Martha Cooney

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It was 2014 and I planned to hike the Grand Canyon while passing through Arizona en route to the West Coast. I was scared of heights, but millions of average tourists managed it every year, and – let’s time out and be real for a minute –  was I (a millennial, I remind you) average? 

 

I listened to Counting Crows on CD for the hour-plus drive north from my motel in Flagstaff; the National Geographic road atlas on the front seat pinch-hit when the phone GPS got spotty. I passed a hitchhiker (I did consider it) and found a McDonald’s drive-thru. The guy at the window handed me my oatmeal and coffee and I looked for his eyes. What are the oats for, you ask? I’m hiking the Grand Canyon today. No big deal. 

 

Outdoorsman cred operates along the oat scale: granola bars at one end and granola itself in the middle, progressing all the way up to a sack of raw oats (stick in your open wet mouth, capture some dry ones and sneeze off the dust – whinny if you’re feeling fancy.) CLIF bars tell you they’re the only hiking food in the game because someone is Spider-Man-ing his midlife crisis on the wrapper, but there’s other options. Nuts, like their sad friend raisin, are relieved to be a star on the trail after putting up with suspicion in other settings. “We’re at the board meeting, there’s an open box of Entenmann’s crumb, and we got Shirl the Squirrel over here chomping on her mixed nuts. We live in Pennsylvania and you’re eating pecans; what are you trying to prove?” Trail mix is an excuse to eat M&M’s, but I don’t judge. 

 

To supplement, I stopped at a convenience store for hard-boiled eggs in the packet, apple, banana (eat early in the journey before its power pose loses integrity), peanuts, and Greek yogurt, because Girlbosses in 2014 had protein on their checklist. “Ladies! Ditch that nineties yogurt! It has to be Greek now! Urns, philosophers, gods, goddesses, alpha, omega, zeta theta psi, delta delta delta, alpha kappa kappa kappa snappa crackle pop. Give me a Rosie the Riveter! You’re ready to sit at your laptop for sixteen hours! #Hustleharder.” 

 

I pulled up to the entrance booth with one hand on the wheel like I was going somewhere in life and paid twenty-five dollars to the ranger. He gave me a map and trail guide and pointed to the busy lot. I parked and studied the guide. Hiking trail options were listed as “Easy,” “Moderately Difficult,” and “Difficult.”  

 

Were these “difficulty levels” created by a Division 1 college athlete, or a fourth-grade all-star first baseman (guilty!)? The only purpose this type of subjective categorizing fulfills is to illustrate the chasm between how two people view the same thing. 

 

On a scale of one to five, how would I rate my performance as a communicator at work? I’d say five. You’d say three? I’m surprised by that.

 

The spice level of my “Lucifer’s Gallstones” deviled egg salad? I told you, just one chili pepper icon. Why are you having trouble breathing?

 

Olive Garden IS fine dining. 

 

Either way. I hiked all the time at home and I wanted something substantial. “Difficult” looked a little long. “Easy”? Why even show up when I could just try out the treadmill at a Silver Sneakers establishment? We’ll go with “Moderately difficult.” A trail partway down the canyon, then back up, six hours in total – perfect. 

 

I did have some nerves. I wanted to hike, but like I said, I don’t like heights. I wasn’t fooling myself: I knew I’d have to face scary moments at lookout points and vistas. 

 

My brain neurons, infected with contaminated oxygen from the pale-millennial-pink 2010s-era air, spoke in capital-letter phrases repeated from women posed with both hands on hips or a chin resting on a fist. What would you do if you weren’t afraid? Lean in. Start before you are ready. 

 

It’s not like hiking trails are designed without safety in mind. We’d be high up, but the trails themselves would be in the canyon, I figured, with rock walls hugging us on a gentle descent. Mountains everywhere have gradual slopes, trails carved into the middle zone.

 

Rock scrambles or steep sections show up on all hikes, but they’re no problem as long as the area around them is buffered with a football field’s worth of leveled-out space to create some drag (physics), and thick growth to catch you. A pricker bush snags and holds tight; a mushroom-populated log stops you short. Gravelly rock is good; the texture slows you down (“I’m only hurting you because I love you.”)

 

I’d face the occasional scary bits as part of the overall experience and do the thing. The wind was chilly and whippy and the guide advised removable layers, so I went into the bathroom to put leggings under my jeans. I inventoried food, filled water bottles, found the shuttle bus stop, and shuffled on with the crowd. I nodded to the driver. Here I go. He kept his eyes ahead.

 

The bus chugged up the road to higher and higher elevation. I got off with a large crowd at the South Rim’s first major viewpoint. The visitor center was to the left; to the right, a long rock surface rolled gently toward the canyon edge; a paved trail led the same way. I was at a distance, but could see the canyon’s other side, and after walking a few steps I clocked the rim on our side. I could see into the canyon. My insides went into a strange freefall. 

 

I felt like I was at the edge of the universe. There was the fenced overlook, and over there was a lookout point with no fence, and beyond each, a straight plummet into a gouged-out hellpit. 

 

I held my arms out to keep my body from going further. Families split around me on their walk to the edge. You drove over an hour. You have to at least look at it. I sat down on the flat rock surface with palms clinging to the ground and feet planted in front to execute a modified crabwalk, and did one butt-scoot forward. 

 

Now I could see lines of hikers like tiny ants walking down into the canyon on the path I had planned to take. I see no rails. I SEE NO RAILS! They trotted along a few feet from the sheer drop of the canyon, a clean non-gradual slice into the earth with no onboarding period. 

 

The air smelled like insanity. By the way, it was supposed to be some of the cleanest in the country; how could that be, with the extra carbon dioxide from people hyperventilating? I looked around. Everyone else was calm. They beckoned children to skip over to the lookout point. They smiled. 

 

The rail was waist level; what about the talls? Some people leaned, with elbows on it. Structures crumble, metal corrodes; every bridge collapses at some point; what are you doing? Other people turned around to take selfies and leaned against the fence as if it could be counted on. Breakups happen. 

 

At the lookout spot without a fence, people sat, sedate, on rocks. Some stood and nodded appreciatively. Everyone has inner rage that could snap at any moment; what if somebody pushed somebody else? What if I had a sudden uncontrollable gymnastic ability to sprint into a no-hands cartwheel and cannonball over the side? 

 

One time in first grade, Katie Huff from my class said to me in a whispered confession, “Sometimes I want to put my feet under the radiator where the mousetraps are.” I get it, Katie. 

 

You paid twenty-five dollars to be here. Look at it! I scooted forward one inch. 

 

The canyon was smug. It knew it had the power, and it knew it looked good. I tried to appreciate how stunning it was. Stripes of every toast shade layered themselves with red rust and dusty rose in a nice assembly line ready to sandpaper and box-grate my body on the way down before it gulped me like a goldfish. 

 

Of course the thing was pretty. But was it worth the future trauma every time a kid pulled out a burnt sienna Crayola or I saw a lasagna slice from the side? How could something exist that was so beautiful and so terrifying at the same time? (That’s a softball to come up with your own joke – “Just like [insert celebrity name]” – have fun!)

 

What even happened here? 

 

ANNUAL SUMMIT

GOD and SATAN sit at opposite ends of a long table with a host of others in between taking notes.

 

GOD: Next to launch is a beautiful canyon. People can come and enjoy nature’s majesty. 

 

SATAN: If I may? I’d love to give some input on the design. 

 

GOD: This is my project, not yours.

 

SATAN: Don’t forget we never squared up from poker night.

 

GOD (purses lips): Mghhhh. 

 

SATAN: Open edges it is.

 

My palms stayed splayed on the rock under me. I wasn’t sure what to do next. You got the Greek yogurt. Another inch-scoot.  

 

I checked in on the ant people processing down the trail. I was worried for them; anything could happen. Someone could trip because they got distracted looking at someone’s walking stick. A fight could escalate (“I told you it’s triggering when you talk about CLIF bars!”) Two people could be overly polite over who should pass first, then miscommunicate, bump into each other when they go at the same time, and tip over the edge while they both yell “I’m so sorry!” on the way down. 

 

Plus, the wind. I saw the movie where a stiff breeze took down a cow and a port-a-potty. Wind can propel chimes into a hypnotizing melody and manipulate a whirligig’s entire life; the human body isn’t immune. A slight current could displace a strand of carefully placed bang, whip it into the eye, and season to taste with a liberal pinch of dust; the sum total causing you to stumble off course and flip over a rock into the abyss. And it’s worse at high altitude. Baseball in Denver is a circus; the canon law of box cake mix gets rewritten above sea level: have we learned nothing? 

 

I forced my eyes to do another sweep of the view from my seated position. A few petrified trees stuck out from the canyon wall. Help us. We can’t hold on much longer. 

 

Okay. Okay. It was time to regroup. I could handle this. I was a millennial girlboss. I felt the fear and did it anyway. I ate obstacles for breakfast. (Mmm! Tastes like chia seeds!) I endured discomfort on purpose and had a finger tattoo to prove it. (Yeah, I passed out. I don’t see how that’s relevant.) I’d forgotten: hashtag fear is fuel.  

 

Lean in. Lean in! LEAN (falls into canyon) INNNNNNNNNNNN… 

 

I scooted backward an inch at a time until I felt far enough that it couldn’t get me. Then I stood and walked in reverse for about twenty feet, keeping eyes on the canyon (No funny business). People sidestepped. Finally I turned and walked as fast as I could across the paved road toward the visitor center. 

 

The welcome signs were friendly and pointed to all the amenities and things to look at. This was American vacation fun: to stand at the edge of death and then buy an ice cream cone. I felt misled. I’d been lured to a federally-funded monster promoted by the Park Service as a national treasure. Was it a practical joke? If we can’t trust the government, who can we trust? 

 

(Hahahahaha.)

 

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READER (puts book down): That’s it. She’s peaked.

 

NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW: The sweet and salty combo of chortle and excoriating political commentary has not been so finely whisked since the work of Charles Dickens.

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I slinked into the gift shop. I was glad I was an anonymous tourist. If I tripped on the sidewalk anywhere in Philly, ten people I knew would see me. I educated myself on canyon ecology for a while in the book section; the photography was better than anything I could have done, anyway. Then I studied the 3-D raised map of the canyon and learned about rocks. A light rain started outside. 

 

All right; I’d put in forty-five minutes. I took a postcard off the spinny rack. If I didn’t run the whole marathon, did I have the right to look like a foil-wrapped hot dog in the Dietz & Watson-branded aluminum blanket given out at the finish line? I put the postcard back. 

 

In the car, I ate my oatmeal. Sorry you didn’t get to see the Grand Canyon. The banana still held its power pose. It looked pointedly at me. Remember what the woman with her chin on her fist said: Don’t leave before you leave.

 

Are you there, Sheryl Sandberg? It’s me, Martha. GET BENT.

 

I retreated back down the spidery line of road to Flagstaff behind quilted-metal trucks and listened to my Counting Crows CD. The banana, intact on the Nat Geo map book, smirked. 

 

Later on, on my drive home, I went through the midwest. Not much to report from Kansas, but it was flat all the way across – I’m just saying. 

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