John Wise

I have to say it’s a sad day at the Grand Canyon when we cannot wake with the rising sun as though we are simply blasé about such things. Those moments when the sun first enters the canyon and similarly when the sun sets are where some of the most incredible views are found, and somehow we just slept in. Maybe I should blame it on the luxury price paid for a night in El Tovar.

Another luxury here at El Tovar is the Belgian hot chocolate.

Here we are once again at the Grand Canyon, simultaneously standing atop the bottom of an ancient ocean while looking into a canyon showing us over 700 million years of Earth’s history. This is Kaibab Limestone formed during the Permian, meaning that it was created in part by three extinction events, one of which was the mass extinction that paved the way for the Triassic period. Under our feet is not simply rock; there are fossils, many of them, and when you stop and consider things, limestone is largely the remains of corals and shells.

Animals have been a constant factor in the lands that would become the Grand Canyon, while it appears that the first humans entered the already-carved canyon approximately 12,000 years ago. The first European to see this place was García López de Cárdenas, who is even so fortunate to have a layer of the canyon named after him; his visit was in September 1540.

While Leonardo da Vinci was busy figuring out sedimentary rocks and how fossils are deposited before Cárdenas first observed the canyon, his thoughts would go unpublished for another century. Then, in the late 18th century, James Hutton, a farmer from Scotland effectively founded the science of modern geology that was subsequently codified by Scottish lawyer Charles Lyell in the 19th century. Fast forward to the 21st century, and 4 in 10 Americans believe this canyon was created by the invisible hand of God just 6,000 years ago, and I’d wager that a plurality of the other 6 in 10 Americans know they are walking on rocks, but have no idea of the history they represent or how they were formed.

Ignorance is not bliss, it’s a curse that hampers our ability to find awareness of place when we might be present to gather a richer experience. Imagine that the person you are with remained largely a mystery. I don’t mean the obvious stuff like they have limbs, skin, or a mind that allows them to talk with you, but for the first few years of your relationship, you simply looked and smiled at the person across from you because isn’t that what we do in the face of what is offered by nature?

This chasm may not be as large as the tragicomedy unfolding among us humans here in what is supposedly modernity. The more we know, the less we know.

We gain a clearer view of our place in the history of a planet and the evolution of nature, and instead of celebrating that achievement of knowledge, we cower in superstition and hide in ignorance.

It is as though the most epic storm of stupidity was moving over the landscape of progress with the intention of washing away the hope of intelligent life holding fast to our hurtling rock while the idiocy of the body politic sits by, cheering its imminent demise.

Then, on the other hand, the rains arrive in the distance, and the carving of majesty continues the process nature so diligently dedicates eternity to performing. How is it that humans on such a vast scale remain oblivious to their place within all of this?

I stare at these scenes. I return again and again, and still, they remain disturbingly complex as my mind attempts to play back the time machine of tectonic movement, accumulation, erosion, and the slow crawl of life over everything in front of me. I need these frozen moments captured in the photograph as they compartmentalize the infinity my eyes want to consume when I’m standing there in person. The frantic movement of senses disturbs the stillness that would otherwise be present, and so I must bring the Grand Canyon home with me, all of it.

This is the Grand View Overlook, and it, too, is now mine.

Okay, I’ll leave the Little Colorado River Canyon right here.

It was but a weekend, but oh, what a glorious escape into something rare.