CANYONLANDS
The Grand Canyon
It almost looks like a green screen. A painted, hazy blue collection of layered bands of red rock that stretch for miles. So vast and deep and unimaginably beautiful that every person you watch hesitantly approach the canyon’s edge exhales of breath of awe attached with the words, “It doesn’t even look real.”
And it doesn’t. It was so strange how hard my mind had to work to fathom the fact that Lauren and I, two 20-year-olds with still so much life to experience, were standing above one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
The two of us, as self-proclaimed writers, have always thankfully had our imaginations so easily at our grasp, but this was truly a sight that could not be condensed into words or a painting or any other medium one could possibly procure.
“I have never all at once felt so small in the sense of existence while feeling so big inside”
We camped at Ten X, a first come, first serve campsite 15 minutes away from the National Park (only a $10 investment for a lovely, safe and comfortable campsite with elk nonchalantly roaming about) with the plans to wake up before the sun did to see it rise over the Grand Canyon.
And I have never all at once felt so small in the sense of existence while feeling so big inside, emotions running wild.
There is so much beauty in the world, and oftentimes I’ve found that I don’t even have to leave my hometown to see it. Beauty in my family, in the place I grew up in, in the small little moments you collect along the way. And then there are times like this, places like this, that put all that beauty into perspective.
Please go see it if you haven’t.
♡ Shelbie
Shelbie and I kept saying that it looked like a green screen. Hundreds of little mountains with plateaued peaks within one huge canyon that continued forever until it disappeared behind the horizon. The entire spectacle was shrouded in light blue haze that made everything but the cliffs immediately surrounding us seem unreal. I had always imagined it to be a lot more orange, like how you see in postcards and NatGeo pictures, but it was so much lighter—blue and red and grey— because what seemed so close was actually miles and miles away, tricking my eyes with minute details that seemed unmistakably close.
We scrabbled along rocks to get out to the cliff edges with no railing, wanting to immerse ourselves in the natural beauty as much as we physically could. I swallowed my fear of heights, dangling my legs and looking over the edge at a depth that I couldn’t fully comprehend but knew was more fantastic than anything I’d seen before.
Flight being such a big part of my life, I couldn’t stop fantasizing about leaping from the edge, sprouting wings of my own, and joining the condors that soar brilliantly through the canyon's depths. Too bad they outlawed hang gliding.
Lauren x
zion
We were in Zion National Park for my birthday.
Shelbie gave me the reins to decide what we’d be doing while we were there, so I decided on a hike that I’ve been anticipating for a while now: The Narrows.
A friend of mine, who is learned in all things National Parks, told me that I HAD to do this hike.
It’s a venture into the Virgin River, there’s no path, and most of the time you’re wading over the rocky river bottom and trying not to get off balance by the smooth current. The hike goes as far as ten-miles, all the way to Big Spring, with the gorgeous slabs of canyon wall getting as high as a thousand feet tall and as narrow as thirty feet across.
We embarked on a half a day trip, hiking over six hours for about a ten-mile roundtrip adventure. It’s a hike I’ll most definitely do again, and recommend to others. Next time I’m doing all ten miles, and bringing more water so I don’t have to resort to the primitive method of drinking from the waterfalls.
The water was cool, at times getting as high as our waists, reminding us that we’re Florida girls who aren’t used to water colder than 75 degrees. After a couple hours of hiking, the large sums of people began to fade, with only a couple people passing us here and there.
It was ethereal standing there alone, the rocks looking like tricks of the light, water trickling down in curtains, every inhale of crisp air unadulterated, as if I was the first to breathe it in. Pictures really don’t bring justice to the curved and jutted rock that shot up so high that trying to take it all in made me sway with dizziness.
Time stopped while we were in there, I was a speck of insignificant dust and at the same time I felt everything. My feet were planted on the ground and yet I filled up that whole space; the condensation dripping, the baby ferns sprouting from cracks, the muddy riverbank, the tadpoles flitting around in stagnant water, all of it was around me and within me and I had an overwhelming feeling of being present.
And if you’ve ever had the feeling of not being present, you know exactly how incredible it is.
Lau x
bryce canyon
The heat wave started the morning we drove to Bryce. We stopped at the most popular lookout points in the canyon, and took in the huge amphitheater of towering orange hoodoos, rolling mountains in the distance and clusters of bright green pine trees. It was a humbling sight, and if it wasn't so searing hot we may have hiked among the hoodoos, where the temperature climbs much higher. It would be such a fun maze to get lost in, but in the cooler months for sure. It was definitely worth the drive up to the canyon to look out over hundreds and hundreds of drippy sandcastle-lookin' spectacles.
♡ Shelb & Lau x
