Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
From the Editors:...What a world of grandeur is spread before us!...Away to the west are lines of cliffs and ledges of rock — not such ledges as the reader may have seen where the quarryman splits his blocks, but ledges from which the gods might quarry mountains that, rolled out on the plain below, would stand a lofty range; and not such cliffs as the reader may have seen where the swallow builds its nest, but cliffs where the soaring eagle is lost to view ere he reaches the summit... Where we look there is but a wilderness of rocks, - - deep gorges where the rivers are lost below cliffs and towers and pinnacles, and ten thousand strangely carved form; in every direction, and beyond them mountains blending with the clouds.
These words were penned by Major John Wesley Powell during his first trip through the Grand Canyon in 1869. Since that time countless numbers of people have gazed at its wonders and paid homage to its siren beauty.
And for all those who have tried to conquer the Canyon by floating down it, hiking across it, climbing in it, or flying over it, the final telling of the tale reveals that it is the Canyon that has done the conquering and they are its willing captives
The Grand Canyon, as we have attempted to portray in this issue, is more than wind and water-formed depths, more than a time machine for the world, more than a destination for the traveler. The Canyon is, as Carl Sandburg wrote, a unique experience in which each man sees himself and each makes it his own
Go there
See it
Smell it
Hear it
Touch it
And in the silence of dawn and dusk...feel it.
It belongs to you.
And, perhaps, you belong to it!
Wes Holden
Arizona Highways Nov. 1978
rescue as noted in the June 18 diary
