MICHAEL QUINN, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
In January 1979, I took my first backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon. All of my gear was borrowed, except for my boots. Aside from initiating a lifelong love for the canyon and the wilderness, there were two memorable events from that first trip.
The first began when we arrived at Mather Campground after dark and in the snow. The next morning, under blue skies, we rushed to the rim for our first view and… no canyon. Inversion had filled the canyon with clouds nearly up to the rim. As we descended, the clouds opened to reveal the majesty of the canyon.
On our last morning we woke up at Hermit Camp to a helicopter evacuation of a hiker who had fallen while scrambling the evening before, likely breaking his back. The first trip held it all: startling beauty, the promise that the canyon would present something unique every time I’d go, and a very clear object lesson — respect the canyon, prepare, and be smart.
Two years later, excited to return and now well-equipped, I brought my girlfriend. The canyon brought foul weather that only got worse, so we cut the trip short and ascended from Indian Garden into falling snow. As we passed Three-Mile Resthouse, we saw a tall wrangler in a yellow slicker rigging up a team of five mules with troughs used for hauling excess trail-work soil. Several switchbacks later we heard someone yelling, "Stop dem mules, stop dem mules!" Looking down through the white, about five switchbacks below, we saw the wrangler, yellow slicker billowing, chasing five tethered mules up the trail. Four switchbacks, three switchbacks... He was still yelling, so I shouted back, "How do I stop them? What do I do?"
"Just jump out in front of ‘em and wave your arms," he replied.
We were at a wide place in the trail and luckily there was room for my girlfriend to jump out of the way. Two switchbacks… I looked for a place I could dive to if they didn’t stop, and finally they were upon us! I jumped out and waved my arms; like I had thrown a switch, they stopped. All five turned towards the outside of the trail and hung their heads, as if they’d been standing there all day.
About 30 seconds later, the wrangler, out of breath, strode up to the first mule, grabbed the lead, and gave her a whip on the nose. "Damn it, Mary!" he shouted. Then, to me, "Thanks."
He turned to walk back down the trail, mules in tow. I had to ask. "Ah, wait, what do you think spooked them?"
"Probably the yeller slicker."
David Worton, San Francisco, California
AMY S. MARTIN
I fell in love with the boy and the canyon simultaneously. So much so that I can barely imagine experiencing one without the other. Lounging on the raft, in awe of the landscape that was further engulfing us with every passing mile, I could look at his shoulders all day, in the same way I could gaze at the broad shoulders of the land towering over our little river world. The topography of the two began to blend as his skin bronzed and reflected the colors of the towering walls.
There is a place where the Grand Canyon narrows dramatically and the Colorado River is at its deepest. From the yellow underbelly of our rubber ducky raft to the lightless, true bottom of the canyon, the river is 85 feet deep. We reached this pinch point late in the day, and the light was soft as it danced across the dark surface of the water.
We drifted through this slot in silence, quieted by the sudden stillness of the river.
“Here, can you row for a sec?” He pushed the oars into my hands, stood on the cooler, and made a flying leap off the raft and into the river. Before I even had time to change positions so I could row, he had already made it to the canyon wall and started to climb. Laughter bubbled out of me like the water that swirled and bubbled up out of the canyon depths. In another moment he was up to a ledge 15 feet high and diving back into the river, then swimming back to the raft as I rowed slowly against the current so as not to drift away.
For the first week that we were moving through the canyon, the moon was all but full. Around midnight, it would crest the canyon’s rim and its glistening light bounced, prismlike, from wall-to-wall, shining down on us like a spotlight, often so intense that it would wake me up and I would turn over, pulling my sleeping bag up to cover my face. It is appropriate of the vastness of this place that even the night is punctuated by light.
I always travel with a journal and a set of watercolor paints, but I found it hard to do much of either on our float. I would sit by the water’s edge in the evening with the paints laid out on my lap, staring at the river and trying to decide with which color to start. Using my hands, I would crop my vision so that all I could see was a little window of the water’s surface. But even with such a narrow focus, I couldn’t define one specific color of the water.
Looking at the canyon is not just a view but a feeling, perhaps a little like falling in love with a person. Each aspect of it is in some ways defined by what it is not. The frigid water and baking sun, the long stretches of glassy green river punctuated by violent hydraulics. Deep shadows that climb and then descend the canyon walls each day, chased away by the warmth of the desert light. I have never experienced a place that was so defined by its contrasts.
We spent an afternoon hiking into the wash above Deer Creek Falls. The light was fading and the rest of our party turned around, but we kept on, running the undulating, twisting trail through the tamaracks, our eyes on the canyon crest above whenever we could spare a moment to glance away from our feet. Edward Abbey once said about moments like this: "This is a remote place indeed, far from the center of the world, far away from all that’s going on. Or is it? Who says so? Wherever two human beings are alive, together, and happy, there is the center of the world. You out there, brother, sister, you too live in the center of the world, no matter where or what you think you are."
That boy drifted in and out of my life after that trip, mostly just as a friend. But I am thankful for the light in him that the canyon helped me see. Because, of course, the love I found for the world and for myself within those eternal walls is something that will stay with me forever, and, I can’t help but believe, bring me back again and again.
Gabrielle Markel, Girdwood, Alaska
My first experience with the Grand Canyon was filled with high expectations that were not disappointed, but my second visit to the canyon shook me to the core.
I had moved to Flagstaff for an interim ministry year, and on an unexpected free day, escaped to the canyon for a quick break from moving. As I joined the crowd at the rim, something came over me that sent me scrambling for a rock to grab onto to steady my balance. That’s when it caught me — the sob coming from so deep within my chest that I could barely breathe. Mystified, I spent the rest of the day along the South Rim, leaving only after the sun finally set and a full moon rose. I had no idea what had happened, only that I would be extending my time in northern Arizona in order to include a part-time sabbatical at the canyon.
This part-time sabbatical brought forth a book, "Inner Canyon, Where Deep Time Meets Sacred Space." That could have been the end of our relationship, but it turned out to be just the beginning. Since then, every trip to the canyon has answered a life question I wasn’t even aware I was pondering. For instance, while sitting on a favorite rock partway down the Grandview Trail, I heard the canyon tell me, as clearly as if I were sitting across the table from a friend, that I was to retire from ministry and resume my first passion of writing.
And so I did.
Not long after that, a walk among a crop of Indian paintbrush near Hermits Rest confirmed that it was time to leave a cherished relationship. Most recently, the entire outline of a forthcoming book on climate change revealed itself at a favorite rest stop. Now that I am nearing 75, I have questions about aging. I suspect the canyon will have answers for me, but I’m not sure I’m ready for them just yet.
As soon as I can muster the courage, I’ll drive the five hours from Las Vegas….
Gail Collins-Ranadive, Las Vegas, Nevada
I believe there is such a thing as a "geography of the soul," or a place on the planet where a person feels inherently at home. Not everyone is fortunate enough to find that place, but my place is definitely the Grand Canyon.
When I first visited, as a 13-year-old in 1973, I decided I wanted to become a park ranger. I eventually became a Student Conservation Association volunteer naturalist on the South Rim. Then I got involved with the guiding community and eventually lived on the river for six months in 1983 as a part of the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies.
I was fortunate enough to work as the Grand Canyon Trust's director of government affairs in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1990s.
I’ve also had the chance to raft the Colorado River through the canyon eight times with Arizona Raft Adventures, once on a Trust trip in May 2013, and most recently in 2018.
Although I live far from the canyon now, it is still my touchstone and where I find peace in this world.
Julie Galton, Oakton, Virginia
