Inside the Grand Canyon,
Barry Goldwater
© Arizona Historical Foundation

Little Colorado River
© Jack Dykinga

Photographers at the
Little Colorado © Jim Ryder

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Day Three: The Little Colorado

It’s 5:30 am and Lew is guiding us to the Little Colorado River tributary and on to the entrance of the Grand Canyon. Due to the hour of the morning, we are mostly silent. I hear the laughing song of a canyon wren; their song always makes me smile. Suddenly, I snap out of my early morning haze — I remember this is the area Goldwater anticipated so excitedly:

"The Little Colorado has been seen by many generations of peoples and has been named in various ways during the four hundred years since white men first found it…

At this point we left Marble Canyon and entered the grandfather of and chief of all canyons — The Grand Canyon. One senses an immediate change although none is visible at the moment one enters. The air seems to be charged with an aura of bigness: buttes tower, walls are higher, promise of beauty lies everywhere, and we are all happy to know that we are now on the bottom of the world’s biggest hole.

How often I have stood on the rims of this canyon and yearned for the day when I could explore the depths of this masterful creation of water and wind and time. Now I am in it — deep in it — and I am not disappointed. It is beautiful, but in a way different from the top. My feelings of surprise and awe must equal the emotions of Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, first white man to see the canyon four hundred years before me."

We stop at the Little Colorado River. It is stunning — and the photographers eagerly set up their tripods, anxious to catch the prime light.

After shooting and interviewing the photographers, Beth and I find a great pool to soak in. Unlike the "big" Colorado, which allows bathing for maybe five minutes before fears of hypothermia set in, the Little Colorado is the perfect temperature. We splash and wash happily.

"The river scum disappeared rapidly. Skin that we had assumed had weathered in the fierce sun, became clean and soft. I’m not certain but I think I may have uncovered a suit of underwear after the third washing."

As we continue on to the entrance of the Grand Canyon, Goldwater’s words echo in my head.

continued: day four - shinumo & magic hour >>

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