
Who Can Save the Grand Canyon? - Sysky
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/who-can-save-the-grand-canyon-180954329/?no-ist
======
japhyr
A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride
to the top of Everest.

These projects are deeply frustrating because all the developers have to do is
get them built once - they can essentially fail as many times as they need to
in order to get their project built. If you oppose this kind of project, you
have to succeed in your efforts over and over again. If you fail once, the
wild nature of the place is lost.

We need to preserve wild places, and this is one of them.

~~~
danielweber
In high school, every Monday my geology teacher Mr. Weinle would show slides
from a national park he visited. One of them -- I don't remember which -- had
an asphalt sidewalk running through it. He said "I was mad as hell when I saw
this. This is nature! You should protect it!"

Then he switched slides to the next picture he took: it showed a man with leg
braces walking through the park. He held up his fingers and said "at this
point I felt about this tall."

These parks don't just exist in a vacuum. They exist so that people can enjoy
them.

I'm not necessarily endorsing this modification to the Grand Canyon. There is
value in preserving it for the future as is, and there is also value in making
it accessible. It's a trade-off. Some parks -- and I don't just mean the flat
ones, since the amazing geology generally happens where there is significant
vertical distance involved -- should be accessible even to those with special
needs. Maybe enough are already. Maybe not.

~~~
unreal37
I see the point you're making. I've been to the Grand Canyon, and it's
difficult to get to. Even off the main road, it's 30 slow miles over unpaved
dusty, bumpy road to get to the Western rim. If night falls, you're in tough
shape because the road is unlit. If you are low on gas, or need a break,
there's no place to stop. Even in 2015, the canyon is hard to get to.

But to turn it into a mini-Las Vegas would be a crime.

You can't turn nature into a tourist trap. There's no way the two can co-
exist, and nature would lose. It's difficult to get to, yes. But that's the
charm of it.

~~~
shas3
The 'western rim' is not inside the National Park [1]. The 'legit' Grand
Canyon, the one covered by the National Park is very accessible (the rim)!

[1]
[http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/skywalk.htm](http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/skywalk.htm)

~~~
anomicron
SkyWalk is a tourist trap, expensive as hell. You are not even allowed cameras
on the actual skywalk, so you have to buy their photos. The skywalk itself is
an inslut to nature. I hope I knew a way of getting to the Canyon from Las
Vegas without having to pay this robbers.

~~~
sosborn
> inslut

Probably not intended, but this is a great word to use in this instance.

------
peteorpeter
The price of solitude is effort. Don't want to share nature with others? Walk
a mile and you will filter 99% of humanity. Three miles uphill will filter
99.9%.

My trip to the Grand Canyon was tailored for solitude. We drove hours to get
to a trailhead on the North Rim, hiked a a steep trail down, camped (by a
hard-to-believe falls/spring), and hiked up and out by moonlight to avoid the
heat. I don't mean to sound hardcore - I'm really not - I just like solitude
and that's how you get it.

I'm ambivalent about this particular proposal. Exposure to nature creates
naturalists. At the same time people ruin nature - the experience of it and
it's physical environment. It's a balancing act and I have no idea if this is
too much or too little.

~~~
ebbv
The proposed development doesn't expose people to nature any more than a shrub
in the middle of a shopping mall does. It is simply trying to convert one of
the greatest natural wonders in the world into a cash grab for greedy, short
sighted developers.

Preservation of natural beauty like the Grand Canyon is one of the most
important functions of government. Allowing this would be a disaster.

------
BCharlie
"...who like the idea of enabling a large number of people to enjoy the great
canyon’s very heart, a stunningly beautiful and remote site long inaccessible
to the masses."

Don't they realize that being remote and inaccessible is a big part of what
makes it stunningly beautiful? The moment you arrive there with 10,000 other
people, the place will no longer have what you came there to see.

~~~
timhon
I somewhat disagree. I rode around it on a motorcycle from the bay last year.
It was my first time seeing it. I hate crowds just like everyone else, and
there was a crap ton of buses with even more people there, but I have to say
-- I didn't expect much... "big whoop, grand canyon..." but when I walked up
to the side in person, the shear size and strange 3d illusion the sight put on
my brain, I just couldn't comprehend. I was put in awe and literally couldn't
turn away for 10 minutes... the people around hadn't detracted from that. But
everyones different... the southside will always be crowded, if you want it to
be remote, just plan a trip to the north side.

~~~
sanderjd
The whole point of the article is that the _inside_ will be like the south
side. The north side only works because it is remote—if you set up a gondola
from the south side to the north side, then your "just plan a trip to the
north side" advice won't work. It's even worse to do that to the _real_ remote
area, which is the floor itself.

~~~
001sky
The current canyon r2m "tourist" corridor is 17 miles long by maybe 1/2 a mile
wide (of the 100+m miles length). Also if its only on indian land, the thing
is on a side-canyon off to the east that is 80% out of theway anyway. You have
to take 4x4 roads or trails over to Nankoweap. What is a pity is that area is
supposed to be really nice, and is on the edge of the existing trail networks.
So it kind of takes advantage of the National park whislt at the same time
being incongrous with it.

The other irony here is that the indians surely had all of these same
arguments about the US feds. Its just the table are turned on who is getting
the $$ and the benefits.

------
sspencer
For a good perspective on this see Ken Burns' documentary series about the
creation of the national parks. It will open your eyes to the constant battle
the parks face from commercial enterprises, and explains why the parks are
such a unique system that should be protected at all costs.

~~~
hv23
Seconded. Netflix link here:
[http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70202578?strkid=834083463_0_0...](http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70202578?strkid=834083463_0_0&trkid=222336&movieid=70202578)

------
sosuke
I couldn't get a real sense of just where this development wanted to be, what
it looked like: [http://grandcanyonescalade.com/comparison-chart-grand-
canyon...](http://grandcanyonescalade.com/comparison-chart-grand-canyon-
national-park-grand-canyon-escalade-land-use-plans/)

That monstrosity should absolutely not be built.

~~~
VieElm
Do you live in Arizona? Are you affected by this in any sense? Why shouldn't
the people who live there have the say in it. It's jobs for them, it's their
home. The Grand Canyon is thousands of feet deep and hundreds of miles long,
it formed millions of years ago. It doesn't need to be "saved" from a tourist
attraction that will be a blip on a tiny side of the canyon and an even
smaller blip in the history of it. The Grand Canyon is not in any danger.

It's so frustrating to see people who come to places they're not from and
protest in fights that they have no stake in, shouting their opinions,
generally making everything worse and when the fight is over go on to the next
place.

~~~
narrowrail
Well, there're plenty of people who frequent this _National Park_ and live in
the area who are against the building of this project. It just cheapens the
whole place for a handful of jobs (think of the jobs!1). To you it may just be
a "blip on a tiny side of the canyon," but to many of us who treasure the
place as one of the few great places without giant monuments to human
existence, it is an atrocity.

------
abruzzi
As a regular visitor to the Grand Canyon, this saddens me, but fortunately the
Grand Canyon is big, and even if this gets built, there are still plenty of
places where you can visit the canyon and see next to no development, such as
Toroweap:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroweap_Overlook](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroweap_Overlook)

My hope is that enough of the canyon access remains dirt roads and trails,
with nothing but a few camp sites at the end.

~~~
aluhut
...until drones can stay airborne for longer times.

~~~
Lavery
Drone use is prohibited in national parks.

~~~
aluhut
Today.

------
rayiner
Irrigating the southwest in the first place was a Big Government mistake.
That's the real disaster here. The Grand Canyon is pretty, but it's just a big
ravine. Damming up the Colorado so people in Tuscon can have grass lawns is
the real crime.

~~~
cbd1984
Yep. Those people who live _there_ are so much worse than those people who
live _here, by me_. Those monsters.

------
scotch_drinker
I'm currently reading The Wilderness Warrior, the biography of Theodore
Roosevelt who was instrumental not only in setting aside the Grand Canyon as a
national park but also in saving millions of acres of forest through the West
from wanton development. In that time, it was possible for a politician to
have that kind of far reaching impact. Leaving aside whether it was the right
or wrong thing to do, it's interesting that now we're likely subject to
financial interests in whether this gets done and possibly a court decision. I
doubt that any of our elected leaders could have much effect over what will
eventually happen here. I think that's probably a failing of our political
system.

------
chucksmash
I typically refrain from commenting on how heavy a page is because we're here
for the content, not web design critiques. That said, page load for the "As a
single page" version of the article generates 349 requests (prior to the ad
beacon/analytics calls that are made periodically after loading the page).
Those 349 requests pull down >11,000KB in >52 seconds. That's excessive to the
tune of an order of magnitude (and really for the page load time, probably 2
orders of magnitude).

------
JustSomeNobody
If you've not been to the Grand Canyon, you should go before we humans ruin
it. It truly is one of the most beautiful places you'll ever see.

------
gumby
They should all be sent a copy of "A Pattern Language". In one of the most
memorable patterns, Christopher Alexander writes (paraphrased), "Find the most
lovely location on your plot of land. Then make sure you don't build on it!
Instead build elsewhere so you can continue to enjoy that lovely location."

------
donpark
If Escalade has to be built, they should build it entirely underground with
just a handful of few holes at the top and a couple at the bottom. Each room
gets its own fixed camera projecting outside view to the room as well as
remotely controlled camera drones for lazy visitors.

------
tepal
please sign this petition to stop the tramway from the Grand Canyon.
[http://grandcanyontrust.nonprofitsoapbox.com/escalade](http://grandcanyontrust.nonprofitsoapbox.com/escalade)

------
johngalt
I agree that the park is beautiful, and perhaps development should consider
better locations. However the Grand Canyon national park is huge. Something
like 2000 square miles. Anyone claiming that there should be no development,
or that this will 'ruin the grand canyon' is incorrect.

~~~
mcguire
2000 square miles is a circle with a radius of about, what, 25 miles? Have you
ever been to the American southwest?

------
MrDosu
Is it me?

------
mason240
>A holy war is being fought

I guess I know which side I'm on.

