The Grand Cañon of the Colorado | Page 6

favored areas of the heated landscape, and vanishing
in an hour or two. Some, busy and thoughtful-looking, glide with
beautiful motion along the middle of the cañon in flocks, turning aside
here and there, lingering as if studying the needs of particular spots,
exploring side-cañons, peering into hollows like birds seeking
nest-places, or hovering aloft on outspread wings. They scan all the red
wilderness, dispensing their blessings of cool shadows and rain where
the need is the greatest, refreshing the rocks, their offspring as well as
the vegetation, continuing their sculpture, deepening gorges and
sharpening peaks. Sometimes, blending all together, they weave a
ceiling from rim to rim, perhaps opening a window here and there for
sunshine to stream through, suddenly lighting some palace or temple
and making it flare in the rain as if on fire.
Sometimes, as one sits gazing from a high, jutting promontory, the sky
all clear, showing not the slightest wisp or penciling, a bright band of
cumuli will appear suddenly, coming up the cañon in single file, as if
tracing a well-known trail, passing in review, each in turn darting its
lances and dropping its shower, making a row of little vertical rivers in
the air above the big brown one. Others seem to grow from mere points,
and fly high above the cañon, yet following its course for a long time,
noiseless, as if hunting, then suddenly darting lightning at unseen
marks, and hurrying on. Or they loiter here and there as if idle, like
laborers out of work, waiting to be hired.
Half a dozen or more showers may oftentimes be seen falling at once,
while far the greater part of the sky is in sunshine, and not a raindrop
comes nigh one. These thunder-showers from as many separate clouds,
looking like wisps of long hair, may vary greatly in effects. The pale,
faint streaks are showers that fail to reach the ground, being evaporated
on the way down through the dry, thirsty air, like streams in deserts.
Many, on the other hand, which in the distance seem insignificant, are
really heavy rain, however local; these are the gray wisps well
zigzagged with lightning. The darker ones are torrent rain, which on
broad, steep slopes of favorable conformation give rise to so-called
"cloudbursts"; and wonderful is the commotion they cause. The gorges
and gulches below them, usually dry, break out in loud uproar, with a

sudden downrush of muddy, boulder-laden floods. Down they all go in
one simultaneous gush, roaring like lions rudely awakened, each of the
tawny brood actually kicking up a dust at the first onset.
During the winter months snow falls over all the high plateau, usually
to a considerable depth, whitening the rim and the roofs of the cañon
buildings. But last winter, when I arrived at Bright Angel in the middle
of January, there was no snow in sight, and the ground was dry, greatly
to my disappointment, for I had made the trip mainly to see the cañon
in its winter garb. Soothingly I was informed that this was an
exceptional season, and that the good snow might arrive at any time.
After waiting a few days, I gladly hailed a broad-browed cloud coming
grandly on from the west in big promising blackness, very unlike the
white sailors of the summer skies. Under the lee of a rim-ledge, with
another snow-lover, I watched its movements as it took possession of
the cañon and all the adjacent region in sight. Trailing its gray fringes
over the spiry tops of the great temples and towers, it gradually settled
lower, embracing them all with ineffable kindness and gentleness of
touch, and fondled the little cedars and pines as they quivered eagerly
in the wind like young birds begging their mothers to feed them. The
first flakes and crystals began to fly about noon, sweeping straight up
the middle of the cañon, and swirling in magnificent eddies along the
sides. Gradually the hearty swarms closed their ranks, and all the cañon
was lost in gray gloom except a short section of the wall and a few trees
beside us, which looked glad with snow in their needles and about their
feet as they leaned out over the gulf. Suddenly the storm opened with
magical effect to the north over the cañon of Bright Angel Creek,
inclosing a sunlit mass of the cañon architecture, spanned by great
white concentric arches of cloud like the bows of a silvery aurora.
Above these and a little back of them was a series of upboiling purple
clouds, and high above all, in the background, a range of noble cumuli
towered aloft like snow-laden mountains, their pure pearl bosses
flooded with sunshine. The whole noble picture, calmly glowing, was
framed in thick gray gloom, which soon