WHS#1

My very first WHS visit came from a trip to the West Coast of the USA way back when in 2008. It's so long ago that I can't even find my pictures of it (not that I took any pictures by myself as a child). On that trip, we met so many relatives and family friends, visited several cities, and did a lot of things. Being the child I was back then, I just so happen to remember none of that now. This is a part of my life that I really can't visualize, so it seems a bit of a stretch to even include this site on my personal list of WHS. But there are 3 vivid memories I have of that distant blissful bygone era, and they all happen to be in Arizona: my first encounter with snow (dirty, melting, meter-wide patch of compressed ice under a grove of pine trees) near Flagstaff, the unbelievable heat of Yuma that melted my ice cream almost instantly and made me feel like my butt was burning, and the Grand Canyon. Yes, those 3 still shine brightly in my imagination to this day, and it's time to discuss the 3rd one.

As the science-oriented kid I was, the Grand Canyon was definitely a highlight of my life back then. It was just such an amazing image that became true in front of my young, still eyeglassless, eyes. My parents and I were on a road trip, driving from Las Vegas to our next place to rest, Flagstaff, and it was quite soon after the boring (at the time) Hoover Dam that we came across the Grand Canyon National Park. We were at the South Rim. I remember looking down at the tiny river far below and suddenly being so scared that I would fall over the rails or that my Crocs would fall under the rails. I remember staring at the colorful sandstone columns, fascinated but unaware about just how much of Earth's history it represented. I remember looking at the North Rim, wondering how there were lush snowy forests on the other side when I was standing on barren desert. I even remember being in awe of how long (or deep) a kilometer is. Long story short, after being amazed at the view for an hour or so, we left at just around sunset to continue on our journey.

Obviously, the Grand Canyon is a wonder of the world. Its combined scenic, geological, and biological value is almost unparalleled in the world. To this day, it's still one of the greatest natural phenomena I've seen. Right now, though, I've also experienced and read of enough of the world to paint for myself a bigger picture on the standing of the Grand Canyon with other wonders around the world. First of all, the Grand Canyon is neither the deepest, nor longest canyon in the world, not by a long shot. It is, however, one of the most, if not the most, beautiful, and is probably most comparable to the Fish River Canyon in Namibia. The reason is simple: these two canyons aren't mountain canyons, which tend to be deeper, but plateau canyons. This causes the river to wind around a bit more, causing islands and peninsulas of the high plateau to form within the canyon. They are also located in deserts, which means that flora has less tendency to cover the surfaces and hide the different layers of rock.

I've also visited the Colca Canyon in Peru, which is said to be double the depth of the Grand Canyon, but being a mountain canyon in a lush setting, it isn't quite as impressive as the "deepest canyon in the world" would make it sound. The depth seems to be measured from the tops of the mountains rising directly from the canyon floor, which means the depth can't be as easily appreciated. The walls are covered in plants, so the bedrock is rarely exposed, and the columns and pinnacles seen desert canyons don't form. The great thing about the Colca in comparison to the Grand Canyon is the wildlife. Being in a desert setting, the Grand Canyon doesn't have much to show of its wildlife aside from being an intact ecosystem, despite fulfilling Criterion 10. This is simply due to it having a vertical continuum of ecosystems, which is a great show of habitat diversity, but not so much of species diversity. Colca Canyon, on the other hand, prides itself on its Andean Condor population, which we observed from the scenic mirador early in the morning.

The other thing that distinguishes the Grand Canyon from any other canyon is its demonstration of each layer of rock as a distinct period of the Earth's history. It's like the library of geological time, and it that sense, it really is unequalled in the world, and that probably forms the greatest argument for its OUV. But what argument must we have to make to protect a place as amazing as this? Well, I say it's just proof that something this great has more than meets the eye. This is a place that will forever stay in my mind, and that's amazing for many more reasons than one. I hope to return, one day, to explore deeper into the wonder and the mysteries of the great Grand Canyon.