“Most people who visit the Grand Canyon have no idea that across the street from the South Rim’s amazing views is the southern portion of the Kaibab National Forest. In 2019, I spent a few days at the Desert View Campground of the Grand Canyon. One morning, I decided I didn’t like the prospect of climbing out of the canyon in 98-degree heat, and so I crossed the road and went for a ten-mile hike through part of the Kaibab’s 1.6 million acres. Every once in a while, I would emerge from the ponderosa pines into the most spectacular meadow. These meadows were replete with dry mid-summer grasses, complete with wildflowers and the knocking of woodpeckers. Standing in these meadows it was hard to comprehend that just a few miles north of me the land contained a gash that could be seen from space. The two landscapes are so disparate and yet so physically close to one another that it called into question the reality of the wilderness.”