View of the Grand Canyon from the top of North Kaibab Trail.

The Grand Canyon.

The sight of it inspires different emotions for different people, most of them very strong emotions. For me, it inspires a kind of disbelief and despair. Disbelief because it is so big, so grand, so… so much that my mind cannot grasp it. Walking along the rim of canyon, I start to wonder if it is even real. If the park staff printed a really, really long poster and suspended it from a scaffold… would I really be able to tell the difference? It is unreal the way the solar system is unreal, the way those vast distances and massive objects just cannot exist in the same reality as coffee mugs and car keys and you and me.

Looking down to the continuation of the Kaibab Trail and the inner canyon.

And despair, because of course it is real, the way both car keys and Jupiter are real, but there is no way to ever convey its reality to someone else. I could write pages of description, and you would still not understand what it is like to stand on the edge of canyon. I could take thousands of photos, and not a single one of them could capture it immensity. The Grand Canyon makes me put down my camera because… what’s the point.

The Kaibab Trail switchbacks down, down, down.

And so I will say very little about the Grand Canyon except that we hiked part of the North Kaibab Trail, and part of the Rim Trail, and that it was more than I can ever, ever convey to you.

A team of mules takes a break while heading up the Kaibab Trail.