Grand Canyon: Dimensions defy the imagination

In a bunkhouse at Phantom Ranch, on the floor of the Grand Canyon, Laura Beutelman answers a phone call. She's just completed another day of trail work, and someone is asking how best to appreciate one of the world's seven natural wonders.

"If you can find your own little spot — just sitting and watching everything happen around you, listening to river, the birds, the wind — almost all of your cares go away," says Beutelman, 25, a volunteer with the Arizona Conservation Corps. "It's part of the magic of this place."

In fact, the experience at Grand Canyon National Park is all about perspectives. As first-time visitors approach the canyon rim, they are captured by the grandeur, plus a sense that the void is sucking them over the edge.

Those who venture beneath the overlooks discover a whole new sensation: immersion into a geological time warp that affects each individual differently. Some feel a spiritual envelopment. Some, listening to breezes swoosh against 2-billion-year-old rock layers, encounter new perspectives on life.

The dimensions are stunning: 277 zigzagging miles carved by the Colorado River, more than a mile deep and up to 18 miles wide. Because of twists and side canyons, a full-circuit around the perimeter would cover more than 2,600 miles — greater than the air distance from New York to LA.

Scott Thybony, a freelance author who has guided raft trips and treks through the canyon for four decades, once said the spectacle remains unique even after hundreds of visits: "Every time I go, it's different, it's new. The inhuman scale of it is hard to get a handle on. You need to hike into it, take a mule train down the trail, float the river, fly over it."

Each year, more than 4.5 million people from all over the world accept that invitation. They take pictures of multicolored cliffs sculpted by water and wind over the eons. They leave with an indelible life experience that includes that stomach-flipping sensation on the brink.

Frequent visitors talk about the solitude and space, a transformative timelessness.

Bryan Struble, a National Park trail maintenance worker and photographer, recommends a hike at least partway into the chasm. "There's always a different experience," he says. "When you're touching the resource with your hands, smelling it, wind in your face, and a thunderstorm comes through. … Find your serenity."

Grand Canyon National Park covers 1,900 square miles, an area larger than Rhode Island. The more accessible South Rim (80 miles from Flagstaff, Ariz., and 228 miles from Phoenix) is open year-round and attracts 90% of visitors. The remote North Rim (266 miles from Las Vegas) closes in the winter.

The place is safe enough that children, seniors and people with disabilities can enjoy the splendor, yet dangerous enough that, each year, careless visitors die from falls, heat stroke and dehydration.

For first-timers, the big question is how to get the best out of this overwhelming attraction. You can hike trails atop the rim, backpack into the abyss for a camping experience, join a multiday rafting adventure on the Colorado, ride a mule to rustic cabins or get the bird's-eye view from a helicopter.

The mesmerizing panorama cannot be captured in postcards or conjured in poetry. Yet casual tourists find much more to do than gawk. Each day, rangers offer free interpretive classes and treks.

National Park entry fees will increase on June 1 to $30 from $25 for a seven-day vehicle permit, and to $15 from $12 for those arriving by train, raft or on foot. (Other fees, such as backpacking permits, also have increased.) Tours and overnight accommodations, including Grand Canyon lodges and campgrounds, fill up in peak seasons and on weekends.

Wagner also reports for The Arizona Republic of Phoenix.

About the park

Size: 1.2 million acres

Visitors: 4,756,771in 2014

Established: 1919

History: The oldest human artifacts date back nearly 12,000 years. In 1893, President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the canyon a preserve. President Theodore Roosevelt established it as a national monument in 1908 with the words: "Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you." Finally, in 1919, Congress established the national park.

When visiting: Plan ahead, stay awhile and spend some solitary time on the rim and in the abyss. Going to the Grand Canyon is not like visiting a museum. It's a vast destination best experienced with reservations and an itinerary. A great place to start is at nps.gov/grca.

Of note: One-armed explorer John Wesley Powell first navigated the Colorado River through the 277-mile canyon in wooden boats in 1869.