Apropos of a report from the LA Times, on a proposal to build an escalade on Navajo land about two miles outside National Park boundaries to take people down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a system not unlike the cable car system at Masada according to this blog.
As well as debate about whether it should be build at all is a legal scuffle over the boundary between Navajo and federal land; the developers say they can build as long as it’s over the high water mark of the Colorado River while the Park Service says it can block development up to a quarter mile from either of its banks.
Yeah, when I saw the thread title, the first thing that popped into my head was “they’re planning to build an automobile factory at the Grand Canyon?!”
I will have to do some reading on this before I form an opinion.
Don’t really have an opinion except the 420 acre size makes it sound like a Disney theme park in the planning.
The cable system would be almost invisible from a distance but a hotel complex would be decidedly less so. I’ve been to Zion Canyon and it’s a nice park complete with [del] hotel [/del] lodge and trails cut into the mountain. I have to say it’s a beautiful intrusion upon nature.
I’ve been to the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers in the canyon where this tram would end up, about 13 years ago. It’s a pristine and beautiful area, and I think it’s a mistake to make it into a Disney ride. I’d love for more people to experience it, but it’s already intrusive enough having thousands of people float down the Colorado river every year as I did to experience it. In some ways I feel guilty at doing so myself – even if I “left only footprints” as the saying goes – and at wanting to limit others experience of what I saw. But I think we should strive to let some areas stay wild, or as not make them less wild, as much as we can.
Also the water issues raised in the article are troubling. The developers shrug off the issue but I think it’s a legitimate question how sustainable their proposed development on the rim is. Water is a huge, huge problem everywhere in the western US, and I don’t think this project can provide for how much water it will need once built.
About 5 years ago I went down the Colorado from the place north of Flagstaff where you can get on a boat without climbing, rode the rapids for about 3 days, camping at night on the riverbank, down to Phantom Ranch, and spent the night, then hiked out the next day. It was glorious. One of the best things about it was that it was not easy to get there. There were only two ways: come down the river, or hike down*.
There aren’t many places where it’s still a challenge to get there. Take that away and a lot of the magic will disappear.
*It might be possible to helicopter down, I don’t know, the rich will always find a way, poor souls.
Long before I was born, the story goes that my Dad flew an F-86 about 50 feet over the river for a few miles, back when you could get away with that kind of shit. He wasn’t rich, at the time.
There were gun cameras, but just think if the “GoPro” was around back them…
I’ve also been to Masada and dammit, we climbed up and climbed down, eschewing the cable car despite the brutal heat. The effort made it worthwhile and amazing - a tactile, real, boots-on-the-ground experience. Taking the cable car would have been more like viewing it at an Imax theater in Somewhere, Suburbia, USA.
It is. I did it in 1997. Beats the hell out of walking. I assume it’s still an option, but I don’t know.
As for the proposed escalade; I don’t like the idea because I suspect it will:
a) Go waaaay way over schedule, subjecting the area to a decade+ of construction noise and debris,
b) Go waaaay way over budget, subjecting the eventual users to extremely inflated prices.
I did this (in a small plane, at a few hundred feet) back when it was still legal.
My thinking went: “You do realize that any engine problem has a decent chance of being fatal - right? … Yes, but it can’t be long until this is forbidden, and you only live once.”
I do wish the GoPro had existed then.
I’ve since flown a sailplane high over the canyon - spectacular, but definitely not the same experience.
