A Closer Walk

A Closer Walk

Mid-December, 1993. Daughter was graduating from Arizona State after long years of working her way through school. It was a big deal. We packed up and flew out.

Southern Arizona is not very different from North Florida in temperature, except more so at times.

We got to Tempe, home of ASU, and shortly after went for a run to get the travel kinks out of our system. Tees and shorts. Worked up a sweat.

We were there for the week and commencement wasn't until Friday, so we planned to see some of the state.

Took off next morning for the Grand Canyon.

Highway 17 runs pretty much up the middle of the state to Flagstaff. It goes north and climbs in altitude all the while. Turn west at Flagstaff for a bit, then north to the canyon. The climb is so gradual at that point, you don't really notice it.

There we were at the south rim of one of the places you grow up hearing about. We checked in to our lodging. No problem this time of the year. The summer season was long over. Kind of chilly out, too.

Noodled around, going from lodge to lodge, some of them original Mary Colter architecture from the 1930s. Lovely stacks of local rock shaped into timeless places that belong to the terrain.

Stood on rim lookouts, deep-breathing. How would you not?

Spoke to members of an Irish bus tour. An employee at a lodge with a big fireplace said a tour of Japanese travelers was in the day before. This large, graceful crack in the earth captures imaginations the world around.

Eventually ate, then turned in for the day. As we walked back to the room, snow was falling. Big fat flakes against the dark pines and firs. The lodge architecture, the railroad tracks and depot, all suggested Germany or Switzerland, Places where people schuss.

We went to bed.

I'm the early riser of our crew. Morning came and I was out, camera in hand.

Blanket of snow. A cliche phrase, but true here. Most of the folks visiting were still in bed. Light was bouncing every whichway off untouched spreads of white. I walked carefully in some areas where ice sheets had formed.

A low wall follows the rim near a group of lodges. I followed that waving line, a very long way down waiting just over the wall.

Little winter-nude trees followed the same wall. I was focusing my camera when I heard a purring sound. Looked to my left. In the tree, just a few feet from me, a canyon raven was purring at me. A very soft, gutteral rrurrrrring. Can't describe what that felt like.

Then I came up to Bright Angel Lodge. And that scene in the painting "Angel in Snow", above.

I had taken pains to keep my feet to the walk, leaving the "blanket" unmarked for others. One look at the eternity at the bottom of the stairs told me to leave that for other visitors, too.