Plain Talk

   User-days. The only issue. In a world that’s getting smaller every day. Just look around. There’s commercials everywhere, ferChristsakes. Thousands of privates. And everybody wants more. Is there room for us all?

   No. Not if the commercials get it their way—or—the privates get it their way. Too many commercials degrade the experience for themselves and everybody else. Privates say that. Too many outfits, too many passengers; Give us room! they say. Commercials say all that about privates, and occasionally more, or worse, or something. Special Needs Populations are saying it about everybody. And science trips have, in the last few years, consumed more user-days than even the largest companies.

   Different factions. Saying the same thing, I think. Too many people. Too much fuss and hassle and no place to park. NO place to camp! Too many sunburnt bodies at Deer Creek or peeing into the stream at Havasu or falling or driving or jumping off the rim. Cables and cameras everywhere. Black plastic crosses nailed flat on sand all along the river corridor. When’s it gonna end??

   People are saying: Get this [fecal matter] outta here. All of it—the commercials and privates and that science stuff gone. Now. Airplane noise and peptic river tides next. After that, put a bunch of sand back where all these things and people use to be and make Grand Canyon and the Colorado River natural, like before. Maybe bring back the Indians, or Stanton, if he’s still around.

   No way. We are here. Now. The original old-timers aren’t in on this one. And we have a problem. Several, actually. The first is sandy beaches and overall resource management. Next comes user-day allocations for river. And trail. And air. Then follows the realization that Grand Canyon needs fixed really good. Forever. Here’s the big picture: We need to quit fooling with this thing or, no matter how well intentioned everybody is, we’re going to kill it dead the first time. At the very least we are in the process of reorganizing Grand Canyon to what we think is right. Whatever that means. It does not mean natural; it does not mean before man or, even, before 1963. It means the firepan must be a minimum of 432 square inches with a three-inch lip, freestanding above the sand so as to avoid burnt feet and cancelling the notion that real people once kindled a live fire on this spot. Wilderness attributes. Where is the real thing?

   If user-days are the issue, people, en masse, are the problem. But people are also the answer. It was them created this mess. To them it passes. Now we’re all in it together. There are too many of us. Something’s got to give.

   And that’s User-days. Allocations must nest comfortably into resource management policies. You can’t have one without the other. But it is more than a “do the people fit” question. I ask: Does the resource fit? Which is more important? People or Place? If the rocks are more important people are less so. Vice versa if the humans win-out. This is one of those times we can’t have it both ways. Its Us or Grand Canyon on this one.

   At present the answer seems to be going both directions—which is sideways. Everybody who wants to be a part of this thing does not fit. They never will, not all at once. It might be time for park-wide visitor reservations because park-wide use ceilings might be headed our way. Or visitation rights vastly different from what you now know. The GMP calls for more restrictive and specialized uses. Less people all over the place. With access for all. How did we manage to get here?

   User-days. Will you surrender? Will you, Outfitter, accept a different launch schedule?..a longer trip? Will you, Guide, be ready to work...less? Will you, Private, pay more of that precious dough to get on the river?

   Grand Canyon was discovered 454 years ago. And here we are today—Community Four-Fifty-Four. The first party, in September of 1540, didn’t amount to much. Things have changed since then. Almost 500 years later the place and people are barely recognizable. Would Cardenas even begin to comprehend? The roads, vehicles, buildings, myriad busses filled with millions of tourists, boats on the river or airplanes in the sky? Picture this: Cardenas passing through the East Entrance Station—NPS would not know what to make of it. Picture yourself doing the same in another 500 years.

   Imagine Cardenas solving the user-day problem. For him, it wouldn’t be too tough. After taking the gold he’d be gone.

   Sometimes its not difficult for me to picture that. The contest for access to Grand Canyon between privates, commercials, and emergent groups of interested others, especially on the river, has got to end. Its time all of us took off the gloves and sat in a big circle around a friendly campfire and got a handle on this thing. We must begin work toward an equitable and flexible [Equiflex?] user-day solution. We need to deal with this thing before it deals with us. And we need to start now.

Shane Murphy