EDITOR'S LETTER

editor's LETTER Everyone remembers their first time.

I was in my 20s, and it happened spontaneously. I'd been crossing and recrossing the country like a latter-day Kerouac. “There was nowhere to go but everywhere.” The Grand Canyon was off to the east, a few hundred miles, and I was headed the other way. I made the turn, though, and never looked back. The next morning, I was standing on the South Rim at sunrise.

I'll never forget the first time. That feeling. But I think about the last time, too. Or what will be the last time. Since that first sunrise, I've been to the Canyon 131 times. I know that makes me one of the lucky ones, which is why I take a good look every time I say goodbye. I always think, If this is it... if this is the last time I ever see this incredible place, am I standing in a spot that measures up to the moment? Usually, I'm at a busy trailhead or somewhere in the village, which isn't how I'd choreograph my denouement. I'm not sure where I'd like to be in that moment - it's not an easy thing. So many places at the Canyon have special meaning for me. Widforss Point, Deer Creek, Hermits Rest ... they're all on the list. And so is Point Sublime. Maybe that's at the top of the list.

The name alone makes a pretty good closing argument, yet none of my Canyon friends mentioned it when I asked about “their place.” The first person I asked was my buddy Mike Buchheit, who was the longtime director and architect of the Grand Canyon Conservancy Field Institute. A towering druid with a sense of humor, he's a passionate Canyon advocate who introduced thousands of people to the wonders of the national park. He lived on the South Rim for 27 years, and he knows the park as well as anyone. So, I asked him: “Hey, Mike. Let's say you're moving away from Arizona forever, and you have only one day left at the Canyon. Where will you go to say goodbye?” I could sense his hesitation. The deep-rooted denizens of the Grand Canyon get a little coy when you ask them too many questions about their hidden world. It's like asking Don Henley about Hotel California. But Mike obliged. “With one day left,” he says, “I'd hike to Phantom Ranch and back, for old time's sake, take a lap through Grand Canyon Village to honor a memory or two, and then wrap it up with sunset at Shoshone Point with Kim.” Kim's his wonderful wife.

Amy Martin says she'd take a hike, too. “With only one day left,” the photographer says, “I'd make sure that I had the time to hike down to the Esplanade Platform in order to give the Grand Canyon a proper farewell. The Esplanade would give me a place to be within the embrace of the Canyon walls, without sacrificing the awe and intrigue of the expansive views. From the Esplanade, I could first say a quiet and personal goodbye to the sandstone, the yucca and the canyon wren that make up the heart of the Canyon, and then a grand goodbye to the layers of temples, buttes and side canyons that stack against the sky as far as the eye can see.” Her words are as beautifulas her photographs. And the place that she describes.

Roaring Springs is another beautiful place. For 33 years, Bruce Aiken lived down there, caretaking the pump house and painting the landscape. His answer was no surprise. “I guess I'd start by hiking down to Roaring Springs,” the rock-star artist says, “absorbing the colors of the trail and letting the scent of the Canyon come to me. Arriving at my old house, I'd sit on the front porch and watch the afternoon light climb the Redwall and let the sound of Bright Angel Creek fill my ears one more time. Then, as darkness was setting in, I'd hike back to the North Rim and let the twinkling mass of the Milky Way light my way out.” Amery Bohling, another renowned artist whose work is focused on the Grand Canyon, says she'd start her last day with an early morning hike to Cedar Ridge, where, of course, she'd paint. “Then I'd have a hot dog for lunch at the Bright Angel soda fountain, followed by ice cream,” she says. “From there, I'd go pet the mules at the mule barn. And then I'd paint a bit by El Tovar.”Like Amery, I'm fond of El Tovar. My best experience there was on the last day of the last century. A blizzard had blown in, and everyone else at the lodge had either gone to bed or to the bar. I had the South Rim all to myself, standing in the snowstorm, counting down to midnight. If Y2K were going to throw the world's circuit breaker, I fig-ured the Grand Canyon was the place to be. And so it was. In fact, it would have been a perfect last goodbye. I'm glad it wasn't.