The First Thing That Happened at the Grand Canyon

You’d think that after driving over a hundred miles just to get to the entrance for the Grand Canyon, we’d stop at the first viewpoint we saw: Mather Point. But strangely, we didn’t.

When we got close to Mather Point, we were distracted by what was going on out the window. Just when we should have turned, Gary said, “Look at the helicopters!”

There were two red helicopters flying right over the road. Wow, I thought, you’d think aircraft wouldn’t be allowed to get that close.

Instead, we made our first stop at the far more accessible Yavapai Observation Station. We were commenting on how amazing it was, when a random man turned to us and said, “You know someone just died.”

Just. Died. When we were driving in. Hence, the helicopters retrieving her body. Hence, Mather Point being closed. A 47 year old woman.

Our new friend sounded like he’d seen it. According to him, she disobeyed the stated rules by going on the other side of the protective fence, stepped close to the edge of some rocks, focused her camera down and took some photos, looked back up, lost her equilibrium, and fell.

We went to Mather Point on the last day, and it seems obvious which rocks she climbed on.

Of course, this tragedy and other warning signs …

… had no effect on certain foolish people.

When Gary pulled this stunt the first time, I stomped off and subsequently lost him for half an hour. After that, I took the tactic of joining him on the precipice and hissing “are you happy? Now I can die with you.” That freaked him out enough that he only really scared me half a dozen more times.

Here are more idiots:

and this moron who fell while on the mule-wide Bright Angel trail:

Oh wait, that’s me. Luckily, I fell when I wasn’t by the edge.