(More evangelistic inspiration from my latest vacation…)

A million dollar picture like this at the edge of Grand Canyon…

…came with a warning…

…because many people die from getting too close to the edge, usually by taking a million dollar photo.

24-year-old Timothy J. Rowe was jumping from rock to rock to pose for the ideal photo. He fell 200-300 feet to his death on November 9, 1993.

Yuri Nagata, 21, stepped around the guardrail on the edge of the Canyon and sat on the lower ledge. She stood to pose for a photo, lost her balance and fell to her death on March 12, 1989.

I hoped that someone would pick up this million dollar bill Gospel tract, read it, and repent before they, too, did something foolish at the edge of this cliff and fell headlong onto the jagged rocks below.

Journalist Susan Trausch wrote: Chilling statistics from the Grand Canyon this week. 7 people fell to their deaths in 1993 and park officials can’t remember a worse year for fatalities.

With the exception of a tourist who had been drinking and a drifter trying to grab coins tossed on a ledge, the lives were lost by sober, solid citizens who simply had no sense of danger standing on the edge of the rim of the mile-deep gorge. They died posing for pictures, leaning over for a better look, or strolling along rocky paths as nonchalantly as they walk through a shopping mall.

Warning signs, guard rails, stern words from rangers, and fear did not register. They were in a park, and that meant the authorities were responsible for their safety, didn’t it?

Yeah. I’m in a National Park. I’ll be okay. To heck with those silly warnings!

What me worry?

(Italics from the book “Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon” by Michael P. Ghiglieri and Thomas M. Myers)