Although three million people come to see the GRAND CANYON¹ OF THE COLORADO every year, it remains² beyond the grasp of the human imagination. No photograph, no set of statistics, can prepare you for such vastness. At more than one mile deep, it's an inconceivable abyss; at between four and eighteen miles wide it's an endless expanse of bewildering shapes and colors, glaring desert brightness and impenetrable shadow, stark³ promontories⁴ and soaring, never-to-be-climbed sandstone pinnacles⁵. Somehow it's so impassive, so remote – you could never call it a disappointment, but at the same time many visitors are left feeling peculiarly flat. In a sense, none of the available activities can quite live up to that first stunning⁶ sight of the chasm⁷. The overlooks along the rim⁸ all offer views that shift and change unceasingly from dawn to sunset; you can hike down into the depths on foot or by mule⁹, hover¹⁰ above in a helicopter or raft through the whitewater rapids of the river itself; you can spend a night at Phantom¹¹ Ranch¹² on the canyon floor, or swim in the waterfalls of the idyllic¹³ Havasupai Reservation. And yet that distance always remains – the Grand Canyon stands apart.

　　Until the 1920s, the average visitor would stay for two or three weeks. These days it's more like two or three hours – of which forty minutes are spent actually looking at the canyon. The vast majority come to the South Rim – it's much easier to get to, there are far more facilities (mainly at Grand Canyon Village), and it's open all year round. There is another lodge¹⁴ and campground at the North Rim, which by virtue¹⁵ of its isolation¹⁶ can be a lot more evocative, but at one thousand feet higher it is usually closed by snow from mid-October until May. Few people visit both rims¹⁷; to get from one to the other demands either a two-day hike down one side of the canyon and up the other, or a 215-mile drive by road.

　　Finally, there's a definite risk that on the day you come the Grand Canyon will be invisible beneath a layer of fog, thanks to the 250 tons of sulphurous emissions¹⁸ pumped out every day by the Navajo Generating Station, seventy miles upriver at Page.

　　Admission to the park, valid¹⁹ for seven days on either rim, is $20 per vehicle or $10 for pedestrians²⁰ and cyclists.