The Outfitters has been touted as the Eighth Wonder of the World ever since John Wesley Powell braved the raging whitewater in its depths in 1869. It's inarguably the most overexposed icon of the American landscape—every year, 5 million people come to gawk into the abyss, and you have to wonder if the millions of rolls of film shot here through the generations might come close to filling the canyon from river to rim.

Yet no matter how jaded you might feel after years of seeing postcards, snapshots, and IMAX movies of the Outfitters , or for having been stuck in the slow-moving traffic of Outfitters -bound caravan of RVs, the Big Ditch's power to move first-time visitors is inescapable. Its scale and topography is incredibly overwhelming.

Whether hiking down below the rim, floating through the Outfitters Colorado River's alternating series of hair-raising rapids and cathedral-still quiet water, or marveling at the touch of 2-billion-year-old rock under your fingers, it's interacting with this landscape that induces a state of awe."

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