Grand Canyon - V

 

I mix in these images in monochrome for nostalgia. When I was young, what I saw were photos of this places and others in the southwest that were similarly B&W. Thus, much of perception of this place is through that filter. While the color is beautiful, often breathtaking, I need a few monochromes to help my mind's eye fully grasp what I am seeing.

When the sun finally crested the distant hills but had not yet been hidden behind the cloud cover overhead, it was as if everything was on fire.

The carvings in the rock to make these grand pillars of stone show hints of what human stone carvers has done in imitation. Here, and in places such as Arches National Park, there are a wide range of shapes to be seen that are very reminiscent of carvings you'd see in Egyptian art or the construction of buildings in the neoclassical style.

The ever changing light really brings this place to life.

In September 1540, under orders from the conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, Captain García López de Cárdenas, along with Hopi guides and a small group of Spanish soldiers, traveled to the south rim of the Grand Canyon between Desert View and Moran Point. Pablo de Melgrossa, Juan Galeras, and a third soldier descended some one third of the way into the canyon until they were forced to return because of lack of water. In their report, they noted that some of the rocks in the canyon were "bigger than the great tower of Seville, Giralda".^[48] It is speculated that their Hopi guides likely knew routes to the canyon floor, but may have been reluctant to lead the Spanish to the river. No Europeans visited the canyon again for more than two hundred years.

As the sun gets well above the land and begins to move behind the layer of clouds above, the light begins to fade. Only a thin strip at the top of the many mesas shows any sunlight. By this point, I was approaching what deemed to surely be frostbit on my hands. I went back to the car and spent the next 20-30 minutes trying to thaw out. Once I had recovered the feeling in my fingers and toes, I lit out for the next adventure.