Legs wobbly from the fourteen miles of the previous day, it takes a new mile on this new day to get the rust out of my joints. There's little warmup. We're heading straight up the ancient Vishnu Schist. Almost two billion years old, these rocks are the strangest I've ever known. They vibrate with a kind of heavy energy. Gnarled in black and magenta, the rocks sucked us into them and the release from their pull takes much effort. One is silent in the compressed heat of the inner gorge. It's as if the energy that forged this metamorphic rock were still present, still glowing. The base of an ancient mountain range, these rocks were gashed by the upstart Colorado River in recent times (from a geological perspective). It's almost like they resent the intrusion. They seem grumpy this morning. Or is it just my legs?
