Lew Steiger
filmmaker, commercial guide
I met Grand Canyon as a passenger on a motor trip in ‘71, fell in love, wormed my way back as a swamper the next year. The middle part of my 20+ year career was spent freelancing, so I got to work for 14 different companies at last count, both motor and rowing. Guiding’s not my mainstay anymore, but it’s been a great privilege and I have loved (almost) every minute of it. The “commercial” sector in general here is made up of some the best people I’ve ever known, or hope to know, and I am fiercely proud of having been a part of it.
Most people who’ve worked here awhile realize how lucky we’ve been to get to run trip after trip in this beautiful place. In our own ways we try to measure up to that privilege and give stuff back, both to the canyon and to others passing through it. On the good end of the commercial spectrum, you can easily find countless examples of boatmen and outfitters earnestly attempting to balance the scales... to somehow reciprocate. This publication is just one of them.
Another end of the commercial spectrum, in my mind, is indeed preoccupied with the bottom line, but this is America and that disease is not unique to the Grand Canyon. The greatest flaws I see in what we do on the river today can be chalked up to human nature and to incentives provided by the current system.
The people we’re supposed to be serving- our passengers -come in all shapes and persuasions; you can’t generalize there, but it’s safe to say that on almost every trip you’ll find wonderful people who not only give back to their guides (and outfitters) as much as they get, but who also soak up the magic here and take it home with them and somehow spread it around elsewhere. The mystical formula that seems ever present in Grand Canyon is: people get out of a trip what they put into it. And accordingly, the list of talented people from all walks of life who’ve come here, been inspired somehow, and gone on to varying degrees of greatness in their own fields is, as it should be, endless.
Looking ahead to this review, I’ve stewed incessantly about how the times and the system itself have conspired to water down the power of the canyon. Outfitters can make substantially more money by offering exchanges and shaving that last day off the schedule. Nobody has time to go all the way anyhow. People always think they want the shortest option, and the user-day system as it stands today only encourages our industry to break up the Canyon and offer smaller and smaller chunks of it to the public we theoretically serve. The system encourages us to “give people what they want”, instead of telling them, “if you’re only going once, take that extra day. If there’s any chance you can, go the distance. You’ll be glad you did.”
The system tweaks I’ve always wanted were making the shortest motor trips just one day longer (4 days to Phantom Ranch, or 7 days to Whitmore Wash) and somehow revamping the exchange accounting so outfitters running complete trips were financially rewarded instead of vice versa. It’s not that today’s picture is so bad (it’s really not) but that over time there’s been a trend leading to less and less of a good thing for a public that will only need a meaningful reconnection with the natural world more and more. I used to think the only way to address this was count exchange days differently, but it might be easier to just fix it so outfitters doing exchanges that count as one user-day can only charge each of those two people for half a user-day.
The squeakiest wheel of all is the private waiting list. Unfortunately, the tendency is to leap over the first part of the problem- the list itself -to land directly on the big land mine, allocation. All too often it’s: “The commercial sector sucks and oughta be taken down a peg. We (private boaters) are purer and we deserve those days.” The typical response on the commercial side is “You can’t argue against private boating, but hey, that list is so screwed up, even if you did shift the days it wouldn’t matter... it’s like throwing bananas to an 800 pound gorilla who’ll always want more. The List will keep growing, the people who do wait will still be waiting, and the people who know how to work the system will still go every year, just like they do now.” A more constructive approach is just to say “the list is broken. The official wait confronting private boaters is unacceptable.” Start there. Get a handle on the true situation. Design a better system.
The hard part is, after a better system is in place, if an allocation shift still seems appropriate, what’s the formula? In the “good works” department, some companies have constantly been there: good trips, volunteer resource management efforts, special population trips, and political water-carrying since day one on every single issue that concerns the canyon... not to mention a decent wage and good treatment of guides. Out of 16 companies, I can think of only two that seem truly mercenary. If I could wave a wand and penalize them alone I’d do it, but the fact is, they’re both playing by the rules regardless, and still represent lifelong commitments from their owners. So what’s fair? An incremental Colorado River Fund buyout of companies as they want to sell?
Potential Wilderness designation for the river? Absolutely. Gotta have it. Motors? Gotta have them too to keep anywhere close to the same numbers we’ve got now. Computer model to lessen crowding? Long overdue. Tom Moody’s plan? Sounds good. Brad Dimock’s plan? Like that too. Common pool? Sounds good, but how do you implement it, really?
The challenge confronting us all, constituents and NPS alike, is to not repeat the mistakes made in the ‘70s and descend into a war over these things that negatively impacts everyone on the river for decades to come. Want respect? Give respect. Want to be heard? Listen too. Feeling judgmental? Get off your high horse and look at it from anothers’ point of view. Expecting miracles? Realize they don’t happen overnight, or from taking (or defending). The magical Grand Canyon formula will definitely be at work here too. The key is what you give.
