This photograph was captured at sunrise atop the Esplanade formation of the Grand Canyon, near Fossil Canyon, looking northeast. The overlook rock is perched some 3,000 feet above the Colorado River, like a primeval diving board. It took seven days of hiking ten hours a day—over 70 miles on tough terrain without a trail—to get here. This is one of the more remote spots in Grand Canyon National Park, so hard to get to that I’m not sure I'll ever see that vista again in my lifetime, nor will many others.

Kevin Fedarko, the writer of the magazine story, and I were about halfway through our goal of backpacking along the length of the Grand Canyon in a series of segments,