As I drove closer to the Canyon, my heart began to sink as clouds of fog became thicker and thicker as I ascended. By the time I got to the entrance to the park, I could barely see ten feet in front of me. Even when I got to the edge of a lookout, I couldn’t see much of anything over the precipice.
I decided to keep on driving through the park in hopes that the clouds would clear. I pulled into one viewing area and parked, seeing just more fog over the cliff after I peeked over the edge. But as suddenly the clouds began to thin, I could see a brilliant turquoise ribbon so far in the distance and so far beneath me that it was hard to believe.
Unable to form any thoughts, I just decided to draw.
As I drew, more and more of the fog lifted, revealing farther and father, immense layers of geologic time, carved by the Colorado River, so frail a trickle to have scarred such an immense valley into mountains. Patterns of stone felt woven into the canyon walls, as if by centuries of awe and contemplation from a patchwork of people unable to comprehend its scale.
Farther along the Canyon rim, I found a spot to watch the sunset. I saw the last embers of the sun unite the millennia of stone with a single shadow, until the only light came from the millions of stars and the Milky Way above.
The next day, I went out to hike into the Canyon. The way down was easy.
I descended through millions of years of carved stone in a few miles of jaunty steps, finally reaching the point where I could see the Colorado River.
It sparkled like a jewel at the base of an immense quilt of sand, pattern, and color.
After drawing, I began to hike back up. Quite quickly I began to realize that those millions of years I traversed would become much heavier on the way up. I made my way slowly up, still buoyed by the incredible surroundings, and by having shed as many layers as was decent.
I stopped to take a rest, when I heard a chomping above me. There, perched on an outcropping, was a bighorn sheep with an imposing pair of swirling horns.
Somehow seeing this one lone inhabitant shrunken to an insignificant scale by its home, made the vastness of the Canyon all the more apparent.
I finally reached the top of the canyon wall, on wobbly legs, feeling like I had climbed every bit of millions of years.