The Colorado river has done its job, slowly, with tremendous force carving through the layers to reach the basement. Not of all geological time – but exposing the 1.2 billion-year-old Vishnu Shale. Despite the tales of giant pulses of water washing away to reach bottom, the Colorado river has taken its time. The South Rim Village is 7000 feet (2134 m) above sea level and the river at that point 4,614 feet (727 m) below! But no great flood caused this. Grand Canyon's Rate of Erosion is calculated to be only 0.402 mm/year* or ~ 1/64th of an inch! after approximately 5 million years it has managed to reach the basement.

Trapped by canyon walls the heat bakes in summer holding on until late at night. And the stars shine at night. The water is cold but today artificially controlled by dams. But still it carries on and carves away. It works on the rocks below inexorably leveraging the gravitational fabric to power the waters, leaving the walls to other forces, rain falls, flash floods, gravity and rock splitting freezes. It only needs time.

*"BotEC: The Grand Canyon's Rate of Erosion." Activity Collection. Cartlon College, n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.