Daily Times

Late one April evening, we found ourselves standing at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The setting sun had lit up the multi-layered walls of the canyon in gold. It was a dazzling sight. And then the walls gradually faded from view as the earth turned on its axis.

The words of John Muir, the Scottish naturalist who migrated to the US in 1849, came to mind: “It will seem as novel to you, as unearthly in color and grandeur … as if you found it after death, on some other star.”

We went to the Grand Canyon lodge and booked a sunrise tour. We were advised to show up at the designated meeting spot an hour before sunrise. That basically meant getting up two hours before sunrise and sleeping very little during the night. That was hardly an inviting prospect, since we had just driven five hours from Phoenix to get here, after having gotten up early in the day to have our Global Entry interview taken at the airport.

But we only had 24 hours for touring the Grand Canyon and so we complied. As we were getting ready to go to bed, we realised that one of the windows in our cabin would not close all the way. So I called the front desk. A few minutes later an older man appeared in front of the door. He was not wearing a uniform, but I let him in.

He checked the window and said that’s just the way they were made and nothing could be done about it. Then, he added: “There is very little crime in this area.” Well, that was not very comforting. And then he started telling us about his history in the canyon. While that information would have interested us greatly during the daytime in the open, it was not so at that time in the night. We became increasingly uncomfortable with his presence in the cabin. I began to wonder if he had some ulterior motive in mind. Thankfully, after a few hints he left, and we went to bed.

The alarm went off at an ungodly hour and we got up to take a shower and change. After grabbing a cup of tea with biscuits, we ventured out in the darkness of the early morning hours. After losing our way a couple of times, we arrived at the meeting spot. A bearded man wearing a uniform was standing next to a big bus. Let’s call him Howard.

He asked us for our tickets. Given their size, I had folded them in my hip pocket. I took them out and handed them over.

Howard unfolded them slowly with a grimace and said that everyone hands him their folded tickets. Then he asked us to get in the bus.

He said that he needed to pick up some other tourists and stopped at two other hotels, but there was no one waiting there. Perhaps, they had decided to sleep in or maybe their alarm did not go off.

He looked at us and said that matter-of-factly, the tour required a minimum of five tourists, and he only had two. “Would you like me to drop you back at your hotel or would you like to walk back?” he said. I was shocked. At this point, all I could say to him was that I wanted my money back. He said that I could talk to the front desk about it once they opened. The good news was that we could get back to our cabin and catch up on our sleep.

What made the canyon unique from a geological perspective was that the Colorado River had exposed nearly two billion years of the earth’s geological history. This had happened as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted over six million years

We were aghast at this banter. But there was little we could do. We had resigned ourselves to our fate when he broke into a big natural smile, followed by a laugh which echoed throughout the bus and possibly in the entire canyon.

Howard said that he was just teasing us. The tour was about to begin and we were going to have the time of our life as this bus would turn into our very own private car.

And thus began the grandest of our tours. We had been there before a quarter-century ago in December. I had gotten out of our cabin around sunrise and found snow on the ground. Some of it had turned into ice, making it difficult to walk. The last thing I wanted happening was to slip thousands of feet into an abyss. And the temperature was 17F. But the views were stellar.

Even in April it was chilly, but there was no snow. From the first viewpoint where Howard took us, we saw the sun light up the rim. The impact is hard to describe in words. Howard told us that the canyon looks very different at sunrise as compared to sunset because different parts of the canyon are lit up in the evening and in the morning.

Then he gave us some facts about the canyon. It was the ultimate work of art carved into stone by the Colorado River over six million years. It was 277 miles long, and its width ranged from four miles to 18 miles. In most places, it was a mile deep.

He said what made the canyon unique from a geological perspective was that the Colorado River had exposed nearly two billion years of the earth’s geological history. This had happened as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted over six million years. He said there was no other place like this in the entire globe.

Then he pointed out the various peaks that we were looking at. They had the kind of names that you would expect to encounter in a Star Wars movie such as Vishnu Temple, Cheops Pyramid, Zoroaster Temple and Vulcan’s Throne. Or maybe, the movies took them from the Grand Canyon.

Later, Howard drove us in the big bus to two other locations which offered views of the Colorado River and a variety of other cliffs and peaks. In one place vultures were flying in an arrow head formation over the canyon. He said that they were looking for breakfast and may look tiny to the eye from where we stood, but their wing spans were 18 feet. He also pointed out a spot where a young woman had committed suicide by driving her car off into the canyon.

And then he pointed out the North Rim to us. It is a thousand feet higher than the South Rim and a bit cooler. It is less visited than the South Rim but offers a totally different perspective on the canyon, according to Howard.

At that early hour, we had the Grand Canyon to ourselves. We were treated like royalty. That more than made up for having to get up so early.

After the tour, we grabbed lunch at the food court and stopped at the general store. We picked up a good read about Major John Wesley Powell’s 1869 landmark river rafting voyage on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. And I picked up a classic cowboy hat which made my wife a bit concerned.

Ahmad Faruqui has toured 42 of the 50 states in the United States. He can be reached at ahmadfaruqui@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, December 6th 2017.