At Horseshoe Bend
Recently I stood at the edge of the canyon that overlooks Horseshoe Bend. A deep inky blue green curve of the Colorado River one-thousand feet below snakes around a hairpin turn. We jogged the three-quarters of a mile from the parking lot to the overlook hoping to catch sunset. We were breathless and still running as the sun fell below the red rock horizon of Glen Canyon.
I stood on a promontory looking up at the watercolor painting happening in the sky, then down at the water and back across the ledge at the hundreds of people taking in the same sight (or, more accurately, taking selfies of themselves taking in the same sight).
Catching my breath I realized how conflicted I felt -- at once thrilled to see this place I’d always hoped to see and also a little disappointed that I hadn’t had to work harder for it. We like doing long day hikes. I’ve walked 16 miles and seen a less spectacular view. Horseshoe Bend felt a little like cheating -- nothing more than a short downhill jog from the car.
We were exploring the corner of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah for a few days and much of the time we were hiking I was chewing on why, exactly, it is that I feel like I have to work hard to be able to enjoy a good thing.
Recently it struck me that maybe what I was missing at Horseshoe Bend wasn’t the lack of effort, but the lack of context. I remembered the time I first stepped up to the edge of the Grand Canyon. I was awestruck. I looked at Ryan and said, I cannot wait to get in there. The next few days we hiked in and around and out of that canyon. We got ourselves into a little bit of a predicament during a particularly hot and windy afternoon on the South Kaibab Trail. We sweat and suffered and clung to the sandy orange wall when the gusts of wind kicked up. We looked at each other and laughed -- that incredulous bellow that comes only from experiences comprised of equal parts fear and elation and awe. Our bodies were covered in sand by the time we emerged. We sealed the experience with prickly pear margaritas at the lodge, drinking in the sunset over the canyon from which we’d just emerged. We had lived experience; we had context. We’d been there.
Saying it needed to be hard was too one dimensional. There are layers and layers. That’s what was missing -- a passage through the rock, fingers gripping sandstone, dust in our teeth and socks permanently stained terracotta. That is, context.
