A hike in the Grand Canyon makes one think

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

In a world where 15-year-olds are being bullied to death, presidential candidates vie to see who can be rudest in front of the camera and the greatest of sports icons are revealed to be frauds, sometimes you’ve just got to get away.

And that’s what I did the past two weeks. I got away to one of the grandest places of all and you can do it too. Just point your vehicle south and drive over a thousand miles on Highway 93 – surely one of the loneliest highways in the world – and you’ll arrive at the heavily-forested Kaibab Plateau more than 8,000 feet high and staring down from the north rim into of one of the greatest chasms on earth – the   Grand Canyon.

That initial look at the vastness below, the red and ochre cliffs rising like stone temples, the ancient limestone walls surrounding them and the lacy ribbon of the Colorado River shimmering in the deep shadows of the grey inner canyon rock almost two billion years old – well if that doesn’t take the cares of this woeful world off your heavy shoulders – then nothing will.

And so it was about a week ago when I heaved on my overnight pack and began what seemed like a million-step journey from the north to the south rims of the great gash in the earth’s crust that geologists say is at least 1.6 billion years old and studded with fossil remains to prove its unfathomable longevity. And believe me these numbers are as unfathomable to a mere mortal like yours truly as is the grandeur of the canyon itself . The reading material I brought with me said every step down you take down in the Grand Canyon is the equivalent of going back 100,000 years in time.

Try to fathom that one?

This means that in less than a step below the North Rim you’re back in time way beyond the pyramids and when you complete the step you’re already past the Neanderthals, the very ancestors of the human race. In about a kilometer, you’re walking with the dinosaurs and by the time you’ve hit the bottom of the canyon you’re more than half way to the first one-celled creatures that climbed out of the  primordial ooze about four billion years after the origin of the earth. And you’ve  done all this before curling up at night and watching the stars from the canyon floor.

Personally, I took some comfort in the fact that the geologists themselves differ greatly on the age of the Grand Canyon and how it even originated. The majority believe in the “Young Canyon” theory, placing the great rift in the earth’s crust at about 6 million years old while others think it could be as old as 70 million years with the rock layers themselves going back eons longer. The geological experts also disagree on the role the Colorado River played in the Canyon’s formation. Did the uplifting of the Kaibab Formation come first and the river later carved its way down or was the river already there cutting through the giant upwelling of rock as it rose? Oddly enough, almost all geologists agree there’s evidence that the Colorado River once flowed north-east, the opposite of what it flows now. How confusing can it get?

But I don’t think the Grand Canyon is meant to be understood. I’ll leave that to the geologists. In my view, the canyon is meant to be enjoyed and you can’t go wrong doing that. In the evening as the sun sets on the rim and light dances on the craggy buttes turning them into giant pyramids rising from the deep shadows below, it’s nothing short of magical. Then, in a few minutes, the light is gone and a faint orange glow settles over the vast panorama leaving only ghostly silhouettes etched against the sky and an endless canopy of stars twinkling over the darkened abyss beneath. 

It’s enough to make an atheist think twice and the religious more faithful. As for the woes of the world, they’ll no doubt stay. But a visit to the Grand Canyon may make them a little more bearable.

 Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and Cranbrook City Councillor. His views are his own.