Tag: national-parks

Touring Deep Time, Part 4

The intro is the same because, as I said at the end of Part 3, it’s series, you know? So be sure to read the previous episodes, Parts 1, 2, and 3.

On our recent tour through New Mexico and Arizona, my wife Molly and I found ourselves in the presence of some deep time. And by “found ourselves” I mean “planned our trip to be.” The trip included Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian camp and conference center near Abiquiu in northern New Mexico, the Chaco Culture National Historical Park a couple hours west, Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona (which has its own little time loop), and the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. An unscheduled but anticipated stop at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, fit into the scheme as well. Each site confronted us with history on scales from human generations to older than human civilization, to a significant fraction of the age of Planet Earth.

Grand Canyon

Our tour continued through deep time with a slight detour. On Monday we were in Flagstaff, AZ, which is the home of the Lowell Observatory. This had been one of my favorite stops in 2018, and while we didn’t have it scheduled, I was pleased that Molly wanted to see it. Certainly an observatory with instruments that helped identify the expansion of the universe, besides the discovery of Pluto and investigations of Mars and such, could be considered as part of our exploration of deep time. But I’m going to skip over it and stick to terrestrial and geological targets. Suffice it to say we had an enjoyable day of exploration at Lowell.

Tuesday morning started bright and early, a bit brighter and earlier than usual, as we were heading for the Big Ditch, the Grand Canyon. I had reserved spaces for us on an all-day tour with Canyon Dave Tours, a company that comes highly recommended for good reason. Our guide, Keaton, picked us up at our hotel in Flagstaff at 7:45 a.m. in a 10-(or so)-passenger van with the plan to pick up another couple in Wilson and another in the Grand Canyon National Park. That would be our entire tour group! We would see vistas and historically significant buildings and points of interest all along the South Rim, working our way around to the East Rim. Lunch was included. Keaton turned out to be a perfect tour guide with a wealth of knowledge on the canyon’s geology, flora and fauna, Native American habitations, and National Park history. Pretty much anything you would want to know about the Grand Canyon, Keaton had an answer. Plus, he was genuine and engaging with a good sense of when to jump in and when to leave space. At day’s end, Keaton drove us all back to where we belonged to the strains of Carlos Nakai, famed Native American flute virtuoso. Of our landmark tours, this was the most expensive, but it was also worth every dollar. But enough about the process. Let’s talk about the Canyon.

The Canyon

They always say that pictures don’t do it justice, and that turns out to be true. The Grand Canyon overwhelms one’s sense of scale at first sight. Standing between ten and 18 miles across from the South Rim to the North, between .75 and 1.25 miles in vertical depth, and 277 miles from end to end, this is the biggest canyon on Earth, at least on land. The Colorado River runs through the heart of it, having carved the canyon’s root over millenia. But as we learned, it is not the Colorado alone (averaging 300 ft. wide in the canyon) that made the canyon so wide. That was the work of various tributaries and erosion all along the length of the canyon on either side of the Colorado. The result is a spectacular display of revealed geologic layers in multiple shades of red, brown, green, gray, yellow, brown, and more.

Just as the layers of the mesas at Ghost Ranch revealed the ancient building and erosion of the landscape over millions of years, so the layers of the Grand Canyon reveal the same sort of processes, but going back much farther in time. In fact, the top of the canyon is about as old as the bottom of Ghost Ranch, about 270 million years. Think about that for just a moment. Standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, you are starting at a point 1000X older than the modern human species of homo sapiens. You are starting at a time before dinosaurs appeared. You are starting in the era when all the continents were mashed together into a single landmass called Pangaea. The deeper you go, the older things get, and as we’ve seen, it gets pretty deep.

At the bottom of the canyon, the Colorado is currently cutting through layers called the Vishnu schist, or the Vishnu Basement, and beyond. These rocks are about 1.7 BILLION years old. That is about a third of the age of the planet. This is an era when the only life on the planet was single-celled, mostly bacteria and eventually some algae. Fungus was still a thing of the future. The atmosphere was still in the process of becoming oxygenated for the first time. There was only one supercontinent, but it is called Nuna, the great-grandparent of Pangaea. (Nuna would break up and recombine twice before Pangaea formed.)

In between the Vishnu Basement and the rim of the canyon are multiple layers of sandstone, shale, and limestone, each representing a different geologic era. They represent times when the canyon site was variously under an inland ocean or a dense forest or some other environment. The layers tell us of millions of years of deposits pressed down into solid rock. Think of the eons it would take to build up and compress enough sand, plants, and seashells to make a mile-deep mountain. Then think of the eons it would take to erode it all away so we can see it again.

Short Attention Span Eternity

The human mind is not adequately equipped to exist in timescapes that deep. So we can enjoy the glorious beauty of the Grand Canyon, and we can try to fathom its depth of time. But I think in the latter, we will ultimately fail. This is one of the reasons I wonder about God’s intention for us to live in eternity. Not that I don’t believe it. Not that I think God can’t make us fit for it. But as we are now, we can hardly process millions of years, much less billions. I mean, we get impatient waiting 30 seconds for the microwave to reheat our leftovers, or even a couple of seconds for a webpage to load. (Sorry about that big image at the top of the page.) If eternity is an infinitely-long linear time, we just aren’t ready. I believe we need to rethink how we talk about eternity and how we prepare people to live eternal life in this age, so we will be better prepared for the age to come.

Did you read the end first? Well, go back to read the rest! See also: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The Western Tour: An Overview

Molly and I have been traveling since July 12 (it being July 25 as I write this), so it’s definitely time for an update. This is a brief summary of what we have been up to. I’ll try to go into more detail in future posts.

July 12 – flew from Washington Dulles to Denver, got our rental car, and stayed overnight near the airport.

July 13 – Drove to Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico. The weather deteriorated from sunny to spitting rain, but it was a pleasant enough drive. We were very excited to arrive and get checked in. Our room was in Coyote Lodge on top of the mesa, putting us about as far from the dining hall as possible. We’ll be getting our steps in for sure! The room was a simple but pleasant suite with a sitting room with two loveseats and a couple tables, the bedroom, and a full bath. No A/C, but adobe, windows, and fans do a fine job keeping things comfortable. Made our way down for dinner, then orientation in the Agape Center (sort of chapel/community space), got introduced to our class instructors and saw where we would be meeting, then back up the mesa. The sky had cleared and was spectacular! Took some pics of the Milky Way that were amazing.

July 14-19 – Regular routine of breakfast at 7:30 a.m., Morning Light service at 8:30, class at 9:00-noon, lunch at 12:30, more class and/or free time in the afternoon, dinner at 5:30, usually free evenings, and early to bed. Made several friends over the course of the week, which is cool: Joel and Tammy from North Carolina, and Polly and Rigel from Texas, in particular. Hope to stay in touch with them.

My painting class turned out to be really good. I was the only real beginner, and everyone else in the class was very skilled and talented, so I felt a bit awkward knowing nothing, essentially. But everyone was very supportive, and I found my way. More on that later.

The scenery at Ghost Ranch is amazing. Such dramatic views wherever you look, and they change as the light changes through the day, so it’s always different. There’s height with the mesas, depth with the rock layers, and expanse across the valley and sky. More on that later, too.

July 19 – We left Ghost Ranch and drove to the Chaco Culture National Historical Park about 3 hours to the west. It’s three hours because you can’t get there from here. I’ve been wanting to go there since my last sabbatical trip, because it is not just a cultural heritage site but also an archaeo-astronomy site with buildings aligned with the solstices and such. There is a “sun dagger” that passes across a spiral petroglyph in one of the ruins, but that site is closed to the public because it’s gotten pretty unstable. Bummer. Unfortunately, no one made much of that aspect of the place while we were there. The ranger didn’t seem to know too much about it. Nevertheless, it was a remarkable place to see. The roads in and out were pretty … rustic. We went on to stay in Gallup, NM, that night.

July 20 – Next day we crossed into Arizona. We made a quick stop at Winslow on Route 66 and the “Take It Easy” Park, site of the line from the Eagles’ song of the same name. Kitschy fun! 

Just down the road a bit then is Meteor Crater, the target for the day’s outing. It is a mile-wide, 550-foot deep crater created by an asteroid strike about 50,000 years ago. Of course there were no humans in the area at the time, and there’s nothing much to recommend that patch of ground now, except the big hole and a nice visitor center with science displays. It’s another remarkable site that gives one a sense of time and the chanciness of existence.

July 21 – We had spent the night in Flagstaff, so we had a nice breakfast, went to pick up a few things at Wally World, and then spent the afternoon at Lowell Observatory. I had been there seven years ago, but they have added a new Discovery Center and telescope patio since then, making an already great science center even better in my opinion. It’s just a beautiful campus anyway.

July 22 – We signed up for a tour with Canyon Dave Tours to go to the Grand Canyon and had a great experience! Our tour guide, Keaton, picked us up at the hotel in Flagstaff at 7:45 a.m. and four other folks along the way. Then we spent the whole day at the canyon. Keaton was amazing, very knowledgeable and personable, imparting geology, biology, and history that was just fascinating. The scenery is of course amazing. We could see smoke still on the North Rim, which increased through the day. The weather was beautiful – sunny and upper 70s with nice breezes. We heard so many different languages through the day, too. Keaton delivered us back to the hotel at about 5:30 p.m. Great day! 10 out of 10, would recommend.

July 23 – Drove from Flagstaff to the Four Corners Monument, the point at which Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet at right angles. We took the scenic route, US 160, a mostly two-lane road called the Navajo Trail (at least in part anyway). Lots of amazing scenery. The Four Corners Monument is on Navajo land. It’s a fairly simple site with the flags of the four states and the Navajo nation, various informational plaques, and a circle where the borders cross and you can stand in all four states at the same time. People take turns taking pictures. The plaza is surrounded by booths with native folk selling their crafts. We bought a couple really pretty pieces. You could tell the introvert merchants from the extrovert merchants pretty easily.

After that, we continued on Rt. 160, crossing Wolf Creek Pass, and on to Alamosa, CO, for the night. We got a call from the hotel about 9:15 saying that they close their desk and lock the door at 10pm, but if we could say when we were coming they’d have someone to let us in. That’s a local, non-chain hotel for you! And while the room had all the necessaries, it was definitely nonstandard. Not sure if it was a refreshing change or off-putting. It was a little more like staying in someone’s guest room than a Wyndham room (All hotels are Wyndham now, aren’t they?).

July 23 – Long drive from Alamosa to Mom’s house near Loveland, about seven and a half hours. Mostly high traffic on I-25, but otherwise uneventful. We’ll be here for a few days, and then we’ll fly home. As wonderful as this trip has been, I’m looking forward to just sitting and not touristing for a little while.

So those are your headlines from the Western front. Stay tuned for more details to follow, and stay subscribed!