When my elder daughter, Valerie, was eleven, she and I hiked the Bright Angel Trail from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to the Phantom Ranch at the bottom, where they used to serve your choice of steak or beef stew and offer bunks for the night. During our ascent the next day, Valerie didn’t complain once.
It was an adventure that launched a hundred sermon illustrations. I haven’t been back to the Phantom Ranch since. Out-of-shape hikers on the edge of 70 are wise to heed the warnings posted at the Bright Angel trailhead. When I come back by myself, as I am doing last night and this morning, I venture no further than what’s called the first tunnel. It makes for a 20-minute hike down and back.
Even during a short visit to this astonishing landscape, there’s no telling what you’ll find. At about seven, sitting on a rock along the trail on the tunnel’s far side, with the warm morning sunlight seeping through, I thought of the empty tomb. Once my imagination started down that road, the rock walls began to evoke the Judaean desert.
Then a hiker with ski poles said hello and suggested I turn around and look up and see the petroglyphs on the canyon wall. She had been taking pictures and showed me the best spot to get one of my own. They could have been made long ago or relatively recently by the Havasupai, whose nation is fully enclosed by Grand Canyon National Park, or by their forebears 1,000 or even 4,000 years ago.
