{"id":22060,"date":"2020-01-10T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T19:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=22060"},"modified":"2020-01-07T17:46:32","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T01:46:32","slug":"canyon-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2020\/01\/10\/canyon-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Canyon Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

We wake in the morning to a sky haunted by clouds, hounded by wind. There is no sunrise, just a gradual lightening of the surroundings. The colors of the Canyon radiate as if the light is not coming from above, but from within. Iridescent hues of purple, pink, and green pop on walls, so often depicted in palettes of red, orange, and tan. As we spend the next couple of weeks floating this landscape, time seems to ebb and flow like the river itself.<\/p>\n

Sometimes people, events, conversations are suspended, languishing in calm pools, or orbiting in immense eddies. Sometimes the world rushes by as if caught in the downstream current. Sun and shadow dance across a beach with the speed of a specter, a day may last only an hour, a night the blink of an eye. All about us time, time, time, rolls and twists upon itself like a cataract.<\/p>\n

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The Grand Canyon has all of the traits desired from a multiday river trip. Intimidating whitewater. Rapids that seem to warp the laws of physics and hydrology. Magnificent scenery. Vistas and sunsets burn into our memories with colors that grow more vibrant with age. But the trait that distinguishes the Grand Canyon from other river trips is the sense of time incarnate.<\/p>\n

Eons of geologic activity can be noted with mile markers and relics from those before us spark the imagination. Abandoned oars and boats lend testament to expeditions gone wrong. Pictographs express the visions of a shaman or maybe the sketches of a bored child. Hidden granaries convey periods of fertile weather and brutal societies when food was guarded like treasure.<\/p>\n