This land is as remorseless as it is beautiful. Our efforts to modernize and educate can only change those who visit. They cannot change the terrain itself. It stands tall, immutable to all human influences. Gneiss, schist and limestone bare themselves before the awed eyes of tourists and to the elements. We flock to it by the thousands, snapping pictures, taking tours, hiking or rafting. It is famous, a celebrity, and it doesn’t care. We are mere phantoms, coming and going as it has seen people come and go over thousands of years.
It is a great rip in fabric of the earth, a giant furrow slashed across the surface, a testament to the power of water in flood. Was it painful, having that much of you ripped away? To lose the solid ground you thought you stood upon? There are some things time can never heal.
The Colorado River surges a mile straight down from my feet, a tiny ribbon of blue winding its way for miles and miles through the heat, chipping away at the rock walls as it goes.
It is a pleasant 75 degrees where I stand on the edge of the North Rim, camera dangling uselessly. No photograph can do this place justice. It’s too vast, too old, too personal to violate with a picture.
The canyon floor is at least twenty degrees hotter than it is up here. This is something the rangers try to get everyone determined to hike the winding 11 mile trail down to the floor to understand. It’s hotter, bring two gallons of water per person, start around four a.m., spend the night in the canyon, start hiking back up around four a.m. Bring water. Hike together. Bring water. People still die here. Because they don’t listen to the rangers, because they don’t read the posters that tell stories of hikers who didn’t bring water and have returned to the dust from which they came. And still, people think they are invincible, nothing bad will happen to them. Then they slowly go out of their minds, begin seeing things that aren’t there and lay down to rest. They never get up again.
All the while, the canyon watches.
The sun dips, touching the tip of the limestone rim. Blazes of color ink the clouds and the path at my feet is illuminated in a brief flash of light. I should have hiked out then, while I saw clearly the way I should go. Instead, I waited until twilight fell and stumbled my way out by flashlight, seeing only one step ahead of me, trying to flee the giant rip in my life, but never knowing quite which way to turn.
Wow, I love that beginning. It pulled me right in. This is such a strong piece. I loved it.
ReplyDeleteI think my favorite part was the repeated "bring water" in that 4th paragraph, and your insistence that it isn't the canyon's fault that people die. The canyon is what it is, and it will be here long after those people have stopped moving. It will just watch. Such good personification!
ReplyDelete"People die here."
ReplyDeleteYou have my attention! Seriously, I couldn't stop reading after a line like that! This is a really great post. I think it's been my favorite from you so far. There is something incredibly frightening about this place, no matter how beautiful it is. I feel the earth's warning, but I feel your confusion, too. This also stood out to me:
"Was it painful, having that much of you ripped away? To lose the solid ground you thought you stood upon? There are some things time can never heal. "
At first, I think you're speaking to the earth. Then, you're talking to the person who once stood there. Is that correct?
I love how you personify the land in a way that doesn't feel overbearing (and so humanly authoritative). Particularly, "It's famous, it's a celebrity, and it doesn't care" and "All the while the canyon watches" give off such a feeling of ambivalence that I, personally, feel is likely true of nature. You depicted the grandeur and the draw as well as the harshness and the danger of nature without getting all Emersonian or Jack London-y (respectively) on us.
ReplyDeleteYour voice here is very clear; the narrative is mature and informed to the point that I trust all you've said here rather willingly; and I've never been there before. Harking back to one of the themes we explored very early on in the semester, I feel as though I can understand an intimacy with this place without ever having seen it or touched it for myself. Well done.
This is gorgeous! Such a well-developed piece! I love the darkness, the ambivalence, as Jen has called it, that you showcase on the part of nature here.
ReplyDeleteThere are some especially fantastic moments here: the second paragraph, calling the canyon a rip, including the rhetorical questions-- fabulous! And your word choices in the paragraph with the camera-- "uselessly," "violate with a picture"-- really bring out the tone of the piece. And, the little interlude about the water and your own trip away from the canyon bring out that creepy factor. Right up my alley, and very well done!
It's a tough thing, I think, to evoke in a different way such a famous place, one we all at least have a visual sense of even if we've never been there. And you've done a great job here. I paid most attention to the strength of your description as I read, rather than on my understanding of the place you were writing about.
ReplyDelete