Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon

The conquistadors' inability to comprehend the scale of Grand Canyon topography had nothing to do with the century these men lived in. Of course, Cardenas' Hopi guides knew well their nearby "Salt Trail" route to the river; they likely smiled inward even as they impassively watched Cardenas' three "agile" conquistadors struggling in vain for three days in growing thirst atop the Redwall cliffs.
Hopi mirth aside, our point here is that even these tough little men in armor who toted Toledo steel and conquered empires embodied the same two failings the nearly every non-Indian visitor to Grand Canyon since 1540 has exemplified : an inability to comprehend the scale of Grand Canyon and a marked--and often fatal--tendency to underestimate it.