“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touch of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.”

Wise and wonderful words from Henry Thoreau. Words meant for something in his New England landscape, but describing a Grand Canyon he probably never even heard of.

This blog entry, long overdue and with our apoligies, is to hopefully impart upon you the feelings of two small and humbled people who are fortunate enough to experience the magnificence of the Grand Canyon everyday in its infinite moods and timelessness.

So many come to see and are- rightfully so- overwhelmed and lost for words. But they walk away, get back in the car or board the bus and on to the next beautiful spot on their vacation itinerary be it Brice, Zion or even (shudder!) Las Vegas. But this canyon, 277 miles long, 1 mile deep, 10 miles wide, has been a work in progress for 6 million years.

We are reading everything we can and spending most of our work time and a good portion of our free time trying to unravel and understand the spirtual hold that grows on you daily by just being here. But we are trying and in doing so learning to accept that although there is more to know about this place than anyone ever could, the rewards are worth the effort.

For all but the past 100 of the 10,000 years man has lived in and around it, he has seen his time pass not with a clock but with the sunrise and set, the moon phases and the seasons. Now the average visitor spends 4 hours here. 4 hours to see the work that the mighty Colorado River has cut deep into the very core of the earth and in conjunction with the brief but violent summer monsoon rains, washing away the rock, gravel and sand of mountains that once towered a mile or more above the rim and, until less than a blink of the eye in geologic time, deposited its baggage into the Gulf of California.


Now, with Hoover Dam to the west and Glen Canyon to the east, man, in another of his feeble attempts to control the earth seeks to contain the river and, in the process, is altering at least temporarily, the flora and fauna .The canyon is timeless and the river has worn its way through volcanic dams much higher and wider on its journey to the sea and it will again. Humankind, in its headlong race to destroy itself may not be here to see it, but the Grand Canyon will. And the remnants will be little more than the cliff dwellings and petroglyphs of the Anasasi and others who have passed this way.

Enjoy the pictures.