After helping him and the other volunteer set up their tables, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Normally I would return to the farm and start churning through our endless to-do list, but Bonny and Logan had gotten almost everything done yesterday. It seemed like I had the day off. I could set up a third table in the mall…
Instead, I got back in my truck and drove west on I-40 out of Flagstaff. I followed the signs north, driving across the brown prairie landscape before it suddenly changed to thick forested terrain. The Kaibab National Forest. It surprised me; I had always pictured the Grand Canyon as being a rocky desert all the way up to the rim.
“Maybe I should have come here long before now,” I muttered.
There was no line at the park entrance since tourist season had ended in October. I paid the thirty-five dollar entrance fee and drove for another five miles. I expected the forest to relent and give way to the canyon, but all I could see were the trees.
Finally I reached the Grand Canyon Visitor Center. There was still no view, and the parking lot was half-full. I parked in the back and found a sign:
MATHER POINT
500 FT
I followed the paved trail in that direction. There were a few tourists walking in the opposite direction, but I craned my neck and looked past them, waiting for the huge canyon that I expected to appear. Up ahead was a railing but there was still no view of the canyon. Just the grey winter sky and—
I reached the railing and froze.
In the distance, maybe a few hundred feet away, was a rocky ridge. Except it wasn’t a few hundred feet away. The trees were tiny dots. It was miles away. My brain struggled to process what I was looking at. It didn’t look real.
Then I looked down.
And down.
And down.
There were hundreds of layers in the canyon wall. Like a painting; reddish on the top, segueing into lighter oranges and yellows, faded browns and dots of black where shadows stretched. Down and down the canyon stretched until finally I saw what looked like the bottom covered with greenish-brown plants, thousands of feet below. But it wasn’t the bottom because I couldn’t see the Colorado River. It went even deeper but I couldn’t see it from this angle.
My mind tried to conjure up comparisons to make sense of what I was looking at. I looked up the height of the statue of liberty on my phone. Three hundred feet. A placard to my right claimed the canyon was six thousand feet deep. Over a mile deep.
“Ten statues of liberty stacked up would only be half as deep,” I said out loud.
Part of my stomach liquefied at the sight of something so unbelievable. My jaw hung open and I was speechless. For several minutes it was like my brain was trying to reboot itself. All I could do was stare in wonder.
I had no idea.
I looked up again. The far side, the north rim, was eighteen miles away. Had I ever gazed at something that far away in my life?
I might have stood there staring at the endless canyon for hours if not for the familiar voice I heard. The voice drifted through the trees to my left, upbeat and helpful. I peeled my eyes away from the view and followed the paved trail along the rim until I came to a small clearing with a jutting viewpoint.
Harper stood in front of a group of European tourists. I admired the way he looked in his Park Ranger uniform: olive-colored pants, a fitted grey dress shirt, a flat-brimmed hat that covered his red hair, and a dark jacket.
“For thousands of years, the area around the canyon and the Kaibab National Forest has been inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and the surrounding network of caves. The Pueblo people specifically considered the Grand Canyon to be a holy site, and they made yearly pilgrimages to it. Aside from the Pueblo, a number of distinct cultures have lived in the canyon area—such as the Cohonina, and the modern-day Yuman and Havasupai.”
I stayed a respectable distance away while listening to him explain the history of the canyon to the tourists. He was friendly and knowledgeable. I could hear the passion in his voice when he answered their questions. Finally they said goodbye and continued along the rim trail.