Musings from Red Rock Country: A Journey to The Grand
- Nicole
- Oct 13, 2020
- 5 min read
“There is something ominous about a swift river, and something thrilling about a river of any kind. The nearest upstream bend is a gate out of mystery, the nearest downstream bend a door to further mystery.”~ Edward Abbey, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
The muddy water rushed through the heart of the canyon creating waves sometimes four to five feet deep. The walls, cut deep from eons of wind and rain creating a canyon so tall and desolate that few will experience it from its heart.
I stand on the plateau, my family's bags draped in black garbage bags in hopes of keeping them dry as I watch a blackened storm cloud bubble up in the distance against the azure blue sky. The golden hues of the canyon seem to soften as the storm rolls in, and the heat of the arid desert cools if only for a moment. A chill rushed through my body as I reached for my tattered and well-loved flannel shirt for warmth.
We had walked several miles down into the depths of the canyon. The trail was wide with the occasional sagebrush or boulder taking its place boldly in the midst of the stark canyon.
We sang songs and chased lizards, always making sure to stay hydrated, and when we heard the rumbling of the mule train in the distance, we quickly scurried to the wall as if to bolt ourselves to it for our protection.
The mules – at least ten per train – galloped past us at breakneck speeds, the dirt swirled in the air, leaving us covered in dusty powder as if we were celebrating the Holi Festival, signifying the arrival of something new.
“What kind of mother takes her children to the bottom of the Grand Canyon?”
My children were 13, 10, and 8 years young at the time and were excited to be on such a grand adventure that was months in the making.
Strangers and friends alike repeatedly asked me, “What kind of mother takes her children to the bottom of the Grand Canyon?” Was it that much of an oddity that I wanted my children to experience an untouched world?
A place where few people travel?
A place where nature and wild still collide and yet find peace with one another?
I didn’t think so, but the unsolicited comments kept rolling in, much like a rock careening down the canyon. My favorite comment, perhaps, was from a scoutmaster explaining to me that he “didn’t even take boys on hikes that long until they were well into their teens; so what was I thinking taking two girls?”
He was sure my son would be fine, but my girls? In true Edward Abbey fashion, all I could think was that he wished for our trials to be “crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous leading [us] to the most amazing view[s].”
And so, we went despite my uneasiness.
"Truth be told, those naysayers had weaseled their way into my head."
Truth be told, those naysayers had weaseled their way into my head. Sure, I had purchased the best hiking boots and gear money could buy, and we carried more water than we could drink on that journey, but it was hot, dry, and I was way out of my comfort zone.
The rest of my family, my cousins and aunts, had walked ahead of us, and no,w as dusk slowly made her way into the canyon, shadows from the smallest pebble or bush appeared high up on the canyon walls -walls taller than the Empire State Building- a realization that it was just me, my three children, and the canyon. The Grand Canyon.
Now, decades later, I find myself on a bench just outside the back doors of the Visitors Center at the North Rim. The blistering sun feels hot on my skin and beads of sweat trickle down my spine.
Leaning back in my chair I rest my feet on the stone wall built by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933, a huge undertaking at best.
On the South Rim, if you look closely at the wall, you will find a stone, shaped like a heart, installed by a CCC worker in 1935 for his Harvey Girl Sweetheart (a hotel waitress). Legend says they were married in that very spot a few years later.
Pondering this love story, I took a drink from my water bottle and then raised the bottle over my head, pouring it out, sending chills down my spine, leaving me refreshed from my day hike along the edge of the canyon rim.
Can You Find Matrimony Rock?
As I sat there staring into the abyss of the grandest canyon in the world, the air seemed to once again soften with clouds tumbling in from the distance, and in this rare weather phenomenon, fog began to fill the canyon, stopping just shy of the rim’s edge. The clouds, fluffy and frothy in appearance, gave an illusion that you could simply walk across them to the other side of the canyon.
Air temperatures typically cool as it moves higher into the Earth's atmosphere; yet during one of these rare inversion events, “a layer of warm air traps cool air and moisture closer to the ground, preventing it from dissipating as it normally would, resulting in a total cloud inversion. It is said to be such a rarity that most people don’t ever see it in their lifetime.
I walked back inside the visitor’s center past the bronze statue of Brighty, a most legendary burro, stroking his nose for luck, and I turned the corner into the restaurant, where I stopped in my tracks.
That moment hung in the air much like the fog in the canyon, and I recalled my first trip to the Grand, where I sat in the chair at the corner table by the window as a child, staring into the deep void of land, when suddenly or perhaps not so suddenly the clouds rolled and tumbled into the canyon filling it with marshmallow clouds.
My mother seemed giddy at the moment, my dad took photos, and then we just sat together staring out the window, sipping our hot chocolate. I didn’t realize it at the time what a rare event I was privy to see; neither did my parents, but it was one of those moments where the canyon etched itself into your memory, never to be forgotten.
“You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths”
~John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell said, “You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths,” and even then, you may not fully see it at all. For it is rare, wild, and much of it is untouched. Unexplored even. For it is the Grand Canyon." Fully wild and in the words of Wallace Stegner, “we simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”
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