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sunset view from Grand Canyon Lodge      click for larger version (53k)

It's a short ride from Kanab up the abrupt edge of the Kaibab Plateau, and then across rolling forest and large park-like meadows to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Until you enter the National Park, the forest is a disappointing one-age monocrop. We looked in vain for the rare Kaibab Squirrel, a chestnut-black fellow with a showy white tail. Finally, we entered the park at altitude, where the aspen (not an attractive commercial crop) were in their tender green blush of first springtime leaf. The first view of the canyon is a carefully managed "surprise" -- we saw it through the huge view windows of Grand Canyon Lodge.

Oza Butte It's a thousand feet deeper from this side, but this side has more of the amazing huge monoliths, and you're closer to them. They have nice big names, too, like Brahma Temple and Freya's Castle. looking down from Bright Angel trail There are fewer roads and trails on the North side, so we took our time soaking in the awesome tear in the earth's crust. One day we rode out onto the Walhalla Plateau for a change in perspective, and caught our first glimpse of the author of the canyon, the Colorado River.

The Grand Canyon is astonishingly big -- too big for words, and too big for my little camera. You have but one remedy: go, see it yourself. The best way to see it for the first time, I believe, is from the less-visited North Rim -- not only because there are less visitors, but because the Canyon is even more impressive somehow, looking toward the sun. Zoroaster's Temple The Grand Canyon is more of a spectator sport than Zion, and you're on the edge of the action, with an impressively long first step -- often a thousand feet to the first roughly flat spot, with the emphasis on rough. Colorado River through Angel's Window

Freya Castle "Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American... should see." Being less of a jingoist that Teddy, I think we should invite the rest of the world, too...

President Teddy Roosevelt is largely responsible for preserving the Grand Canyon (although what else could we do with it, except build a mighty dam and fill it full of water, like they did upriver at Lake Powell and downriver at Lake Mead?) Upon viewing the canyon from a point on Walhalla, he said: Theodore Roosevelt

Brahma and Zoroaster Temples at midday

Brahma Temple at sunset	The principal activity on the North Rim is watching the dramatic changes of light playing over the canyon. The walls are made up of millions of years of rocks, white, red, grey, and black.
last sun touches the Temples
As sunlight and cloud play over these mighty structures, details appear and disappear, shapes are suggested and modified ... but always the canyon draws the eye and entertains.	mid-afternoon Temples

Transept Overlook Maybe that's the West's best lesson, and this its best classroom. Anyone proposing to mess with nature should be compelled to study here for a few days at least.	The canyon's scale is unthinkably huge -- 10 miles across, more than a mile deep for 50 miles. People, if they show at all, show up as specks. On the brink of this mighty chasm, one feels fragile and insignificant -- and that's a good thing. Here's a place where there is no question about man ruling nature. sun sets on happy students
Grand Canyon Lodge	The Lodge gets an honorable mention for appropriate architecture in the face of natural magnificence. In the early decades of the 20th Century we Americans manifested our pride in nature by building monumental yet gracious hotels in our national parks, and this is, in my opinion, the best. The best cabins are 301, 305, 306, and 307.

As the Condor flies, it's not much more than ten miles downhill from the North Rim to the South, but the geography in these parts is difficult. Getting down off the Kaibab Plateau brought us to a sweeping view of desert, Vermillion and Echo cliffs, and more desert stretching to the horizon. Marble Canyon is the first spot narrow enough for a bridge across the Colorado. Then the long, tacky circumnavigation of the Little Colorado gorge, and back up onto the Coconino Plateau and the first look at the south side of the Grand Canyon from Desert View. Lodge to lodge, the trip is 220 miles.

rafters start from Lee's Ferry Before Glen Canyon Dam the river was warm, red, and "too thick to drink, too thin to plow" according to one wag. Now it's clear, cold, man-controlled ...and an ecological disaster. Why are we not surprised? Teddy warned us! Just below Lee's Ferry, graceful Navajo Bridge crosses Marble Canyon, offering a wonderful view upriver.

About a hundred road miles upriver and across the Kaibab Plateau, the desert dips down almost to river level at Lee's Ferry, the famous putting-in place for rafters making the canyon run. We stopped by to watch them go, and to gawk at this mighty river. This is "medium low water", a mere 30,000 cubic feet per second. first riffle Here at Marble Canyon, the cliffs pull back from the river, but they are still impressive and quirky. On the north side, the Vermillion Cliffs have left some strange sentries.

Over Navajo Bridge we entered another country: the sovereign nation of the Navajo Nation. Sadly, this has become a land of gaudy curio shops and tourist fleecing operations without any other merit. We drove fast to get to the South Rim.

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