Pitting Some People at a Navajo Landmark

In My Humble Opinion
1

(I started to put this in the Pit, but I find that, despite my personal outrage I am not capable of writing with the necessary vehemence. Anyway…)

In northern Arizona, on Navajo Nation land is a used-to-be-little-know site called Grand Falls (or Chocolate Falls, or Adah’iilíní).

I’ve visited it many times over the years but not too recently. It is a peaceful place on the Little Colorado River whose main attraction is a waterfall having a drop of over 180 feet. (That’s higher than Niagara Falls!) When the water is flowing it is a very impressive site that typically has been unfenced, unpatrolled and open to anyone.

Not anymore. Citing overcrowding, trash, off-road vehicle encroachments around the area (and onto private land) the local community, with the support of the Nation, has closed off all access to anyone not an indigenous American.

The proximate cause was the area being discovered by social media. As is often the case, too many people just had to share on Instagram and everyone just had to visit. That’s one thing. But the desecration of the site by some–apparently quite a few–has now taken this landmark away from the general public.

This was one of my favorite and most-impressive places to visit in Arizona. I can’t even recall how many times I had the entire area to myself for hours on end. But there are some people who just shouldn’t be allowed to go outside.

To the people who would go to some scenic wonder and trash it, who would ignore property rights of those living nearby, who feel entitled to treat a place sacred to some people and appreciated by many more as their own, private party house and dump, I truly hope you will all get to have prolonged personal experience with what is medically known as an anal fissure.

The Navajo have closed the site “until further notice.” Reading between the lines, this may mean “longer than I will be alive.” I can understand their disgust and I can get behind a desire to clean things up. If, however, they’re just taking it away for spite, then shame on them, too. There are people who are not Navajo but who still revere the land and it’s beauty.

So overall, kinda weak language for the Pit and thus my relegating this post to IMHO. Sorry, Grand Falls, and I will miss you.

2

If anyone in America has a legitimate beef and can do things out of spite, it’s Native Americans. They’ve earned it.

3

Two wrongs still don’t make a right. It’s not a question of someone exercising their rights because they have a beef. I’m complaining about the people who ruined it for the rest of us. I am hoping that it isn’t something that will never be available again.

4

Doesn’t seem to me that it’s a question of the Diné exercising their rights because they have a beef. Seems to me that it’s a question of the Diné exercising their rights to protect an important place.

Yup, that’s hard on the people who also loved it and who treated it respectfully. But overwhelming numbers even of such people can also do major damage.

5

Not the ones living today and not by anyone living today. I agree they were treated shamefully early on. And not that I don’t think they have a right to close their land to preserve it - they do - but to your point that they have a right to be spiteful, I disagree. I agree with Lare…

6

In the ideal world, they’d let the nice, respectful people in, and keep the disrespectful people out. Except how do you do that? If you want to keep out the people who are trashing the place, how else to do that but to keep everyone out?

7

…nonsense.

Nobody is being “spiteful” here.

8

I didn’t claim they were, I was responding to the hypothetical.

9

…you agree that the ones living today have a legitimate beef, correct?

10

Of course. However a lot of it is cultural - not what they are experiencing now. I’m not going to debate this with you because I’m not well versed enough. But I do have experience. I’ve been friends with many of them and have spent time at the Taos Pueblo as a guest.

I have no idea what was in their minds when they decided to close the falls. I suspect it was to protect the environment. To which I fully agree. And I agree that their beef about having their property destroyed is legitimate.

The OP suggested it might be out of spite - I don’t think it was. But I disagree that being petty and spiteful in any negotiation is right. I don’t think applies here, but since the OP threw it out there, I weighed in.

11

…this isn’t correct.

This really isn’t the sort of experience that qualifies you to deem “a lot of it is cultural.”

12

Sorry, but yes, my first hand experience does qualify. There are good and bad apples in every bunch, I suppose.

13

…the things that Indigenous Americans have “legitimate beef” is not largely cultural. Not what they are experiencing now.

Report: Native Americans Significantly Overrepresented In US Prisons  - The Crime Report.

These aren’t mere “cultural” issues. And whatever first-hand experience you’ve had, it pales in comparison to actual, lived experiences.

14

Again, I’m not going to debate their issues with you. But there’s more to the story than your stats provide. We will just have to disagree.

15

…if, by more to the story, you mean that Indigenous Americans have been subject to racist policies and subjugated by white supremacy since the so-called “founding” of the United States of America? Then sure.

16

You seem to be insinuating that I approve of racism. That’s mis-parsing my words and a complete mischaracterization of my values. I won’t rise to the bait.

17

There are some sites that require tourists to have a Native guide. Canyon de Chelly and Antelope Canyon (both in Arizona) are examples. I’m pretty sure it was required at Monument Valley, also. People can be such assholes, as I’ve noted before in comments about national parks and monuments.

18

…I wasn’t insinuating that at all.

Indigenous Americans have legitimate beef. And most of that, at its heart, is the way they have been treated since the United States of America was founded. It isn’t “cultural”. Not to a large degree, anyway. It ranges from everything from genocide, to underfunding, to being targeted by the police, to racism.

19

Frankly, I’m kind of relieved that the Navajo Nation decided to preserve the Falls by closing them. It was generous of them to let the public have access to them all those years. And it’s not just a matter of disrespectful trash-throwers, though clearly that’s a huge issue. The sheer volume of tourists endangers the ecosystem.

That’s true in most national parks and landmarks. The last time I went to Mount Rainier, it was an autumn weekday morning, and the place was like Disneyland, with crowds of noisy people clogging the hiking trails and cars fruitlessly circling the parking areas. My friends back in Wyoming tell me the record number of visitors in Yellowstone has led them to urge their own guests not to go. People used to crowd three-deep around Old Faithful; now they’re ten-deep or more, most with cameras held over their heads to try to get photos of what they themselves can’t see.

That’s the biggest irony to me. Instagram made these places Instafamous, but not so people could experience them fully; it’s so that they can post their own photos on Instagram.

We’re loving some places to death.

20

One of my best hiking/exploring experiences was at Canyon de Chelly. I hired a guide, JR, and he took me to some spots that most tourists don’t get to go. Including some old Ancestral Puebloan ruins that the Navajo People don’t normally enter. It was an amazing adventure that I’ll never forget.