here are times when the simple life looks mighty good, and way too far away. Maybe that’s what we love so much about the river. Real life means something different there. Up here, all too often, it’s weird and hard and complicated. Down there it’s clean and remarkably straightforward.
Water heads for the ocean. Sun is hot in the summer. Rocks are a factor.
The river’s in charge.
The real rules are impersonal, but very consistent. And they all make sense. Drink lotsa water. Rig your boat good. When in doubt, scout.
Check those hand-holds when you climb. Tie your tent down. Don’t get cocky. Treat people right.
Have faith. The world is what we make it.
(It was pretty damn good before we ever got here.)
For the river community here, it was a good news/bad news kind of fall. AZRA boatman Bob Melville had a bad car crash on New Years day and isn’t really out of the woods yet. For an update on how he’s doing, call the GCRG office. Elsewhere, sickness and accidents seemed to rain down everywhere.
No snow yet in Flag. Nor even cold.
The Coast Guard situation heated up, looked terrible for a week or two, maybe got better. We’ll see. Everybody at the local level, really, did what they had to do. Then the whole mess went to Washington. Congressman Stump (whose district this is) punched in on the issue in a big way, as did America Outdoors and Congressman Clements from Tennessee. Stump’s aide, Lisa Jackson, who’s been down the river several times, is on the case day to day. Old Grand Canyon hand and now overall Chief of Concessions Bob Yearout stepped up for the NPS. Captain George Naccarra, who has been down the river himself, came aboard for the Coast Guard. Taken as a group, the current knot of players feels like a classic example of the system at its best: bright, experienced, practical... a little faith may be in order.
On the brighter side, we had a great meeting in late fall with local NPS honchos Dave Haskell (Resources) and Ellis Richard and Greer Cheshire (Interpretation) concerning the Guides Training Seminar and overall cosmic objectives of the commercial sector. All three were warm, funny, down to earth, very positive, and very sharp—exactly the kind of people you’d love to go down the river with, or have taking care of the Park.Really gave us hope for the future. Later, Chief Ranger Steve Bone and Assistant Superintendent Gary Cummins were pretty darned patient, and cut us a fair amount of slack as we struggled to get our act together on the actual dates of this year’s spring extravaganza. By and large the birdseye view of the NPS at Grand Canyon these days looks better than ever: a large number of good people who really care and are doing the best they can with a host of difficult issues.
The rest of the story is—at Concessions in Grand Canyon the new tests went in and our outfitters got graded.

The results are out now and they’ve shaken us up: two apparently flunked. One is as large and corporate as it gets. The other’s small, as mom and pop as can be. The whole thing’s got us stumped, really. We desperately want a good system here. The place deserves it. We want to think that truth and justice will prevail. We want to have faith in our government. (We need to have faith.) But sometimes it’s hard.
If a process like this begins to deselect one of our oldest, best, and most respected outfitters—which it apparently just took a step toward doing—for reasons that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the kind of trip he and his wife run (i.e. because they filled in the blanks themselves instead of signing up a cadre of lawyers), then certain questions leap to the fore regarding the test itself. Mine were:
When they sorted out the bids, who in that room of life or death judges knew this guy? Who knew his full history in the Canyon (all 40 years of it), or how he treats his passengers, or what he’s like to work for, or be with in the Canyon?
Who really knew that stuff about any of these companies? Were these two the worst trips on the river, or the most mercenary companies? No way.
What are the real goals here? And, when it’s finally down to the nut-cutting, what should be the most important rules of selection? When it comes to figuring out what’s really right or wrong, what values will guide us all?
I talked to Raymond Gunn at Concessions on the South Rim and got pretty much the same impression of him you get from a lot of the people up there these days: good guy, sharp, trying hard to do the right thing. The weird part about his job is, this is the ‘90s, and taking history into account was precisely what they weren’t supposed to do. They were to make an objective, impartial decision based solely on the bids they got—nothing more. The idea was to eliminate the unfair advantage and foster healthy competition; they were literally tasked with ignoring the past. It couldn’t count. “How do you make it impartial and not impersonal?” asked Gunn. “You can’t... we had to go with what was right there in front of us.”
What was really in front of them? Maybe that’s the biggest question. What did it have to do with the actual trips any of us run?
Bottom line? This process ain’t over, by a long shot. Nobody’s truly out yet, or truly in. And the BIG question still remains. When it comes to what’s really right or wrong, what values will guide us all? Will it be “The actual trips don’t count.” “The real people don’t count.” “He who has best lawyers wins.” That last refrain may be the hit song of the ‘90’s. But where’s that logic taking us?
The real bottom line? It’s all personal. Everybody here is personally responsible for what they do, and for making sure it’s right. In the final analysis, you don’t find that ultimate guidance in the rule books. You gotta look deeper every time.
That’s the big stuff for now. The beat goes on.

Lew Steiger