lmost four years ago, a few river guides sat around the old gcrg office downtown and created a program that would merge the concepts of "flood flow, long-term monitoring of Grand Canyon beaches and repeat photography by river guides". Voila! The Adopt-a-Beach program was born. This program monitors the changing condition of a critical recreational resource, facilitates the adaptive management process and dovetails with the other river related studies conducted by Grand Canyon National Park as part of the crmp process. It is simple, yet incredibly effective. Since the program¹s inception in 1996, over seventy-five guides have participated by adopting/photographing beaches in Grand Canyon. That number encompasses guides from all fifteen commercial outfitters, plus freelance guides, National Park Service personnel, AZ Game & Fish and other independent science trips. It has truly been a cooperative effort and a real testament to the strong feeling of mutual responsibility for stewardship of this resource and the shared commitment to its continued well being. The Adopt-a-Beach program would not exist without the ongoing support and efforts of the river community as well as the ongoing financial support of the Grand Canyon Conservation Fund; a non-profit grant-making program established by the Grand Canyon river outfitters. Recently, gcrg has also been honored to receive additional funding support from the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center as well as the 1999 Small Research Grants Program administered by Grand Canyon National Park with funding provided by the Grand Canyon Association. gcrg members have also been extremely generous in helping us along the way with this program. Those individuals are: Alan Arnold Ralph Byram Mari Carlos Mary Gratton Ed Jodice Annie Nelson Mary Schlott Repenning Suzanne Young Amy White & Fred Cropp Jan Whittlesey All in all, many, many thanks to those organizations and innumerable individuals who have kept this program going over the past few years. We couldn¹t do it without all of you. The 1999 Adopt-a-Beach program is now in full swing with over thirty beaches adopted to date. Our goal is to get full coverage of all beaches included in the study in order to give us the best representation of the state of camping beaches in Grand Canyon. So, get on the boat (so to speak)! Give us a call or stop by the gcrg office and we¹ll set you up with everything you need. Easy as pie. Lynn Hamilton