In my varied experience at the Canyon, I have
found the months of September, October, and November most agreeable in
spite of an occasional hot day in September.
January and March are often
perfect months, and while there may be a little (or much) snow on the rim,
I regard the winter as the most delightful time for trips into the Canyon.
The snow may make the trail slippery and disagreeable for the first mile or
so, then one reaches the dry and snowless region where, practically, snow
never falls, yet where the heat from radiating rock walls is tempered and
subdued by the coolness from the snow above.
May Good for Visitors. May also is a good month for visitors, with more
possibilities of agreeable days than February or April, though the warm
days begin to come on apace soon after the middle of the month.
Fog in the Canyon. Upon rare occasions, fog banks sink into the Canyon
deeps, and even now and again completely hide it from view. Do not let such
a sight disappoint you. The fact is, you are being highly favored. If you
will but exercise patience, you will see many marvels when the sun begins
to work upon the fog. Slowly the great mass begins to show signs of
uneasiness; large and small masses become broken off, and struggle as if to
ascend; then, stretching apart as one stretches a mass of white
cotton-batting, they are speedily dissipated into mist, and disappear.
Below, in the deeper reaches, the fog rolls and tosses as if sleeping
uneasily in its rocky bed. Great detached masses of rock that the eye had
not been able to discern before are now made clear, the white fog behind
them revealing their outlines in startling clearness. Indeed a fog may be
called "the great revealer of the inner mysteries of the Canyon." It
certainly shows forth more of the separating walls and canyons, and the
detached buttes, than the most observant can discover in a month, without
its presence.
Clouds and Rain. There are times, in August and September, when rain is to
be expected, that the whole heavens are patched over with clouds. The sun
shines on and through them, and the atmosphere becomes murky and sultry to
unpleasantness. Then, suddenly, there is a change in the temperature of the
upper air, the moisture is condensed, and refreshing rain falls to cool and
cheer the earth that before was parched and thirsty.
A Battle Royal. One morning I watched a battle of the clouds over the
Canyon. The wind had been blowing hard all night. About five o'clock I
arose, attracted to the rim of the Canyon by a great black cloud that
seemed banked up and resting on the north rim, covering, as with a blanket
of blackest smoke, the long, visible stretch of the Kaibab Plateau. By and
by the sun shot piercing beams of golden glory underneath the cloud, yet,
strong and powerful though they were, they could not penetrate the cloud
itself.
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