The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

59
Stepping Aside
PATRICK McGRAW
I lurched along the rim of the Grand Canyon. With each gust of wind, I planted a foot, steadying myself
against certain death. I had come to the canyon with its thousand-foot drops to conquer my adult onset
fear of heights.
For the sake of disclosure, you should probably know that as I lurched, I was walking the Rim Trail near
Mather Point. The trail at this point is flat, paved and, I believe, wheelchair accessible with s-p-a-c-e
between the trail and the rim of the canyon. Yet I lurched, certain I would be blown into the canyon. I have
never heard of a full-grown man being blown into the canyon, but I am also certain my life is destined to be
marked with such ignominy.
My Grand Canyon trip actually began earlier in the day at the Cameron Trading Post where I had a lunch
of fry bread and waited for a storm to pass through. Although the rain had let up, when I arrived at the
park entrance, clouds and fog enveloped me, hiding the canyon. Yet, as I stepped out of the car, on cue the
fog lifted and the clouds parted, giving me my first ever view of the Grand Canyon. It was beautiful, the
late afternoon sun casting long shadows, deepening the reds and rusts of the canyon.
If only the beauty of the canyon could have been my first thought, a memory to cherish. Instead, seeing the
Grand Canyon, one of the world’s wonders, for the first time in my life, my first thought was a shrug of a
thought, “Oh. Doesn’t seem that big.”
That, of course, is the type of thinking that forces park rangers to conduct hundreds of rescue missions
each year as people start hiking down into the canyon without water or forgetting that little part about
hiking back up the trail. I’ve been on hikes of ten miles or more, but having a healthy respect for a flight of
stairs (meaning I get winded), I wasn’t planning to hike down to the river and back up in one day. If you take
the Bright Angel trail, that’s nearly 10 miles just to get down to the river, and then 4,000 feet back up,
which is way more than the four flights of stairs I avoid back home by taking the elevator to my apartment.
ISSUE 4 | SUMMER 2021