Dr. Brown became very excited when he found an obscure geologic map that showed a fault there—“19-mile fault” it was called. (Now, some jokingly call it “Walt’s Fault.”) He wanted to go right away and see the fault and trace it from one cliff system to the other. The family was preparing for his daughter’s wedding, so no one could go with him. His son begged him not to go alone. He had been in this area before with his dad and knew it was a dangerous, unforgiving place.
But Dr. Brown wouldn’t listen. He had to go see this fault right away. He kissed Peggy goodbye early the next morning and told her to ask the park rangers to send out a search aircraft if he wasn’t back by noon the third day. He arrived at the canyon at sunrise and stopped at the park ranger’s office where he filled out the forms to get permission to go into the “backcountry.”
He parked his van near the rim of Ryder Canyon, a remote side canyon of the Grand Canyon. He soon found the fault he was looking for, but he wanted to trace it from one cliff system, down across the Colorado River, through Ryder Canyon, and up to the cliff system on the other side. He worked his way along the fault, down a deep slit in the ground, and descended into Ryder Canyon. He was loaded with his backpack, his camera, and his drinking water. He had brought gallons of water—more than the park rangers recommended. He spent a strenuous day taking pictures and exploring along the dangerously steep side of the canyon.
Late that hot June afternoon, he decided to head back. He had taken longer than he intended because he was so fascinated by what he was discovering. His water had run out hours before, and he was very thirsty. He turned around, found the slit, and headed back up. But after half a mile, the slit came to a dead end. It was a box canyon, not the incline he remembered coming down. What went wrong? he thought. How did I ever get here?
Several times he retraced his steps and tried to find where he had made the wrong turn, but he couldn’t figure out what had happened. Am I losing my mind? he asked himself. He walked back and forth in the box canyon, wondering how he was going to get out.
It seemed that he was not going to find where he had made the wrong turn. So he considered two options. Should he lie down in the shade, try to minimize his growing dehydration, and spend the night in the canyon, hoping that the rescue aircraft would spot him late the next day? Or should he try to retrace his path along a very strenuous, steep slope and risk falling off a cliff? By now, his tongue was sticking to the sides of his cheeks, and his legs were shaking from dehydration.
He thought about his daughter’s wedding in a couple of days. If I don’t get out of here, this is really going to mess up Meg’s wedding. He thought of Psalm 23 as he paced back and forth, and the words “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” began to take on a grim reality. He went through the Psalm many times and found comfort in the phrase “for thou art with me.”
I need to find a way out, he decided. In his backpack was fifty feet of rope that he had purchased at a hardware store several days before. He took the rope out to see whether he could use it to get out of this canyon. He saw an overhanging rock and thought that perhaps he could hook the center of the rope around it. After several throws, the rope finally hooked around the rock. Then he grabbed both ends of the rope, put his feet on the side of the canyon, and “walked” up the vertical side. When he got out of the box canyon, he looked around, and everything made sense. Thirty feet away was the parallel slit he had gone down. An hour later, he rested by his van, drinking water and thanking the Lord for making a way out of this valley of the shadow of death.
He got home in the wee hours of the morning. Peggy woke up and asked how it went. When he told her what had happened, she said, “Walt Brown! You have to promise me that you will never do that again!”
“I promise,” he said solemnly. He knew that he had been unwise to go exploring alone. He had been so excited about the fault that he had disregarded the Ranger buddy system, always to be with a friend in case one needs help. But his other Ranger training had helped him get out.
In 1988, Dr. Brown confirmed his theory about the origin of the Grand Canyon with other field studies. The huge lakes, whose waters suddenly broke through their natural dam and carved the Grand Canyon after the flood, no longer exist. But northeast of the canyon Dr. Brown found unmistakable traces of the water and its rapid escape.11