Stunning

In early February of 1978, I visited The Grand Canyon for the first time. I hiked down the Kaibab trail to the river and back up the Bright Angel trail during the course of a single day... which is sort of like running a sprint through the Louvre. On the other hand, I didn't know much about what I was seeing at that point. I did read the interpretive signs, and learned a lot. Upon returning to Ohio, I learned that I had broken my leg about ten days earlier (greenstick fracture, so it wasn't as big a deal as it could have been). Not too many people can claim they hiked to the bottom of, and back out of, The Grand Canyon in a single day on a broken leg.

I don't know whether the above has been modified; I do know that sunset colors in places like this can look other-worldly. This is from the south rim looking north. I'm not seeing the crystalline inner canyon rocks (often referred to as Vishnu Schist, but I think that's one of several of the Precambrian crystalline rock groups). Above the river you can see the eastward (right) tilted Grand Canyon Group, then above those, the horizontal Paleozoic package- or at least the lower part of it. Photo from Flickr. There are two larger sizes, the next of which is lovely, but the full-size version looks like it would choke my computer.