FOREWORD By Robert Stieve, Editor, Arizona Highways Only a fool would dare to single out a superlative in the Grand Canyon. No one has ever seen all there is to see. So, to say that any one place surpasses all others would be naive and presumptuous. Yet, we all do it. For me, I was staring into the sacred Narrows of Deer Creek, thinking, “This is it. This is the most beautiful place in the Grand Canyon.” I suppose that kind of thinking is innate. That somewhere inside we have an involuntary compulsion to rate everything around us in our quest for the holy grail. Or maybe it’s learned behavior from AAA and TripAdvisor. Wherever it comes from, that need is exaggerated in a place like the Grand Canyon, where the superlatives line up like retired numbers in the outfield at Yankee Stadium. Widforss Point, Nankoweap, Cedar Ridge, the Confluence, Roaring Springs, Deer Creek . . . each one is the most beautiful place in the Grand Canyon. Until you get to the next place. That’s why it’s foolish to write about superlatives. Or maybe it’s foolish to write anything at all. My late friend and colleague Charles Bowden felt that way. “There is a part of me that thinks that no one should write a word about the Grand Canyon,” he said, “or take a photograph or paint a picture. And I believe this . . . because the canyon is like great music, within the reach of everyone and beyond the comprehension of anyone.” He was right, on an intellectual level, but we’re undeterred by the limitations in our pursuit of comprehension. And expression. We have to try. Because it’s what we do, whether we’re artists at the South Rim, photographers on the Unkar Delta, or poets at Point Sublime. At Arizona Highways, we’ve been trying to comprehend that otherworldly landscape for almost a hundred years. There have been so many combinations of vowels and consonants, by so many brilliant writers. And so many photographs. Thousands and thousands of them, by legendary photographers such as Ansel Adams, Esther Henderson, and David Muench. Some of their best images of the canyon have ended up on our covers. In all, we’ve published 99 covers showcasing the natural wonder. Some with snow. Some with waterfalls. Several others show the Colorado River. Only three of them were made by artists— Jimmy Swinnerton, Chris Gall, and Amery Bohling.
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