To the Grand Canyon!

Most people I spoke to told me that I had to drive two hours north and see the Grand Canyon.

Thing is, I was so enchanted by Sedona I could easily have spent the entire stay there. But I listened, and while I was still at home I started looking into lodging near the South Rim. 

After a couple of hours of snooping around online I decided to make a day trip of it and return to Sky Canyon Ranch. Sedona isn't cheap, but the Grand Canyon area is out of sight. I didn't fancy spending my honorarium on a crummy motel on historic (noisy) Rte. 66. 

So I got up early and north I drove, winding through canyons on the scenic route. The biome turned northerly, with tall spruces and firs, and this roadkilled elk calf. And a bit of the car that got him.

I got out to examine him, as I'd never been very close to an elk outside of a zoo. Man, he was huge, easily three times the size of a whitetail, and he had a long way to grow.

My excitement mounted as I got closer to the canyon. I kept trying to imagine what it would look like, this vast crevasse in the earth. 

I found my old friend Cliff Rose, Cowania mexicana, big as a tree. 

I walked toward the first overlook. A rock squirrel (Otospermophilus variegatus) scurried out to bomb my first photo of the Grand Canyon, giving me one of my favorite shots of the trip. Hello and welcome to the South Rim! Step this way and be blown away!

Holy cow. I knew it would be large, but I wasn't expecting infinite. 

I stood transfixed, along with a bunch of other people who, I surmised by their slack jaws, were also seeing it for the first time. 

There would be other overlooks, each with its own perspective. I spent the whole day driving from one to the next, looking at whatever wildlife I found along the way. 

Another earless lizard? Blue belly...I'm only more confused, looking through my reptile guide. Help?

Another overlook. My God. This place is incredible. You're looking at the lip of the canyon there. No railings, no nuthin'. You have never heard so many people yelling at their kids. GET BACK! COME HERE! NOW!! GET OVER HERE NOWWWW!!

They can't put a guardrail around the whole thing. So they don't. And there's a refreshing lack of warning signs, too. Hey. You knew it was The Grand Canyon, right? It's a big hole. Don't fall in.

Because I didn't come here to listen to people screaming at their kids, I'd take a brief gaze at the public overlook (right off the parking lot) then look for the nearest trail that would take me to an unofficial overlook. There I saw things like Indian paintbrush, raising gaudy hands to the sky

with a little rabbitbrush added in

and a beautiful Steller's jay rasping at me

Hey. Watch that edge, greenhorn.

Looking out at this, I felt very, very small and very, very lucky to be here, to have friends who cared enough to kick my butt out of Sedona and encourage me to come here. The Grand Canyon: if you haven't seen it, just go.

I'm going to throw a little kink in the blog with the next four posts. We'll go back to Costa Rica, and I'll tell you how our visit and presentation at Don Alvaro's macaw ranch went. It's been six months since we were there and I owe you a report and my thanks.

Up on Top of Cathedral Rock

Cathedral Rock is another vortex site in Sedona, Arizona. People say that the junipers grow in a spiral at vortex sites. They were spiraling like mad here.

I was attuned to the crazy spiralling vortex energy, but probably too excited by the prospect of climbing Cathedral Rock to fully feel it coming up through my feet the way it did at Red Rock Crossing.

These trees amaze me, the way they seem to be able to sprout living needles out of what looks like dry driftwood.

This one was situated so as to be a handhold for a steep bit of trail. 

I marveled at its smoothness, at the human hand grease that had waxed it to a fine patina.

The summit grew ever nearer. Well, "summit" is a negotiable thing. I am not the sort of person who would consider the heads of these hoodoos a "summit." For me, the summit was the first saddle in between them. High enough for Zick, you betcha. Not a crampon/piton gal.

The view got pretty dizzying in a very short time. 

It was a most rewarding climb.

Russell had told me about a mystery plant they'd seen that looked like an evergreen with tiny needles, but with white five-petaled flowers.

My first thought was that it looked like a potentilla, or a rose, with those five petals, that puff of yellow anthers.

Looking more closely, I found a seedhead that clinched its membership in the rose family. These plumy seeds are reminiscent of prairie smoke (Geum triflorum), also, surprisingly, a rose family member. 

I was unsurprised to find the "flowering evergreen" in a quick online search. Cliff Rose, Cowania mexicana.

I'd see it growing all over the South Rim of the Grand Canyon the next day!

Cowania mexicana seedhead

See the similarity? 

Prairie Smoke, Geum triflorum

Near Chase Lake, North Dakota. This photo makes me weep. 

Plant Taxonomy at Harvard taught by Carroll Williams is without a doubt the most useful course I ever took. I recall someone telling me that, while exhorting me to take the course, and I was a believer after about two classes. Plant taxonomy is not only fun to learn, it's surpassingly useful for the rest of your life.

We had been passed on the way up by a very fit older German gentleman in little shorts who said he climbs it most days. Well, that would explain his speed and thighs. He got up to the saddle  well ahead of us (see what I mean by its being high enough for me?) The view went on forever. Wow.

When Russell and I got there (Barbara was nursing a healing knee down below), this man was seated and in deep conversation with a woman with long gray hair whom he'd apparently met on the climb. He was saying something about a race of people from another planet who have been here before and will return in 2060. She said, "Oh, cool. Wow. Huh. I may not be around then."

Ya think? I started to chuckle silently, trying not to snort. I tried to imagine a conversation like that happening in Ohio, and failed.

I also tried to imagine myself climbing out on this ledge like these young people (see the red shirt?) with their selfie stick. Failed at that, too. We Ohioans are neither very imaginative nor tolerant of great heights. Speaking strictly for myself. 

But I sure enjoyed climbing Cathedral Rock with Barbara and Russell. I mean to do it again someday soon.

Thanks to my sweet friend Maria C. for the tips on where to go and what to do in Sedona!