It’s true what they say about the Grand Canyon. But beyond being grand, it’s a landscape so vast that it truly raises questions. Its towering mountains, gaping plateaus and sheer cliffs each seem to belong to a world untouched by man. To this day, it’s hard for me to imagine that human feet have ever touched down on more than a few piddly percentage points of the canyon that sprawls out as far as the eye can see.
How many Native Americans and explorers must have come across this forbidding landscape and put their face to their palms in utter defeat? Even considering that there were once people tasked with crossing those colossal chasms takes an olympian feat of imagination.
But luckily, it was in the 21st century that my family and I stumbled onto the Grand Canyon. Unluckily, it was still before the advent of smartphones with 4K cameras, but alas. I could listen to the music on my iPhone 4 with my pre-bluetooth headphones as my parents tried to make sense of the lumbering GPS module that teetered across the dashboard of our rental car. At those altitudes, though, connections were spotty.
“I still think you missed the turn,” my mom pointed out for the fifth time.
“It’s just a little further along this road I think,” my dad replied with something short of confidence.
“R-e-c-a-l-a-c-a-l-c-u-l-a-t-i-n-g,” croaked the GPS, in what sounded like a combination of android, gibberish and bad American Chinese. Even when it had good service, it rang of a racist SNL skit run through an early speech-to-text program. But chugging up the switchbacks that led toward the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, it could hardly tell Burger King from the Colorado River.
The earth around us appeared to be badly scorched. Whether it was a controlled burn or a horrific forest fire never became clear.
“I’m telling you, it’s back that way,” my mom pressed.
“Please. You’re not making this any easier. Just let me concentrate,” my dad pleaded, looking hopefully toward the struggling navigation machine beside him.
“R-e-c-a-l-a-c-a-l-c-u-l-a-t-i-n-g,” it volunteered again unhelpfully.
It was under these conditions that we arrived at the Grand Canyon. My dad was sweaty, my mom argumentative, and I was trying to drown out their conversation as I began experiencing back pain for the first time in my life. Our drive through the Midwest had been a trying test of patience for all of us.
But after another fifteen minutes of heated back and forth, the gargantuan fissure within the earth came into view. I unfastened my seatbelt, disengaged my headphones, shot up from my car seat, and planted my face firmly against the window.
Behind the thin wisps and crisps of these high-altitude trees was a violent, churning, chasmic sea consisting of every imaginable shade of orange.
Once we were out of the car, it was clear we were high above the earth. The air was sparse. It smelled of pines and sounded like silence. The hushed echoes of fleeting conversations came and left. Even the faint chirping of birds would disappear for inordinate lengths of time.
A gentle flashing of lightning could be seen in the distance. In other parts of the canyon, the heavens had already opened and water could be seen cascading peacefully down. It drenched the far corners of the desiccated landscape as we remained dry. The scope of the storm clouds was difficult to exaggerate, but from this vantage point, the thick body of rain falling from it appeared frozen and serene. There was an eerie stillness to the distant downpour. The rain all seemed to act as one single body, hovering over the canyon in contemplation.
If there was such thing as civilization somewhere beyond these worn, jagged walls and storm clouds, there was no making it out.
To look out at an ocean is one thing, but to consider something so massive being conveniently housed within the borders of a country is unthinkable. The scale is hard to comprehend.
So we meandered along the vertigo-inducing trails that wound pathetically along its outermost outskirts. But I felt fearless. I’m not sure when my fear of heights first began exactly, but I think it was around the time I grew to understand that actions had consequences. So my late teens.
At 15 years old, I still had shockingly little appreciation for the seemingly endless fall that awaited me if I should step a foot or two out of line. But my parents were all too aware.
“Watch out for lightning,” a sign warned as I scoffed. But my parents looked toward the gradually graying sky with a hint of concern.
As they walked tentatively along the delicately traced pathway, carefully watching each of their footsteps, I leapt and bound over the rocks that felt as though they were simply made for climbing. After a few minutes, I found a personal little cliff to stand atop. And as I stood there, a few things happened.
First, I felt a godly sort of energy overcome me. The wind was in my hair and I was alone on top of the world. Second, a bee began buzzing around me, boisterously reminding me I wasn’t so alone after all. I teetered in place, but shuttered at the length of the fall before me.
Third, The godly energy coursing through my veins caused my hair to stand on end. It started subtly. Within seconds, though, every hair on my body was standing straight toward the ominous storm clouds twirling above me.
“BEN!!! GET DOWN FROM THERE!” yelled my mom with a protective, maternal rage.
“But this is so cool!” I shot back, feeling the closest I’d ever feel to a real-life superhero.
“Ben! Your hair’s standing up! You should probably get down in case those lightning warnings were anything serious,” my dad added, trying to muster a measured tone as he concealed his apoplexy.
At his request, but still in no particular hurry, I climbed back down from my personal little cliff. My hair returned to my body, and the energy that had coursed through my veins floated off free into the convulsing sky.
It was hours later that we learned just how serious my predicament was.
When speaking with one of the park rangers, she explained, “if your hair EVER stands up at these elevations, duck and find cover immediately because you’re about to be struck by lightning.” Her matter-of-fact tone was disarming and the years of experience on her face sold her conviction.
She went on to share stories of the Grand Canyon visitors who hadn’t been as lucky as I was. “Last year, a young man from California wasn’t as fortunate as you,” she murmured, looking out towards the vast expanse of monsoon storm clouds bearing down on the canyon. She rested her hands thoughtfully in the pockets of her uniform and sighed humbly and reverently.
I spent the rest of the day a little less daringly. I thought contemplatively about what would have happened if I was barbecued that afternoon. But fortunately, on that day, I was spared from Zeus’s wrath.
Beautiful writing, Ben: descriptive, evocative and poetic.