A friend recently returned from a trip to the Grand Canyon. “The ranger told us only seven people had died in the park this year,” she told me. “I thought seven was a lot!”
A quick Google search showed me that an average of twelve people die in the Grand Canyon National Park each year. Only two or three die from falls, the rest die from a variety of natural causes or trafIfic accidents.
But I know how easy it would be to die from a fall into the canyon—it almost happened to my daughter.
Our family went to Arizona on vacation in October 1993, when my daughter was eight and my son eleven. We flew into Phoenix and drove to Sedona for a couple of nights. We hiked in the red hills around Sedona, and I saw my first wild tarantula—not a high point for this arachniphobe.
Then we drove through Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon and stayed in a hotel just outside the park. We drove along the South Rim and got out of our car a couple of times to walk along the top of the canyon.
The Grand Canyon is the most impressive natural wonder I have ever seen. It is hard to describe it in words—the depth of the canyon, the trickle of river seen far below, the ever-changing colors in the rock as sun and clouds move across the cliff walls.
The canyon is alive and awesome, and while viewing it I could sense the divine on earth. God’s patience and strength are visible at every turn.
At some point, we left our gawking and moved to more mundane matters. Such as lunch.
At age eleven, my son liked to collect pens from various locations he visited. So after lunch, he and I went into the gift shop to look for a souvenir pen. As I recall, there was quite a selection, so he took awhile to decide.
My husband and daughter had no interest in helping him choose a pen, so they went outside. They started to walk along a path at the top of the canyon.
Daughter slipped.
She started to roll. Down, because the only direction was down.
Her dad, scared out of his wits at the sight of his child tumbling on the steepening slope toward the cliff, went crashing down after her. He got beneath her, stopped her, and all was well.
Son and I came out after the pen purchase and looked for the rest of our family members.
We found them shaken, my daughter sobbing, “Daddy stepped on me!” Which apparently was the biggest trauma of her short life—far more upsetting than the possibility of falling 6,000 feet into the canyon.
It was only then that I looked at my husband’s ashen face and he told me what could have happened.
The next morning we drove through a blizzard that lasted halfway back to Phoenix. That may have been even more frightening than either the tarantula or the potential fall into the canyon. Something went wrong with the wiper blades on our rental car, and we had to use a piece of cardboard to keep the snow cleared off the windshield.
Still, we made it back to Phoenix, where it was 80 degrees and no sign of snow. I think we went to a movie that afternoon. But nothing as thrilling as the rest of our Arizona experience.
What scares did you have raising your children?
