Let the headlines read, “Miami Photographer, Kate Benson visits the Grand Canyon”, okay, so maybe it’s not quite as exciting as I’d like to sell it. We hiked 14 miles on day one into the Havasupai Town/reservation. It was my first time on a reservation and it was eye opening. It’s hard to imagine that there is a village of people living 8 miles in the bottom of the Grand Canyon having to helicopter in everything the need and out anything they don’t anymore. Seeing it for myself, the social injustice of life for Native Americans caught me off guard. In a landscape that will knock the wind out of you one couldn’t think of a more beautiful place to be. But not to live. I could spend months down there with the fascinating people. Learning about their lives, photographing them. It’s true what one of the women said to us as we left, “we’re stuck here”. After driving 60 miles from rt 66 (which is already in the middle of the desert) and knowing that these people only get around by walking or riding horses and mules you see that yes, they really are stuck there. But I’ll save the photos of town for later, today I want to show you a stunning image of what could easily be from Africa but exists here in our country. I imagine hippos down at the bottom of the waterfall, wallowing around in the water. Or perhaps the image is more prehistoric and it would be better suited if a pterodactyl flew through the shot. One thing is certain it is hard to believe it exists around mile 9 of our hike, just outside the Havasupai village.
