Canyon Country: Glen Canyon and the magnificent Grand Canyon with Klaus – late Oct. – early Nov. 2007

Canyon Country: Glen Canyon and the magnificent Grand Canyon with Klaus
Lake Powell forms the heart of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which is more than 1 million acres of incredibly beautiful and diverse land that extends into desert and canyon country. The very blue lake, with its 96 named side canyons, is considered one of the most beautiful in the world and, at 186 miles long and with 1960 miles of shoreline, is longer than the whole western coast of the U.S., from Seattle to San Diego! Incredible as it seems, this very large lake was non-existent before the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam 50 years ago. It is now a premier tourist and recreation area. We toured the concrete arch dam, which is the second-highest in the U.S., after the Hoover Dam.

One of our most interesting side trips from Lake Powell was to the Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River, just 5 miles south of Page. We admired, from 1000 ft. above the river, the 270-degree U-shaped bend that the green waters had carved out of the sandstone canyon.

From Page, we biked south towards the Grand Canyon, where we were to meet our friend Klaus at the end of the week. The canyons near Page turned into mountains that looked like mounds of cow poop, and they soon gave way to grassy fields with horses, and eventually we rode on past the Chocolate Cliffs before starting our uphill climb on Rte. 64 to the Grand Canyon. We were excited as we neared the famous Canyon. We felt the sun on our skin and a refreshing breeze and a delicious sense of anticipation.

The incredible thing about biking towards the Grand Canyon is that there is nothing to give you a clue as to what is coming up. There are no large cliffs, and the river-cut canyons are not even visible from the road. The landscape is made up of a large, flat plateau with an endless horizon. I assumed we’d see a canyon growing and spreading and deepening as we neared the park, but nothing of the kind. There was nothing much remarkable in the landscape, in fact.

We stopped at a few roadside viewpoints where the local Navajo were selling turquoise jewelry and dream-catchers to tourists and continued our steady, uphill climb under the very strong sun (we were nearing 7000 ft. in altitude). It was surprising to see the change in landscape when we entered the Kaibab National Forest, but though trees now lined the road, they weren’t kind enough to provide us any shade. It was hard to believe that the canyon was nearby.

And then we reached the East Entrance and the adjoining Desert View station, and the view was at once magnificent. There was no mistake that we were now in the Grand Canyon! The view was that of postcards, sublime and magnificent. The canyon’s colors spanned the gamut of the rainbow.

We pitched our tent the first night at Moran Point, 6 ft. from the ledge of the cliff, just in time to see the final rays of sun lighting up the red walls of the canyon. Of course, we awoke to see the sunrise the next morning, too – we had merely to unzip our tent, and wham! We were hit with the most breathtaking view ever! We spent several hours at our special spot, admiring the colors that changed with the sun. Although I was hard-pressed to pick just one spot, Stephane was sure that this was the most beautiful place he’d ever seen. He said it was so incredible – so unreal – it was as if he was hallucinating from having eaten mushrooms!

The 25-mile Desert View Drive that took us to the Grand Canyon Village was awesome, with unbelievable panoramic vistas. And then we arrived at Mather Campground, where Klaus joined us and we ate and shared stories around a campfire. We hadn’t seen each other since 1999, and he had driven a long 15 hours to meet up with us. It was a great reunion, but we only had 1 ½ days with him, as he had to drive back to Colorado on Sunday. Klaus had already hiked into the Canyon and thought that the views from the top were more spectacular than those from inside the canyon itself, and so we decided to walk the Rim Trail, which skirts the edge of the gorge, with him. It was fabulous. The South Rim is widely considered to have the Canyon’s most famous and most beautiful vistas, and we weren’t let down.

Aside from being breathtakingly beautiful, the Grand Canyon is simply overwhelming in its magnitude. It is up to 1 mile deep, and about 10 mi. across, from the North Rim to the South Rim, as the raven flies. But the canyon is so big that the two rims are separated by 215 miles by the road, and it takes 5 hours to drive from one to the other! The Grand Canyon is also the oldest geological feature on earth – its enormous chasm was sculpted over two billion years ago!

Visiting the Grand Canyon is a spiritual experience. Its majesty is awe-inspiring, its beauty breathtaking, its immenseness unfathomable. One feels a deep respect for Nature and Her grandeur. Some Indians view the Canyon as sacred. Not surprisingly, many places in the Grand Canyon are aptly named from mythology and religion: Hindu Ampitheater, Zoroaster, Buddha, Shiva, Confucius, and Solomon Temples….

To read more about the Grand Canyon’s formation, geology, and success stories in wildlife preservation, visit the “UNESCO sites” portion of this website.