70 million & counting ...

North Canyon, an ancient tributary.

The 70 million-year-old Grand Canyon, carved out by the once mighty Colorado River, will remain intact but the river that made will not as its slowly dying, due to GW, the ongoing extinction event driven by injecting excess CO2 into the atmosphere, a process identical to how 5 previous extinction events occurred including The Great Dying, whereby 95% of marine life and 70% of land perished approximately 251.9 million years ago.

Marine extinction intensity during the Phanerozoic

Plot of extinction intensity (percentage of marine genera that are present in each interval of time but do not exist in the following interval) vs time in the past.[1] Geological periods are annotated (by abbreviation and colour) above. The Permian–Triassic extinction event is the most significant event for marine genera, with just over 50% (according to this source) perishing.

The immense walls form a kind of cocoon, sealing you off from the modern world, with its cell signal and light pollution and disappointments. They draw your eyes relentlessly upward, as in a cathedral.

You might think you are seeing all the way to the top. But up and above are more walls, and above them even more, out of sight except for the occasional glimpse. For the canyon is not just deep. It is broad, too — 18 miles, rim to rim, at its widest. This is no mere cathedral of stone. It is a kingdom: sprawling, self-contained, an alternate reality existing magnificently outside of our own.

And yet, the Grand Canyon remains yoked to the present in one key respect. The Colorado River, whose wild energy incised the canyon over millions of years, is in crisis.

Beyond tragic comes to mind here.