The Grandest of Canyons
Many times I have made a trek to visit the Grand Canyon, and each time I am dumbfounded by the spectacle that it is. However, my wife, Julia, had never been to the canyon, yet she so wanted to see it. With that in mind, on a recent business trip to Utah I asked her to join me.
We drove 600 miles through the night from Provo, Utah in order to see the Grand Canyon at first light. But let's not forget Murphy's Law -- there was a snowstorm underway at the canyon. It may sound strange; a snowstorm in Arizona, but at the rims edges the altitude is 7-9,000 feet above sea level.
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It is not that it wasn't beautiful during the snowstorm, quite the opposite. The rim with the fresh snow, smell of pine, and White Tailed Deer everywhere was worth the drive alone, but you could not see inside the canyon . . .at all. This was all that was needed to convince Julia that we were going to be thwarted in our quest to view the canyon together -- she could not have been more disappointed.
In desperation, I drove madly up and down along both canyon rim's for hours looking for blue patches in the sky. I had forced Julia out of the car for what seemed a thousand times to try to see inside the canyon, however she was only to be disappointed again and again.
At this point, in order to have any chance of making our flight in Provo, Utah we had to head back. Defiantly I said to Julia, "I am not going to let this big hole beat me1x" So again, I chased blue patches in the sky. Shortly thereafter, it seemed that I had parked under one such blue patch, yet the canyon was still filled with clouds. At this point, I had to both drag Julia to the viewpoint, AND listen to her call me a belligerent nut.
There we stood at the rim's edge, looking at a dense mass of clouds, shivering from the cold, and facing the reality we were going to miss our plane home. Then something happened. Suddenly, as if god had blown mightily, the clouds inside the canyon whisked away. The veil had been raised on god's most spectacular creation in the same way a proud artist rips off the drapes of his greatest achievement.
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So clear was the canyon that you knew if you put your hand out towards the greenish turquoise of the Colorado River you would feel the cold wetness of the water and the thundering current which had sculpted the land.
In my dozens of visits over three decades I had never seen the canyon as clear as it was at that moment, nor imagined it could be that way1x As people clapped where we stood I became aware of another sound. It was the sound of Julia sobbing uncontrollably. I turned to her and asked what was wrong? She struggled to reply through the rush of tears, "nothing could be more magnificent."
That is what comes to my mind when I think of the Grand one1x1x1x
By David Sloan Photographs courtesy Roy Slovenko of Mammoth Studios, Ltd.
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