They say never to visit the Grand Canyon in the peak of summer unless one had a deathwish. And yet, that was exactly what I had done. Lacking any travel experience in the desert southwest and foresight to temper my hubris, my foolish brain assumed that Grand Canyon would be perfectly ok to hike in June. It took a deathmarch down and back up the canyon to realize the foolishness and audacity of what I was attempting.
My first glimpse of the giant gaping hole was jaw-dropping. In front of me was a canyon larger than what I had imagined, gouged by a excavator of stellar proportions. It was only later I realized that this impressive geological spectacle was the the result of flowing water acting on a land that was rising slowly over millennia. My brain tried and failed at making sense of the immense number of sandwiched layers that formed the terra-firma over which I was standing.
Hiking down the canyon helped provide an even better sense of perspective, primarily because the slow slog back up gives you plenty of time to admire the layered terrain on which the trail was laid down on. It can be easy to get lost ensconced in the rich topography, but the stench of fresh mule dung fermenting in the hot sun will snap you back to real life, and you will discover newfound energy that will help you scurry past those unforgettable droppings.
On my return visit to the park, I carried with me those experiences, and that helped me time my hikes properly, including setting up at the right location for sunset. This is one such view from the rim of the Grand Canyon, looking down at the river still carving its way down the canyon.
Grand Canyon National Park
AZ USA
The Gaping Hole
Several canyons of the American West are longer and some are deeper, but none combines the depth, sheerness, narrowness, darkness, and dread of the Black Canyon
- Duane Vandenbusche
Up until I visited the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, I thought that the canyons of the Canyonlands and of Zion were some of the most impressive examples of the impact of hydrological forces. That changed when I peered over the edge of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River: a vertical dropoff of 1800ft below me, and a sheer cliff face rising equally high on the opposite side of the gorge barely a quarter mile away, all created by a sliver of river threading through this narrow gorge.
Seeing that gaping hole cut through miles of rocky terrain really put into perspective the sheer power of nature. The river, tamer now, must have been one of the most powerful forces to cut through such a geology, revealing patterns in the rock the likes of which I had never seen before. states:
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison was out there, but I am glad I explored this gem of a National Park.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
CO USA
Inhospitable Morocco
The winds were relentless and the trail had disappeared into scree, but the views were just endless
I was hiking high above the Dades river valley, deep within the Atlas mountain range, the spine of Morocco. I had started out huffing and puffing in the warm late afternoon sun, but a few hundred feet up, the cold gusts of winds from the snow-capped peaks absorbed all my surface moisture, chilling me to the bone. But the views were just getting better, and that prodded me on.
And finally, the vista of the beautiful Dades river valley finally opened up. Tiny fields lay beside a meandering river, with red brick houses of a small village scattered along the steep slopes of the canyon the river had cut through. In the distance, the river disappeared through a narrow gorge it cut downstream on its way to the Atlantic, while the backdrop of a long line of snow-capped peaks reminded me that winter was not yet over in this high desert.
This is one exposure from that vista point, shot at 1/500s at ISO 800 at F11.
Dades Gorge
Morocco