avatarJoe Guay - Dispatches From the Guay Life!

Summarize

TRAVEL MEMOIRS

Goats Sold Separately — Being Stupid Tourists at the Grand Canyon

And other misadventures

Your author at the Grand Canyon South Rim in 2021, just before the stupidity started | Photo by Ed Forsyth

As much as I love the U.S. National Parks, I’d only been to The Grand Canyon once, way back in 1998, during my drive across the nation as a starry-eyed actor beelining for the City of Angels.

But it had been misty with rain that day. Impressive, but due to the fog, not the eye candy I had dreamed of. There were a few photos taken, but only a few — this was with a real camera holding actual you-pay-to-develop-it film. That’s right, kiddies, no digital cameras, no smartphones — just you and your desperate hope that the shot will come out okay and you won’t have 23 losers out of the 36 or whatever you paid to have developed.

But now it was September 2020, and my partner Eddie and I were bouncing off the walls after six months of the pandemic in Los Angeles, a city still ravaged with infections. With no desire to step near a plane we just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.

I started piecing together a road trip to see some Northern California bucket list items — McArthur-Burney Falls, Lassen National Park, maybe even Crater Lake in Oregon — but some persnickety California wildfires had other ideas and it suddenly seemed foolhardy to drive toward danger, intentionally, in the middle of our first global pandemic experience.

Northern California was quickly switched out for Arizona — Flagstaff, Sedona, and a chance to see the Grand Canyon for real this time — and so we were off to the races.

Viewpoints from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon | Photos by Joe Guay and Ed Forsyth

Even in person, the Canyon looks like a painting, like the backdrop for some Hollywood Western soundstage.

You’re standing there, you’re feeling the wind on your face, careful not to get too close to the edge because that fall would be very real — yet the brain can’t quite take it in. The vastness is so deep, taking up your entire peripheral vision in either direction, that your brain revolts and can’t process it as authentic.

Stand there for only five minutes and the view is completely different — a cloud moved this way or that, or the sun changes that pinkish hue to an orange one.

In a word, mesmerizing.

Eddie and I stand there, pondering all that humanity has been through in the past six months, and how apparently we’re nowhere near out of the woods yet as promised. Flatten that curve, folks? And we’re grateful to have access to wide open spaces and fresh air again.

Sadly I know humanity well enough to imagine that at least half of those arriving to this place will have a meh reaction, or come all this way to step out of the car, only look at the canyon through their phone’s screen, take a second selfie for Instagram, then hop into the car in search of the nearest McDonald’s.

They never take the time to see the canyon, to feel the canyon and hear it — to be still and observe it like an art piece in the museum, or even better, to interact with the canyon and go down into its depths, at least a little bit. That’s what we intended to do.

Eddie starts down the Bright Angel Trail, ahead of me | Photo by Joe Guay

Actually going down into the canyon is easy enough to start, but can be misleading, as it’s fine to descend down half a mile, but the trek back up can take twice as long and really take the wind out of you, especially on a hot end-of-summer September day.

We were determined to not just be one of those tourists. We wanted to at least be surrounded by those walls, to step into the chasm, to witness history through the changes in sediment.

We hopped on the nearby Bright Angel Trail and headed in. It was still early enough in the Covid world that we felt the need to wear masks, just like half the folks we encountered along the way.

We’d been on the trail for about twenty minutes before we came around a corner and in the distance saw a perfectly placed, life-sized replica of a mountain goat waiting for us at one of the switchbacks.

Billy, in the middle of the trail | Photo by Joe Guay

As we approached, there was one other woman nearby, off to the side with her camera.

What a great idea, we thought — what a perfect tableau the park rangers have put together here. What a perfect spot specifically designed for that epic Grand Canyon pic to remember.

We stood there taking it in, I kid you not, for a full 45 seconds or more. My lips had just started to move and say, “Eddie, go stand next to it so I can get a good picture” — when the statue’s ears moved.

“Oh my God, it’s real!” we both exclaimed at the same time.

The woman with her camera smiled. “Yes, isn’t it cute?” but at a distance.

Yes, we were the American trash tourist idiots who for 45 seconds actually thought that the Park Service, a group of people dedicated to authentic outdoor experiences, had somehow bolted a life-size replica of a mountain goat into a canyon floor switchback for visitors… just for selfies?

Before you think too poorly of us though, I cannot stress enough that this goat was completely still, not even blinking, for a good 50 seconds.

It flashed before my eyes, having to call Eddie’s beloved sister to say, “Yes, we made it to the Grand Canyon, it was lovely. But um, sorry, I instructed your brother to approach a live goat right on the edge of the canyon and it freaked and head-butted poor Eddie into the abyss.”

At least it hadn’t been a bunch of snakes.

We counted our blessings that the poor creature had at least wiggled its ears. We also tried to ignore the fact of how irrational our first reaction had been.

Unsure how to proceed, we decided this would be a good place to just turn around and head back up rather than inching around Mr. Goat — thanks for that, Billy! I can’t believe I don’t remember exactly, but I feel like he just stood there as we turned around and left — awaiting the next hikers to ease on down the switchbacks.

We got a more-than-anticipated lung workout on the climb out.

But we were alive. And our lungs were actually working at the height of a global pandemic that targeted respiratory systems.

Someday soon we’ll aim for the more remote, higher-elevation North Rim during the short summer window when it’s open to car traffic.

But in that September of Covid Year One, amidst all the chaos and fear of that time, we were breathing the canyon in, muscles throbbing, panting yet gloriously in the moment, alive.

And we were grateful.

Other pieces you might enjoy by this author:

This Happened To Me
Travel
Storytelling
Inspiration
Arizona
Recommended from ReadMedium