Into the Great Unknown

 

    It’s zero dark thirty and “Wagon Wheel,” by Old Crow Medicine Show is playing on my iPhone on the nightstand. I hit the snooze button but don’t doze off. We are literally racing darkness as the plan is to get to Mather Point on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in time for sunrise. On the map, the hotel we’re staying in is eight miles out but none of us has ever been there and we don’t exactly know where we’re going.

    After defrosting heavy dew off the windows in the Urban Assault Vehicle, we head north from the village. The road is dark and the pavement wet from last night’s rain. But it isn’t long before we see the bright lights of the entrance fee station, three lanes open with bright green arrows. National Senior Pass and ID in hand, I pull up in lane two and discover there’s no person there, just a machine that takes credit cards. There is no option for pass holders.

    While contemplating what to do, a car pulls up closely behind us, then another behind that. Not wanting to create a jam, I do the only reasonable thing, I just drive off.

    It’s another couple of miles to the parking lots next to the Visitor’s Center for the short walk to Mather Point. It’s still pitch dark as we pull in and park. It’s 44 degrees out and the sky is still awash with stars. Venus holds court high in the east but the horizon there is already revealing that tell-tale top to bottom fade, starting from black overhead, then draping to indigo, to white, to canary and then orange.

    Making our way without artificial light, we pass within a few feet of a 400-pound elk casually grazing next to the concrete walkway.

Photo by Mary Lauzau

    Although the parking lot was nearly empty, there are already several dozen people here, many who have walked over from the many hotels located inside the park. With as many as six million visitors annually, Grand Canyon National Park is second only to Great Smoky Mountains on the list of most popular parks. The Smokys claim around 11 million visits a year but to get that number they have to include all the cars just passing through on three major divided highways. So, in truth, Grand Canyon, which before exploration was know as "The Great Unknown," should be first. By comparison, Acadia ranks 8^th.

    The viewing area at Mather Point sits atop a sandstone arête that juts out from the wall of the canyon. There are multiple levels of viewing platforms and sturdy hand railings all around. That’s a good thing as you could easily fall several thousand feet from this outcrop.

    Over the course of the next hour the sky brightens until the first small crescent of the sun breaks the horizon. That’s a nice image for sure but with everything in silhouette, one sunrise shot looks like another. I hang out on the less-popular west side of the viewing area waiting patiently for the sun’s horizontal rays to begin painting the towering spires and walls of the canyon with its iridescent brush. I am rewarded for my patience.

    

If you walk up to the edge of the Grand Canyon at high noon, the immensity of it hits you like a slap in the face. When you watch it emerge from the predawn protoplasmic darkness it’s another experience entirely. The rays of the sun act like nature’s tour guide first painting the massive cliffs to the east, then the tops of peaks and mesas farther away. Each new spot of brilliance redirects your attention and focus, like a spotlight following the lead ballerina as she twirls across the stage.

    The canyon’s distinctive horizontal bands of red and buff sandstone and limestone soon reveal their distinctive colors. The sense of negative space in the voids created by nearly six million years of erosion is astounding. It takes nearly an hour before the sun’s rays hit the bottom.

    At nearly 2,000 square miles in size, the Grand Canyon is, in fact, larger than the state of Rhode Island. But you when stand in Rhode Island, there’s no way to see it all at once. There are places overlooking the Grand Canyon where you can see how Rhode Island would easily disappear inside.

    We head back to the village of Tusayan for breakfast and then return, joining the mile-long scrum of cars reentering the park midmorning. We present our credentials to an actual person who gives us a map and waves us through, a gesture I conveniently equate to the National Park Service version of a sign of absolution from the Pope for our earlier transgression.

    With many buildings, museums, visitor centers and the like closed due to COVID, we mostly use the shuttle bus system to visit as many viewpoints as possible. None disappoint.

    We return to the hotel right around sunset, phones full of pictures. To the extent that the visit to the Trinity Site distressed our souls, prompting several nights of turbulent dreams, today’s adventure has healed them. Tomorrow we head east, back the 400 miles to Albuquerque. Tonight we rest easy, our spirits restored by the wondrous energy of nature.

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