Dawn light illuminates the famed trail that leads from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon down to a plateau and ultimately to the Colorado River. I made this wideangle image at 5:45 a.m., just before the effect of the rising sun became visible. What we see here is the equivalent of twilight – the sun’s light is being refracted and scattered off the earth’s atmosphere, even though we don’t yet see the sun itself. The result: a palette of delicate colors – the browns, mauves, and pinks that give the famed Grand Canyon much of its character. I chose this vantage point so that I could use the twisted tree trunk in the foreground to echo the twists and turns of the Bright Angel Trail on the plateau below. (Compare the colors of this dawn image to those of a twilight image of the canyon at http://www.pbase.com/image/83717338 .)