The Grand Canyon, Beyond Expectations

I reached the Grand Canyon, AZ  late in the evening, after an amazing drive from Palm Springs, CA.  My accommodation for the next two nights was a room in an
authentic log cabin in the national forest on the North Rim.  The rustic cabin, divided into two units with entrances on opposite ends, was one of 100 perched on the edge of the Canyon.  Other than the Great Lodge which anchored them, these cabins represented the only, very limited development in the area.  Unlike the South Rim, where the majority of tourists flock to visit the Canyon, the North Rim feels remote and secluded, a recluse from the world.

I set the alarm for 4:30 am, in order to catch the sun's arrival in the morning.  An ungodly hour by all accounts, and reminiscent of my time in Brooklyn, my first year living in NYC.  I was younger then, and immune to the debilitating effects that a night with only three hours of sleep can have on a person in their late forties.  So, of a after several snoozes, and multiple groans, I dragged myself into a sitting position by 5 am. Which come to think of it, because Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time, was really 4am.  Thank you, Arizona.


The remnants of cloud from storms the previous night, hid most of the light our star normally bathes us in each day, but did not obscure the immense canyon which stretched before me, just steps from my bed.  Like myself, others had come to see first light as well, maybe a dozen people in all.  We each picked our way along a path that ended at a pinnacle from which the canyon dropped away on three sides.  Without words, or more than a polite "good morning smile" exchanged between us, each chose a spot to sit and watch the daylight grow across the immense canyon around us.



Most stared, unblinking, at this true wonder of the world, lost in their own thoughts, or in their own soul. That vision, the moment, that experience transcended what we knew as reality in our own world, and brought into being that which before we may never have considered to be possible or to have even existed at all.  I am giving words to an event for which there are none.


That morning on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, there was silence. A peaceful silence that enveloped 12 people, who had gathered together as strangers to witness the first light of a new day, but left as intimate confidants forever touched by their shared, solitary experience.

I have never felt so alone in, or connected to this world as I did at that moment.

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