Of Sun and Stone

by Leah Duran, '09, '10
When I first stood on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon six years ago, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, as if I could simply stare at the canyon forever. Now, I call the Grand Canyon home.

“Want to go save the canyon?” My fellow SCA intern asks me this each morning before we embark on our adventures. As part of the habitat restoration team at Grand Canyon National Park, we are helping revegetate disturbed areas throughout the South Rim.

Here in the high desert at 7,000 feet, saguaros, Arizona’s iconic cacti, are as foreign as the invasive weeds we pull from our restoration sites. The cerulean sky is instead painted with swaying pinyon pine and juniper branches. The snow-draped peak of Mount Humphrey’s, the state’s tallest mountain at 12,633 feet, looms over the landscape to the south.

I am blessed to live in a place where people from all over the world vacation. The average visitation length – three and a half hours – affords too little time to discover the canyon’s depths. Most of the park’s 1.2 million acres remains unexplored, even by staff archeologists. The trails, white threads etched amidst an impossibly daunting landscape, are portals into wild land ruled by sun and stone.

With more than five million tourists a year, human impact is the largest threat to flora and fauna. We are literally saving the canyon from ourselves.

To allay some of the damage, we plant native species such as prickly pear cactus and several shrubs and grasses. One of our largest projects is restoring the Desert View road scar, the old entranceway into the park’s eastern edge.  As I begin to dig a hole, the sharp metal of the pick mattock clangs against ground hardened by years of traffic. The work is tiring, and would not be completed nearly as fast without the assistance of volunteer groups, who are generous with their time and strength. Relaxation graces our day as well, while carefully pushing dirt around the roots of a purple aster; while watching water from the hose play with light and form rainbows as it cascades to nourish our plantings.

Collecting seeds for propagation in our nursery is another rewarding task. I repeat globemallow’s scientific name – Sphaeralcea amibigua – as I pluck its seeds, tiny, star-like clusters faded ocher from former orange flowers. This is the only time I’ve used Latin since high school. Knowing plant names is also necessary for transects, where we record the type and percentage of species in designated plots to monitor the area’s health.

I don’t see the canyon every day, even though my cabin is within walking distance.

Most things are in Grand Canyon Village, where up to 3,000 employees live during the summer. When I do chance to glimpse the canyon, whether while working or sitting at the rim for lunch, it feels like the first time. Those jutting plateaus and sweeping vistas retain their allure.

Sometimes, with the sound of cars and helicopters dominating my day on planted islands near the main entrance, I forget where I am. Then, on the winding drive back to the office, I crest a turn and the canyon’s top layers – grey tips of limestone met by brown bands and red rings of sandstone – slip into view through the sweet-smelling ponderosas, reminding me of my humble place in this timeless scene.

Author Charles Bowden, in his book Blue Desert, writes, “There is so much space and so much ground that no one can for a single moment doubt the basic American dream that it is possible to make something worthwhile of life.” The expansiveness of the desert, of the canyon, loses all sense of distance, contains all traces of time and fills my entire being with possibility. That harsh, demanding beauty makes me think we can demand much of ourselves and in turn, blossom like wildflowers.

A Navajo chant speaks of walking in beauty. Truly, at the Grand Canyon, I do so each day.

“In beauty I walk.

With beauty before me, I walk.

With beauty behind me, I walk.

With beauty below me, I walk.

With beauty above me, I walk.

With beauty all around me, I walk.”

“House Made of Dawn: The Navajo Night Chant.” Four Masterworks of American Indian Literature by John Bierhorst

Read more by Leah and learn about her hitch with SCA Massachusetts: http://www.thesca.org/follow-me/leah