Canyon Surprises

Canyon in Bloom

The Grand Canyon's allure

lives in its geology: the dynamic twists and turns of side canyons, the vital colors and kinetic layers of stone. On a bright spring day, we easily overlook the fact that far below the rims, at the bottom of the Canyon along the Colorado River, lies another world. This one foregoes tourists, automobiles and towering pines and reveals a place of side canyons lush with ferns, orchids and wildflowers in an astonishing array.

While springtime's snow, cold and 46-degree water make it an unpopular season to float the Grand Canyon, we have taken the trip four times in dories, each time for 19 days in early spring. The river remains peaceful then, and the wildflowers sometimes prove spectacular. For blooms, our most recent trip rated the best we've ever experienced. Whole hillsides were covered with common Sonoran Desert plants: brittlebushes, prickly pear cacti and showy four-o'clocks. Monkeyflowers and watercress lined side-canyon creeks. Golden columbines and stream orchids stood among lush maidenhair ferns in the many spring-fed alcoves.

Botanists have identified more than 1,000 different flowering plants in the Canyon, and because the 280-mile river journey drops several thousand feet from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead, the succession of blooms is ever-changing. Crimson

monkeyflowers and cacti blooms rank as the most common flowers, but because they grow in so many different layers of rock, each turn of the river shows them off at new angles and in various settings.

The wetland riverbank and desert scrub areas both provide blooming subjects for photographs. Many of the smallest flowers-the ones we had to lie on our bellies to see-prove the most interesting, and so we use a macro lens (a Nikon 60mm f2.8 Micro) and tripod for getting shots of those little "belly flowers." If you want to try that yourself, be sure to check the area for cactus before crawling around with a camera. We learned that lesson the hard way. - LARRY AND DANA ULRICH [PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 28 AND 29] Cliff-dwelling maidenhair ferns find a home overlooking Kanab Creek in one of the Grand Canyon's many side canyons.

[ABOVE] Wild four-o'clocks grow in sandy areas and mesas; here, a cluster found in Marble Canyon.

[RIGHT] Pads of the ubiquitous prickly pear cactus constitute a delicacy in some diets, including the javelina's.

[OPPOSITE PAGE] Below Havasu Canyon's nearly vertical wall, ocotillos sport tender green leaves, evidence of recent rainfall, and brittlebushes bloom in eye-dazzling profusion.

[LEFT] Though malodorous, fetidmarigolds have been useful to Hopi Indians, who consume the plants and use them to make dye.

[ABOVE] One of nature's delicate creations, a golden columbine flower graces Travertine Canyon.