Make the Most of Your Time On Earth 3 by Rough Guides

Author:Rough Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rough Guides
Published: 2015-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

Need to know

Key Largo: Key Lime Tree (+1 305/853-0378). Tavernier: Blond Giraffe Key Lime Pie Factory, 92220 Overseas Hwy (blondgiraffe.com). On Marathon: Porky’s Bayside Restaurant, 1410 Overseas Hwy (porkysbaysidebbq.com). In Key West: Key West Key Lime Pie Co, 511 Greene St (keylimepieco.com); Kermit’s Key West Key Lime Shoppe, 200 Elizabeth St (keylimeshop.com); Rooftop Café, 308 Front St (rooftopcafekeywest.com).

536 Lost for words at the Grand Canyon

arizona If a guidebook tells you that something is “impossible to describe”, it usually means the writer can’t be bothered to describe it – with one exception. After pondering the Grand Canyon for the first time, the most spectacular natural wonder on Earth, most visitors are stunned into silence.

Committed travellers hike down to the canyon floor on foot or ride on a mule, spending a night at Phantom Ranch, or hover above in a helicopter to get a better sense of its dimensions. But it is still hard to grasp. The problem isn’t lack of words. It’s just that the canyon is so vast and so deep, that the vista stretches so far across your line of vision, up, down and across, giving the impression of hundreds of miles of space, that it’s a bit like looking at one of those puzzles in reverse – the more you stare, the more it becomes harder to work out what it is or where you are. Distance becomes meaningless, depth blurs, and your sense of time and space withers away.

The facts are similarly mind-boggling: the Grand Canyon is around 277 miles long and one mile deep. The South Rim, where most visitors go, averages 7000 feet above sea level, while the North Rim, eleven miles away as the crow flies but 215 miles by road, is over 8000 feet high – its alpine landscape only adding to the sense of the surreal.

On the canyon floor flows the Colorado River, its waters carving out the gorge over five to six million years and exposing rocks that are up to two billion years old through vividly coloured strata. It’s this incredible chromatic element that stays with you almost as much as the canyon’s size, with the various layers of reds, ochres and yellows seemingly painted over the strangely shaped tower formations and broken cliffs.

Think of it this way: the Grand Canyon is like a mountain range upside down. The country around the top is basically flat and all the rugged, craggy elements are below you. The abruptness of the drop is bizarre and, for some, unnerving. But the Grand Canyon is like that: it picks you up and takes you out of your comfort zone, dropping you back just that little bit changed.

Need to know

The South Rim remains open all year; winter snows preclude access to the North Rim, which is usually open from mid-May to mid-Oct. See nps.gov/grca for more information.

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