Sunrise from Maricopa Point

The forecast called for a 70 percent chance of rain, but it seemed sacrilegious for someone claiming to be a landscape photographer to sleep through sunrise at the Grand Canyon. Accordingly, I rose early and drove to Maricopa Point, the spot I had selected for a sunrise shoot before starting a five-day backpacking trip into the depths of the canyon. To my surprise, no one else was there, nor did anyone join me as I waited impatiently for the light. Clouds were already gathering in serrated rows presaging the stormy afternoon to come, but they had not yet coalesced into the heavy gray masses that threaten imminent rain. I stood awestruck at the overlook, stunned as always to be looking down at the handiwork of the Colorado River, which has patiently, slowly, and inexorably cut a mile-deep gorge as the Colorado Plateau rose around it. For five million years, the river has won the race, cutting faster than the plateau can rise. Now the river has exposed rocks, the Vishnu Schist, that are about 1.7 billion years old – so old they contain few fossils, because life was not yet widespread on the planet when these rocks were formed by the intense heat and pressure caused by the collision of volcanic islands with the continental plate. The Vishnu Schist is the oldest and lowest layer of rock in the Grand Canyon, revealed here in the dark gray gash forming an inverted V across the middle of the frame. The rock beneath my feet was a comparative newcomer to the planet, only 300 million years old – still a span of time so long it defied my comprehension. I waited, hoping the rising sun would find a hole in the thickening clouds, and was rewarded when the sun burst through and illuminated the astonishing scene before me.