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Thoughts on the Grand Canyon - the Easy Way
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People will often identify themselves, or not, as "the outdoors
type." They are, or at least like to think that they are, athletic,
adventurous, on the lookout for the next trail to conquer with their
well-booted feet. I did, and still do, put myself in that category.
So when I took some decidedly non-outdoorsy visitors on a day-trip to
the Grand Canyon this week, I was resigned to having a
less-than-satisfying experience. Sure, we'd stand at the rim, take a
few snapshots, buy a few postcards. But we certainly wouldn't stray
from the flat, paved path along the rim, and that wouldn't really be
experiencing the Canyon. I was so wrong, and so happy to be that way.
The Grand Canyon may well be the most accessible of the world's wonders. At
the place in the park where the main lodges are, a carload of people
can practically park right at the edge of the South Rim, which is
bordered by a wide paved path with excellent interpretive materials and
amazing viewpoints along the way. Little kids, grandmothers in
wheelchairs and spry teenagers were all in the same place, marveling at
the same views, and I have to believe, thinking the same thoughts.
People often say that the Canyon itself defies description, and I'll
leave it up to a real poet to try. But what struck me about this trip,
when for once I wasn't determined to sweat out another mile, or climb
up another rock face, is the way it affects the people who visit. It inspires reverence like no other man-made holy place I've ever encountered.
Even at the point in the Rim trail where the ice cream shops, T-shirt
stores and various lodging facilities converge, and hundreds of people
are milling around, it's oddly, beautifully quiet. Voices are low,
people are polite, even warm and friendly to total strangers. While I
usually go into the wilderness to get away from people, I found
something lovely in sharing that afternoon with a couple hundred others.
At one point, people were pointing excitedly at a Bighorn Sheep,
posing on a nearby outcrop, staring into the chasm as if he, too, was
in awe of it all. As I watched him, then let my gaze travel up and
down cliff walls and across that unbelievable emptiness, I felt an
unmistakable, overwhelming, singular sense of love. Not the feelings of
humility or smallness that some people talk about when confronted with
the hugeness of it all - but love, and the pure and rare understanding of
what it was.
So, rather than charging down North Kaibab trail with 40 pounds on
my back and ice crampons on my boots, I was sitting on a rock wall on
the Rim, kicking my feet over the edge, eating an ice cream cone and
literally loving it all. Not a bad day after all, and I highly
recommend the experience to trail blazers and couch potatoes
alike.
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