south

Most people treat the Grand Canyon like a drive-by photo op — pull up, snap the shot, move on. That’s exactly the mindset that gets visitors into trouble, and summer is when it happens most. My own school year had just wrapped, and I remember sitting in my emptied-out classroom for a solid twenty minutes … Read more

Back when I was still herding groups through overlooks for a living, I watched a client burn through an entire memory card at Mather Point in under ten minutes, convinced the next turnout couldn’t possibly top what she’d just seen — then get proven wrong six times over before lunch. That’s the trick of the … Read more

Dust and diesel drifting off idling shuttle buses, a line of sun-hatted strangers all leaning toward the same stretch of railing at Mather Point — that’s the South Rim on an ordinary afternoon, and it took me two years of postponing before I finally stood there myself. My running list of “someday” destinations had grown … Read more

Diesel exhaust from the idling shuttle buses mixes with pine dust and sunscreen at the Bright Angel trailhead, and even at nine in the morning there’s already a line of families three deep waiting for a photo with the mules. My father spent thirty-eight years telling anyone who’d listen that he’d finally travel once he … Read more