Last night I stayed up binge watching people fall off the Grand Canyon. Call it a morbid curiosity fermented by the idea of one of my favorite places being so disorienting that people forget where they are. A sandstone delirium. Actually they weren't falling, but they came close. It was after reading an account about a woman sitting on the ledge, standing up, and losing her balance only minutes after hearing the warning of someone who'd suffered the same fate. I had to explore what it is about the Canyon that turns some people into absolute fools. So many wander off-trail and pass the railing that the estimated 1,000 deaths that have occurred there seems like a vast understatement. Some of the people in these videos jump from 1,000 foot heights to a rock just beyond calamity's grip so nonchalantly that you have to wonder if they became possessed by some evil entity lurking in the canyon. The lure of the canyon is like a siren slithering across the bottom, following the river that had carved it, claiming new lives every summer. You couldn't pay me a 1,000 bucks to stand near a ledge, and I'm not that afraid of heights. It seems that for centuries the canyon has been waiting for this influx of dumb tourists who would risk their lives to post a daring selfie on Instagram. The lack of humility before nature being displayed here is more staggering than when Ian Malcolm visited Jurassic Park.
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