With all due respect to the many dedicated professional outfitters of the Grand Canyon, your services are mostly no longer needed.

Years ago, the West was opened with the help of modern inventions. The telegraph was revolutionary in its time, providing instant communications across the country. Not too many telegrams are sent in this day of faxes, transcontinental telephones and e-mail.
In the Grand Canyon, it was the outfitters who initially developed the demand for river trips that we experience today. Without them, it would have been impossible to mobilize the forces needed to stop the dams in Marble Canyon, to focus the national park's service energy on regulating and cleaning the canyon and to generally tend to the place. Today, however, that demand has reached a critical mass and is likely to continue whether or not any outfitter ever publishes another brochure.
There are three important elements of a river trip through the Grand Canyon. They are:
• Passengers
• Equipment
• Knowledgeable guide (professional or not)
The equipment and guides can be provided by an outfitter, but they need not be.
There are many reasons to support the idea that outfitters are obsolete. The first is that the money and the power of the outfitters is now concentrated and organized to maximize the use of the resource rather than promote the quality of the experience. This has led to shorter trips and the use of helicopters to speed people through the Canyon. I believe the incentives (which they are entitled to as commercial outfitters) are contrary to the mission of both the National Park Service and other dedicated organizations, such as Grand Canyon River Guides.
A series of regulations have evolved from the National Park Service to promote safe, clean and meaningful use of the river corridor. Generally speaking, the regulations are working and there is no need to change them. In trying to accommodate both private and commercial boaters, however, the nps finds itself having to buy into the motivation to maximize user days; to increase total user days and to shift user days to commercial use, thereby competing with private trips.
It is time for a new paradigm in the Grand Canyon, namely to maximize the quality of the trips. There is enough expertise and equipment out there to more than outfit all of the private demand. It is time to emphasize trips designed by the participants, for the participants. This means shifting responsibility for the quality of the trip to the passengers who are actually on the trip. The main points of this new paradigm would be as follows:
There is still a place for commercial outfitters, on a much more limited basis. The amount of time spent on a waiting list for either a private or a commercial trip should be equalized. This may mean that the ultimate natural demand for commercial trips is between 10 to 20% of the total use.
There is still a place for guides. Guides unquestionably add value to trips, and it is time for the nps to reevaluate its regulations about the definition of a “river trip” and allow trips to hire one or more independent contractor guides. In this new paradigm guides become independent contractors and must market their skills to permit holders. They would be allowed to charge whatever the market will bear. A private trip paying a Canyon interpretive guide $200 per day will still spend much less on guides on a per person basis than if they ran with a commercial trip. In addition to controlling their compensation, guides would control their own benefits. If a guide wanted long-term disability insurance or a retirement plan, it would be up to that guide to fund his or her benefits as per incentives. From a guide's point of view, this would give them a choice between high paying fast trips or slow, mellow private trips, or a combination. I believe this would keep guides fresh and promote a meritocracy in which the best guides get work and those that need attitude adjustments get some enforced time off.
The world has changed and now is the time to adapt and change the policy of river use through the Grand Canyon.
There is still a place for gcrg. The organization could become a clearing house for guides, for trips, for information, and is well organized to do this through their web site.
There is still a place for the National Park Service. The slightly expanded role would be more true to their mission of administering back country use. Under this new paradigm, all prospective rafters would have to make the effort to apply for a permit, which is admittedly harder than calling a travel agent, but a little more effort is probably not a bad thing. They would also be free to organize any kind of trip they wanted from triple Georgie rigs on down to kayak support.
In thinking about this we should remember the principal of Ockham's razor, which, paraphrased, states, “all things being equal, the simplest solution is always preferred.” Think how much simpler the river experience would be without “help” of Coconino County health regulation or tax burdened outfitters who are now serving the role of order takers for an insatiable demand.
If you agree with the mission statement of gcrg of providing the best quality river experience, you'll have to agree that a well run private trip is generally a better experience than a commercial trip (and a lot cheaper, even if you pay the guides).

David N. Shore