To experience a sunrise beneath a storm-filled sky, with lightning and torrential rain sweeping across the Grand Canyon from Point Imperial, is one of nature’s great spectacles. This already magnificent panorama becomes even more extraordinary when the North American summer monsoon rolls across the Grand Canyon, bringing lines of thunderstorms and clouds that spill into the canyon. In the cool, humid morning air, you can almost feel the breath of eternity.
Standing at an elevation of 2,683 meters (8,803 feet) on the North Rim of Arizona’s Grand Canyon, the view sweeps across Nankoweap Canyon toward the confluence of the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River. The tan, jagged summit of 2,549-meter (8,362-foot) Mount Hayden is composed of the hard, cliff-forming Coconino Sandstone from the Permian Period, the age of the dinosaurs. This sandstone is the third-youngest major layer exposed in the Grand Canyon and was deposited as vast sand dunes about 265 million years ago. Beneath the Coconino Sandstone lies the reddish, slope-forming Hermit Formation, also of Permian age, which is underlain by the Late Carboniferous to Permian Supai Group.
Looking down into the distant canyon, where the Colorado River flows hidden from view, a window opens into the deep past of our planet. The dark rocks exposed there are Precambrian in age and up to 2 billion years old. But how did the Grand Canyon itself form?
The rock layers become progressively older from the canyon rim downward toward the Colorado River. At the bottom of the canyon, the rocks date back to the early history of Earth, yet geologically speaking, the Grand Canyon itself is remarkably young. The Colorado River carved much of this immense canyon in perhaps as little as five million years. The Grand Canyon is therefore younger than the evolutionary history of the hominins from which modern humans emerged.
To carve a canyon 1,800 meters (5,905 feet) deep within this time span, the Colorado River had to cut continuously downward while the entire Colorado Plateau, including parts of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, rose by roughly the same amount. An uplift of 1,800 meters (5,905 feet) over five million years corresponds to an average rate of just 0.36 millimeters per year (0.014 inch per year). When we stand before the canyon in awe and wonder how Earth could possibly create such a structure, the answer is surprisingly simple: it does so extraordinarily slowly, given enough time and immense geological forces.
That a river can cut into a landscape is not particularly surprising. But how could the entire Colorado Plateau rise to more than 2,700 meters (8,860 feet) above sea level within only a few million years?
The answer reaches far beyond the Grand Canyon. Along the western margin of North America, the oceanic plate of the Pacific realm is being driven beneath the continent. This process, known as subduction, produces the active volcanoes of the western United States and Canada. During this immense tectonic rearrangement, the Mid-Pacific Rise, a volcanic ridge rising as much as 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above the surrounding seafloor, also moved beneath the continent. When this enormous buoyant feature passed beneath the Four Corners region, it helped uplift the Colorado Plateau.
At the same time, the land farther west, in the Basin and Range Province of eastern California and Nevada, was stretched and subsided. Death Valley eventually sank below sea level. Along this zone of crustal extension, a new ocean basin opened as the Gulf of California formed. If this rifting continues, the Gulf of California will eventually propagate farther north into the Basin and Range Province, while the Colorado Plateau continues to rise.
The Colorado River, meanwhile, remained at roughly its original elevation as the land around it rose. The river therefore cut downward into the rising plateau, creating the Grand Canyon.
My euphoria over the successful sunset shoot of the monsoon storm the night before at Cape Royal was immense. I had been waiting three weeks for the thunderstorms of the North American monsoon to sweep away the monotonous blue skies over the Grand Canyon. Once the thunderstorms arrived, torrential rain fell repeatedly. Staying on the canyon rim was quite risky, as several lightning bolts struck in my immediate vicinity. Several times, I had to abandon my photographic efforts and retreat from the rim.
It seemed almost unbelievable when, precisely at sunset, the rain stopped at Cape Royal for half an hour. The setting sun illuminated the thunderclouds and their curtains of rain from below, and I was rewarded with a spectacular panorama. Frenzied with joy, I returned to my car in the darkness, only for the rain to begin again, surrounding me with flashes of lightning.
I was soaking wet, while my camera equipment, carefully packed and hanging from my shoulder, remained completely dry. Back at the car, I celebrated the successful shoot with cold bean soup and a whiskey. Rain drummed on the roof, lightning illuminated the trees of the forest in bizarre flashes, and thunder shook the windows. Spending the night in a tent would have been no fun at all. The storm stayed with me throughout the night, lightning flashing almost every minute as torrential rain poured from the sky. Sleep was impossible, so I settled into my sleeping bag and simply enjoyed this spectacular display of nature’s forces.
My plan to drive to the Grand Canyon rim at Point Imperial for sunrise did not seem particularly sensible given the weather. As magnificent as a monsoon wave can be, the planned photograph is impossible when you are caught in the middle of torrential rain. Once again, I checked the weather forecast and precipitation radar and discovered that the monsoon wave was expected to give way to blue skies by noon. If I wanted the photograph I had envisioned at Point Imperial, there would be no second chance.
At four in the morning, the alarm rang as usual, although I had hardly slept anyway. Thunder was still roaring through the night. I climbed out of my sleeping bag, took the driver’s seat, and headed for Point Imperial. Driving the narrow, partly one-lane access road in these conditions was an adventure in itself. Rain was falling so heavily that the windshield wipers could barely keep up. The road had become a muddy creek, and I repeatedly had to maneuver around large rocks that had fallen onto the roadway. Several times, I had to get out and clear branches blocking my path. Once again, I became soaking wet.
After what felt like an eternity, I finally reached Point Imperial. Dawn should already have been approaching, yet it remained pitch dark except for the brief flashes of lightning. Rain continued to pelt the landscape.
Then, about ten minutes before sunrise, I noticed that the darkness was beginning to lift and that the rain had eased to a normal downpour. Soon afterward, the sky ahead of me began to glow deep red. I jumped out of the car, grabbed my photographic equipment and tripod, and hurried along the trail toward Point Imperial.
A short time later, I stood breathless and speechless at the edge of the canyon. The rain had stopped. Clouds partially veiled the vast panorama of the Grand Canyon, while the rising sun stained the horizon crimson.
Just as on the previous evening, my emotions boiled over. Once again, I was in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment, allowed to witness another extraordinary spectacle. Almost mechanically, I operated the camera mounted on my tripod, recording the 180-degree panorama.
These are the moments that make everything you endure on such a journey worthwhile. Tears of joy and deep emotion rolled down my face, mingling with my already soaked clothes. Once again, I released my euphoria into the cold, damp morning air and breathed in eternity.
