View of the Grand Canyon from Bright Angel Trail
I’ve long known 2020 would be the most distinctive year of my life as a father. Long before a pandemic laid waste to plans, schedules, and expectations as nearly two million people died worldwide (so far) before they should have. Contagion or not, this was the year that would end with both my children in college, one a senior, the other a freshman. So take the expectations that come with “empty nesting” and blend them with the anxiety, fear, and sorrow we’ve all been forced to manage in 2020. Most distinctive, indeed.
My December attempt for balance as this sadistic year nears the finish line? A family trip to the Grand Canyon.
Exploring the Grand Canyon is the opposite of conventional hiking, in which we climb a mountain (however large or small), then exhale on the descent. Descend three miles into the Grand Canyon — one switchback after another, cliffs rising with every step — and your challenge has only begun. One memorable sign advises you at the trailhead: “Getting to the bottom is optional. Getting to the top is mandatory.” What are your body’s limits? And how far will you stretch them for another view?
On a cloudless Tuesday afternoon, the four of us hiked the Bright Angel Trail, a path clinging to a curved wall of rocks along the Canyon’s south rim. This being December, temperatures dipped into the thirties. And Arizona being in the Northern Hemisphere, of course, the hike meant a total of six miles and four hours entirely in the shadow of that curved wall of rocks. We dressed in layers and there was little wind once we entered the Canyon, so the venture was comfortable … particularly the view.
The size of the Grand Canyon — once you’re in it, once you’re of it — is always there. Among adjectives, gargantuan is the best I can do. But there’s something else: the silence. It’s a silence you can feel as much as hear. (And yes, you can hear silence. At least this kind.) There are other hikers (though fewer, the lower you go). There is wildlife. Now and then a raven will make its presence felt with a Poe-ish call from above (or below, depending on your vantage point). But you eventually find a place where if you stop — eliminating footfalls — there is … no sound. Not so much as a hum. No trickling water. Certainly no machinery. If you’re huffing and puffing on the ascent, your breath would be all you hear. It’s a soul-soothing silence, a sensory reset button unlike any other I’ve experienced anywhere else on the planet. And I desperately needed it here in the late stages of 2020.
It’s as though the Grand Canyon is mocking us for our worries. Pandemic? Shmandemic. The Colorado River began carving the Grand Canyon six million years ago. Just as you try and wrap your mind around the concept of a million years (six of them?!), you learn there are rocks from the Grand Canyon that have been carbon-dated to nearly two billion years. This member of the world’s seven natural wonders makes you feel small in physical size, sure. But it reminds you how utterly miniscule is the measure of a human lifetime. Blink, if the Grand Canyon could, and it would miss those 80-100 years (a fortunate human might live that long). Mankind is worn ragged — sadly, many of us simply bored — by pandemic conditions, and it’s been but a single year. You know how much deeper the Colorado River carves the Canyon in a year? The thickness of a single sheet of paper. Shmandemic.
We made it back to the rim of the Canyon, the mandatory part. And bright sunshine awaited us. The climb was indeed harder on our bodies than the descent. Which felt perfectly 2020. As hard as it was getting used to masks, social distance, and remote work life (if we’re lucky), it’s proving harder to emerge from this shade. Positivity rates climb and the death toll grows with agonizing daily figures even as vaccines are beginning to enter the bloodstream of frontline health workers and the especially vulnerable. It’s steep, this climb. Every step counts, though, or we’ll remain trapped in darkness.
Upon our return home, each of my family members scheduled a COVID test. We masked up (as we actually did in passing hikers at the Canyon). We returned to “normal” by 2020 standards, convincing each other that a new day meant a day closer to a healthier planet.
I know one thing for certain as 2020 comes to a close: The Grand Canyon will be waiting for us when we emerge into that sunshine. It will keep on with the size and silence, both larger than human beings are accustomed to feeling. And with the extraordinarily brief time each of us is allowed, let’s newly embrace the human condition. We are so very small. But the impact we can make on our fellow man is outsized, and multiplies (don’t we know it in viral terms!). I’ve managed to impact my daughters, at least a fraction of their impact on me. And that’s a good start. I’m grateful we’re now a part of two billion years.
The author with daughters Sofia and Elena