ALONG THE WAY

Enamored of the Grand Canyon, I came to visit and stayed eight years. I drove a sight-seeing bus along the South Rim, reciting facts and figures to the folks who rode with me. But I had an endless thirst for Grand Canyon knowledge, so at every opportunity I was off in pursuit of more facts and figures. I was like the postman who took a walk on his day off. While perusing a topographical map of the Grand Canyon in search of new adventure, I focused on the interesting name: Toroweap, a point on the North Rim in Grand Canyon National Monument, not part of today's park at that time. To get there from Grand Canyon Village, I had to drive 60 miles east on State Route 64 to Cameron, north on U.S. 89 another 72 miles to Marble Canyon via the Painted Desert and Navajo Indian Reservation cross the Colorado River on Navajo Bridge, parallel the Vermilion Cliffs, and cruise the switchbacks up into the ponderosa pine forest of Kaibab National Forest to nearly 8,000-foot-high Jacob Lake, another 55 miles; drop down the north slope of the Kaibab Plateau 30 miles into sagebrush flats at Fredonia (where I was tempted to stray by a corrugated horizon of reds and purples beyond the border in Southern Utah); then take State Route 389 west for eight miles to the turnoff for the final leg: 65 miles of dirt road across the 11,000-square-mile expanse known as the Arizona Strip.

Toroweap is a Paiute Indian word which means "gully" or "dry wash." Considering this, and the spectacular land through which I would be traveling, I concluded that Toroweap had to be anticlimactic.

But it wasn't.

At Toroweap, I peered over the edge, wheeled in shock, and collapsed on the ground as if I had been shot. Then I crawled no, dragged myself across the slickrock surface away from the rim. An awful fear possessed me, virtual terror. The elevation at Toroweap Point is 4,552 feet above sea level. From where I had looked into the chasm, it was not a mere 3,000 feet "straight down," as I had been told, but billions of feet straight down. The whole surrealistic pink landscape seemed tilted toward the chasm, and I felt I was sliding back two inches for every one I gained toward safety. Finally, when I had retreated to my pickup truck, I slid behind the wheel without looking back toward the rim, put the vehicle in reverse, backed the 40 or 50 yards to the campground, pulled the hand brake as hard as I could a half-dozen times, got out on the passenger side, and sat in a sanctuary between the truck and a rock wall.

In one big jolt, I had acquired acrophobia. I have it to this day. But there, in the Toroweap campground, recovering, I sought immediate cure for a condition only minutes old. You know, a little of the hair of the dog that bit you. I walked to within about 20 feet of the rim, dropped to my hands and knees and, infantlike, crawled to and looked over the sandstone lip again. Below and downstream was the infamous Lava Falls, rated by Colorado River rafters as the worst to run of all Grand Canyon rapids. From the aerie of Toroweap Point, distance transformed those 25-foot-high waves to ripples no worse than you find in a glass of water. But I could hear the muted roar of the maelstrom below, an indication of its immense power. Then, an increasingly louder sound drowned them out. It was my chattering teeth. Mimicking a crayfish, I pushed myself backward, backward.

acquired acrophobia. I have it to this day. But there, in the Toroweap campground, recovering, I sought immediate cure for a condition only minutes old. You know, a little of the hair of the dog that bit you. I walked to within about 20 feet of the rim, dropped to my hands and knees and, infantlike, crawled to and looked over the sandstone lip again. Below and downstream was the infamous Lava Falls, rated by Colorado River rafters as the worst to run of all Grand Canyon rapids. From the aerie of Toroweap Point, distance transformed those 25-foot-high waves to ripples no worse than you find in a glass of water. But I could hear the muted roar of the maelstrom below, an indication of its immense power. Then, an increasingly louder sound drowned them out. It was my chattering teeth. Mimicking a crayfish, I pushed myself backward, backward.

At that time, I think there were only seven spaces in the campground, and the monument supervisor told me he had never had to hang out the "Campground Full" sign. That night I had Toroweap entirely to myself. I wished for a human to sit beside me in the silver light of my Coleman lantern which I ran all night long and say sympathetically, "There, there. You'll be all right. Things will look differently in the morning." But they didn't. I drove away from Toroweap without venturing to the overlook again.

Toroweap Point is the scariest place in Arizona, maybe the scariest place on Earth. It is the juxtaposing of elements that cause it to work out that way, and maybe only a psychologist can explain it. The forces at work here affect not just me, but others, too. Possibly thousands. Historian Marshall Trimble in Travel Arizona: The Back Roads, said, "First I walked boldly up to the edge, peered over, and then quickly retreated.... Then I cautiously crawled up to the edge on all fours for another look." Lee Oertle wrote in Western Outdoors that when he and his wife Dixie first visited Toroweap, he heard her shriek. ".... she had whirled around and grabbed a skinny juniper, digging fingernails into the ancient bark." His own reaction: "When my eyes fell over the edge, I froze, and my stomach spasmed in unreasoning fear.... I made the leap backward without even pondering the move and joined my wife clutching that poor juniper...." One visitor wrote in the National Park Service register that he had nightmares afterward.

As a Grand Canyon guide, I frequently heard visitors say (though, unlike at Toroweap, there was a rail between them and the rim), "I must stay away from the edge. It (the Canyon) is pulling me." This equates to the syndrome where the butcher-shop customer feels compelled to put a finger in the meat slicer. Toroweap Point is no place for them. It was no place for me, either, and I swore I would never go there again. But I did.

Like the moth drawn to the flame, I have returned several times to Toroweap. My wife is less bothered by it than I, but still bothered. I have steeled myself into taking a few pictures of that awesome abyss, using a high shutter speed to compensate for my shaking. But never have I been able to work long enough - edge close enough - to get a photograph that really exemplifies Toroweap. Always I say I'll never go there again. But I may try it one more time. I'll tie a strong rope around my waist and anchor the lifeline securely to a strong tree. I'll strap myself into a parachute with an automatic release. I'll take a lunch so I won't starve on the way down. James Tallon