It is, truly, the Grand Canyon. Actually, spring and fall can also be the wrong times of the year. More and more, the South Rim has become something like everyone s favorite beach. It s too crowded, and if you are there, you will wish for the days when no one knew about the place. And that brings us to winter, when the crowds are at their lowest ebb and the canyon is at its most beautiful.
Winter is different.
The snow blanketing the rim and then gradually dispersing from the cliffs as the eye travels downward alternately mutes and highlights the rock, sometimes conjuring more out of the cliffs than it seems should be there, sometimes imparting to them a softness and tranquillity usually seen only during summer s dusk and dawn. Whereas the canyon in warm weather exhibits a quiet and powerful beauty, when snow lies upon it, it seems more serene and mysterious, deeper even. Cliff ledges, and the Pinon and juniper trees on them, may be heavy with snow, but the sheer rock faces above and below them will be dry, creating stark patterns of red and white. Often the clouds will hand low over the snow-dusted buttes that reach up from within the canyon. Or fog will fill the gorge with a thick bank of white, making the canyon seem like some enormous lake of clouds.