A couple take up a highly precarious position to enjoy the view of the Grand Canyon's North Rim. Photo / Mark Meredith
A couple take up a highly precarious position to enjoy the view of the Grand Canyon's North Rim. Photo / Mark Meredith
With a yawning hole nearly 2km deep at his feet, Mark Meredith looks — very gingerly — into the abyss in Utah.
"The Grand Canyon wants to kill you," a park ranger told Lonely Planet's guide to America's second-most visited National Park.
I discovered plenty of people want to do their best to help the canyon deliver on its wish.
I found visitors, who may otherwise be quite sensible, had abandoned allrationality and decided that the perfectly adequate viewpoint overlooks thoughtfully provided by the US National Parks Service were, well, plain inadequate.
They climbed over railings or left the well-made rim trails to clamber over rocks and boulders to stand or sit, legs dangling, on a finger of granite above a sheer drop hundreds of metres to the canyon floor.
Not for them the security of a sturdy bench or ledge safely on the rim path to picnic and admire the awe-inspiring spectacle spread before them. No, they had to take their sandwiches to the very edge, to watch their crumbs spiralling into the abyss.
What is it about the Grand Canyon that induces such behaviour? I put it down to sheer overexcitement and altitude sickness. At 2100m at the South Rim and 2400m at the North Rim, the body and brain receives less than three quarters of its normal oxygen intake. This might explain a lot.
Certainly, your first glimpse of the canyon's immensity is a heart-stopping moment and has you wanting to edge that bit closer to the edge just to see better what lies directly beneath you. It's hard to resist.
I found myself treading very gingerly, inching forward, but far enough away from the precipice to stop my wife having heart failure.
Unfortunately, says Lonely Planet, adults and children have plummeted to their deaths engaged in "the most mundane activities".
But climbing over a guard rail on a precipitous drop with your very young child to take a selfie with your Go Pro camera on a stick, as I witnessed at Roosevelt Point on the North Rim, I would not categorise as "mundane", but insane.
In their 2012 book, Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon, Tom Myers and Michael Ghiglieri detail 685 deaths over the years. Being male, and young, seems to hold the greatest risk. Of 55 people who have fallen from the canyon's rim, 39 were male.
Jumping between rocks and posing for pictures killed eight of them.
Deaths at the Grand Canyon this year are already above the annual average of 12, according to the Washington Post. By July, 18 people had died, including three on river trips, two who fell over the rim, one in a car crash and several others from natural causes or medical conditions.
On the road approaching Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, en route from the Grand Canyon South Rim to the North Rim. Photo / Mark Meredith
On the amazing Bright Angel Point trail on the North Rim - a narrow paved walkway with drop-offs on either side, where the edges are crumbling rock and sand - I found a collective lemming-style death wish taking place.
Sunset was approaching and people were leaving the trail to take up suicidal positions to enjoy it.
Fathers hauled tiny children up boulders high above the trail; a photographer ventured on to a horribly narrow, sheer promontory while the wind gusted, and I thought he would be blown off; and a young couple looked to have decided to end their lives together on holiday, 2400m above Bright Angel Canyon on a vertiginous outcrop.
The tragedy of how a holiday here could go bad was vividly brought home to me one night. I was photographing the Milky Way above Grand Canyon Lodge when a light began moving towards me through the darkness further down the track. The torch belonged to a park ranger. He asked if I had seen a 15-year-old boy whose parents had reported him missing.
That night I lay in my cabin and thought of the boy's parents and the crazy behaviour I'd witnessed during our visit.
The thing about the Grand Canyon is that there is no need to take risks. The park is extremely well managed and there are miles of safe rim tracks and trails into the canyon to enjoy - you are advised against trying to hike down to the bottom and back in one day, dehydration and heat exhaustion being the biggest overall killers.
Most of the paths along the rims do not have guard rails.
These are found at overlooks where the drop is sheer such as at Mather Point on the South Rim.
But even here, I photographed some pretty rash behaviour.
The very narrow, and extremely scary, lookout above Angel's Window on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Photo / Mark Meredith
Which Rim? Fortunately the Grand Canyon is big enough for you to escape people and their foolishness. But at the South Rim in summer, unless you wander off the beaten track or get up very early, it is almost impossible to escape the crowds. About 4.5 million people visit the Grand Canyon every year and 90 per cent of them go to the South Rim. However, the South Rim has the best and most spectacular views, is more accessible, and is open all year.
The North Rim has the best vibe and just 10 per cent of the visitors. The only accommodation is at beautiful Grand Canyon Lodge, which is open only from May to October. With a higher elevation and a cooler climate, it has montane forest of aspen and ponderosa pine. You can also see bison.
Accommodation: South Rim: All accommodation inside the park is managed by Xanterra Parks & Resorts. North Rim: Grand Canyon Lodge sits right on the rim with huge floor-to-ceiling windows.
