Long ago, about five or six million years ago, the world’s greatest love story began. Before the magnitude and magnificence of the Grand Canyon revealed itself to human eyes, the Colorado River fell in love with the rich, red rock of a high desert plateau. Long before we began to awe at sunsets melting into striking strata—as vistas stretch beyond our line of vision—the river carried a vision of what was to come.

The land was not yet a canyon. It was a broad uplift of limestone, shale and ancient crystalline rock, rising slowly as tectonic forces lifted the Colorado Plateau toward the sky. Meandering across this elevated plain, cutting and carving capillary channels through chromatic crust, the river studied the land. With unwavering intimacy, she measured patience against resistance, depth against time. She never lost sight of her dream.

With deliberate tenderness, she levered pebbles from fractures and carried grains like stolen secrets. Caressing the land she loved, the river stretched her entire body across the plateau.

The Earth was firm and fixed in his ways—slow to yield, stubborn beneath her loving touch. He had been shaped by oceans, buried under deserts and tilted by faults that ran unseen beneath his skin.