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Last summer, a mega fire that started in Grand Canyon National Park became America's largest of 2025. The area that burned was so remote that it had little effect on the most popular parts of the park, but still it means a lot to the people who knew it well. The affected area recently reopened, and KNAU's Adrian Skabelund was there.
ADRIAN SKABELUND, BYLINE: Most people who visit the Grand Canyon go to its South Rim. It's not super close to big airports or cities, but the park's North Rim, where the big fire burned, is seriously remote.
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SKABELUND: So it was a particular kind of person who made sure to be there on the day the North Rim reopened.
CHIP BROYLES: People want to see this. I wanted to see this as soon as it was happening. I wanted to come up while it was still here.
SKABELUND: Musician Chip Broyles, shoulder-length white hair and flip-flops, stares past a chain-link fence at the ruins of the 100-year-old Grand Canyon Lodge, one of 113 structures lost in the Dragon Bravo Fire. In 1996, he set out from Nashville, where he had a career in country music.
BROYLES: I came out here to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and had a spiritual experience (laughter).
SKABELUND: Broyles upended his life to write music here, driving the lodge's laundry truck for work. He'd sometimes set up his cot in the lodge's famous sunroom, where three large windows once held a panoramic view of the canyon. Today, only the bottom ledge of those windows remain. He last visited in 2024.
BROYLES: And my brother Rick and I stayed up till about 4 in the morning, laid on the floor of the sunroom. And I said, every single song we ever wrote, every single song, I played in this room, you know? And I was so grateful that we took the time to do that because it was just, you know, a short while later that it burned down.
SKABELUND: The fire started as a lightning strike last July 4. Initially, park officials allowed it to burn slowly to improve forest health. But...
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JOELLE BAIRD: Conditions changed very quickly and unexpectedly.
SKABELUND: That's park spokesperson Joelle Baird speaking at the time. For nearly three months, strong winds and dry conditions would drive the fire across more than 3,600 square miles inside the park and beyond. Today, Baird stands near where dozens of cabins, the visitor center and the iconic lodge were destroyed.
BAIRD: A lot of that material has been removed. Some of the limestone stonework that still remains, that is being assessed for feasibility structurally, if it's going to be preserved or taken down.
SKABELUND: Baird says it's unclear how much rebuilding here will cost. She says they've also had to cut hundreds of fire-killed trees and rebuild the North Kaibab Trail into the heart of the canyon. Jeff Spencer loves the Kaibab.
JEFF SPENCER: That's why I'm so thankful they opened up the rim.
SKABELUND: Hiking the 23 miles between the north and south rims is extremely challenging and a bucket list item for many. Spencer has done it countless times, and he knew he had to be one of the first people to return.
SPENCER: It was so important because as you get older, we can't outrun the clock. And so there's not going to be very many - (crying).
SKABELUND: Spencer stops to collect himself.
SPENCER: It also makes me feel very small, and as a Christian, makes me feel like God is just so big here.
SKABELUND: Minutes later, Spencer sets out past the charred ponderosa that still casts shade for the trail.
For NPR News, I'm Adrian Skabelund.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHANCE THE RAPPER SONG, "CHILD OF GOD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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