The Grand Canyon of Fear: A photo essay

I hadn't been back to the Grand Canyon for some five years until this early summer. The re-introduction was bitter-sweet.

On the one hand it is nice to see the upsurge in runners, day hikers and excited visitors experiencing the magic of the wild. On the other hand (call me a cynic) there seem to also be a massive upsurge in the "selfie-self absorbed" experience. I think it is great that people want to document their adventures and share them, but the ubiquitous presence of the selfie-stick was a bit disconcerting. The Park seem to be a nexus for this expression - especially when wandering the overlooks and road along the rim - once a half mile or so down the canyon it lessens - a bit... I guess it is nothing new - the self-timer and running to get in the family Christmas photo... yet I think this new explosion of smart phones and Instagram makes the promise of being a media hero all to the more tempting and thus exponentially apparent. The experience and connection to place seem a bit eclipsed by the sense of self and the placement of the primary focus - the image-maker, the human, in the vast wilderness... There was also an upsurge of neon apparel, dogs on trails, graffiti scrawled on rocks along the trail - happy faces and names scratched on to rocks... Perhaps this comes unconsciously from a place of fear...

I think Edward Abbey said it well when he penned this...

Alone in the silence, I understand for a moment the dread which
 many feel in the presence of primeval desert, the unconscious
 fear which compels them to tame, alter or destroy what they
 cannot understand, to reduce the wild and prehuman to human
 dimensions. Anything rather than confront directly the
 ante-human, that _other_world_ which frightens not through danger
 or hostility but in something far worse--its implacable
 indifference.

all images ©Bennett Barthelemy