaginable depths and you begin to walk. You step around fist-sized rocks and you feel your day-pack on your shoulders; your boots kick up streaks of red earth and you taste the dust in your mouth. The sun beats on your head and you stop to take a swig of water; you touch the golden-red-orange rock wall beside you and think how many hundreds -- no thousands; no, tens of thousands -- of sunrises have warmed the rocks you now touch. Suddenly the canyon takes on an intimacy and an immediacy; a physical connection is forged. And this connection breeds other connections. You follow the winging trails of crows and hawks, brush past hardy trees and around shin-scraping boulders, watch as the trail you're walking on switchbacks and switchbacks and switchbacks far below you into the canyon, where it becomes a minute scratch on the surface of the earth. Then it disappears over a cliff, and you realize that somewhere far below are the roiling waters of the Colorado River and the green, serene surroundings of Phantom Ranch, where hardy souls can spend a night on the floor of the canyon, among rocks billions of years older than the rock on which you tread. Travelers' Tales Guides: Grand Canyon Billions of years. How can you possibly comprehend such a fact? We walked for an hour and a half, Jenny and Jeremy again impatiently leading the way, and on our way down we met teenagers carrying huge backpacks puffing up the trail; they had left Phantom Ranch early that morning. A night at Phantom Ranch was tempting -- what would it be like on the canyon floor? -- but for this trip it was enough to walk down for an hour and a half. That gave us a taste of the canyon -- the dry dusty feeling that develops in your mouth, the incessant sun beating on your head and shoulders and legs, reflecting off the hard-baked rock, the endlessly shifting vistas of the canyon's walls, the eye-relieving patches of green trees and scrub brush, the camera-defying distances and shades of color and shadow. Even this was so humbling, so stirring, that when we finally scrambled back onto the rim and surveyed the all-embracing, all-encompassing earth-womb from which we had emerged, my wife and I both had tears in our eyes. The Grand Canyon reveals secrets -- and poses questions -- that are best conveyed without words. It is one of the planet's rare places that bless you, that leave you somehow smaller and bigger than you were before you came, aware of the myriad insignificances that make up our lives -- and of the vital significance of every one. All we can do with such places is celebrate them -- as the new Travelers' Tales book so beautifully does.
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