Grand Canyon Development Plan Sparks Controversy Among Navajo

originally posted by: criticalhit

originally posted by: mikell
I'm all for it jobs and money. From 2 miles away you won't know it's there. 420 acres out of over 1,220,000 in the park alone. You'll have to go out of your way to find it.

THIS

I live here and guess what, nobody goes here anymore because it sucks, there is no real airport, mediocre skiing at best and you have to drive across endless dead arse desert to get here, I asked my buddy in NY to take a vacation here he said his wife told me to go "EFF" myself.

The Canyon is gigantic, I can think of a million more interesting ways to make visiting it not a nightmare, for starters putting a 9 year old on a donkey hanging on for dear life and scared senseless does not a vacation make particularly when it's 3hrs down at 103 degrees with no bathroom.

There is 300 Miles of wilderness in every direction, the trees are 12 stories high you'd never even see this it's 400 acres the environmental FANATICS need to stop being dummies.

I get what you guys are saying but I say no to development. Once they get their foot in the door, there's no telling what they will be allowed to build in the future. Before you know it, the Grand Canyon could be known as Las Vegas East.

There is a reason it is not very accessible. It's a giant canyon in the middle of the desert. If you can't take the heat or the hiking and climbing, than stay home in the A/C and look at it on NatGeo in your LaZboy.

It is native land which is theirs to do with as they wish without outside interference.

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." --Ancient Indian Proverb



Here is a good article re: History of Claims of Grand Canyon Land & Development

grandcanyonhistory.clas.asu.edu...

originally posted by: mikell
I'm all for it jobs and money. From 2 miles away you won't know it's there. 420 acres out of over 1,220,000 in the park alone. You'll have to go out of your way to find it.

Is it going to be below the canyon or on top of the cannon. A theme park like Disney is just stupid and unnatural, I mean look at all the garbage they have to throw after that. I can tell them how to make it a proper tourist natural attraction instead of filling the place with theme parks rides and stupid housings like apartments.

First, they need off road buses. So people who love driving off road especially them rednecks would drive you around the cannon.

Second, all they need is to build a big helicopter landing pad(that can land multiple helicopters like an airport) on top of 1 of the mountains in the middle of the place because when people get lost at least they have somewhere to find to get out. Tourist attraction for both helicopter and resource landing.

The rest of the grand canyon can be left natural.


Items provided/Rental:
- Walkie talkies for everyone in case they get lost
- Map + Compass(Obviously).
- Possible Lockers

Natural Attractions:
-Survival skills taught to tourists by tourist leaders
- While survival skills are taught, tenting could be possible option.
-Geography
-History(especially the wild west)
-Minerals/Gemmology
-Animals you might find can be taught to tourists at that place.
-Rock climbing
-Zip wire attraction down the mountain.

Possible Attractions:
- Off road driving rental(vehicle provided with map, if you don't want to go with tour buses) -Adult only and probably with someone who knows the way.
- Helicopter rides
- Air plane rides.


All the rest of buildings needs to be 2 miles away. The only thing useful to build there is the helicopter pad so they can land tourists, resource, etc there. Off road buses should be advertised to drive people to sight see grand canyon at cities near grand canyon, also a possible route to get to other cities from the grand canyon.

There should be no issue. If it is Navajo land, it is their decision.

originally posted by: roth1
There should be no issue. If it is Navajo land, it is their decision.

The problem is, America already has enough god dam theme parks. It has became too reliant on theme parks to survive at all. This makes me thing of Disneyland all over again which will probably buy them out. The only places Disney can't buy out is natural parks because they are tend to be more protected by green lovers and government.

When will people learn, fun isn't always about roller coasters, Ferris wheels, etc. They all use a lot of resource and get you no where.

a reply to: lostbook
To tell the truth I do not know. It will bring some jobs and more trade to the grand canyon, but then again. I have never been to the grand canyon, and truth. If I were to go, I would likely skip the mall and all the fancy rides or stores for the more scenic routes. I mean there is no point otherwise right. Its what people go there to see. Not some mall and stores.

Whoever saying all that if it will bring them some jobs and cash. It cant hurt as long as they dont go all ridiculously big on it as it will basically be no point of even going there then. May as well go downtown at the mall with all the shops, and skip the crosscoutry trip. But like somebody said its only 420 acres out of 1,217,403 acres. So whatever they do there is still plenty of room for the bare necessities and nature and all that.

May as well flip a coin I suppose. I personally cant say for or against.

It’s too bad. I guess it’s inevitable; the time will come when there will be nowhere left on Earth to go and enjoy nature. Nowhere, that is, except the virtual reality world we create in our living rooms through technology. IMO it was a sad day for the planet when humans came along. It seems most everything we touch ends up turning to sh-t. Wherever we go we leave a trail of trash behind us, much of it being non-biodegradable. Many folks like the idea of getting back to nature, but not without the comforts of home. We violate the sanctity of our most priceless treasures, desecrating them and turning them into amusement parks. Soon there won’t even be room left for new amusement parks; we’ll be all full up.

In Yosemite Valley they actually have to call smog alerts from time to time. The Valley was a real pearl of nature before people got there. HERE'S a management problems and issues report to give you a sense of the damage and waste left by visitors. It’s a cryin’ shame.

How’s that saying go? You don’t know what ya got til it’s gone? Then again, humans as we are, once we’ve turned Yosemite into a huge housing project/shopping mall, and the Grand Canyon becomes an endless parking lot for all the folks visiting it’s high-end casinos and 5-star hotels, we’ll probably forget all about nature. Nature? What’s that?

Oh well, that’s progress for ya...

originally posted by: jtrenthacker

originally posted by: criticalhit

originally posted by: mikell
I'm all for it jobs and money. From 2 miles away you won't know it's there. 420 acres out of over 1,220,000 in the park alone. You'll have to go out of your way to find it.

THIS

I live here and guess what, nobody goes here anymore because it sucks, there is no real airport, mediocre skiing at best and you have to drive across endless dead arse desert to get here, I asked my buddy in NY to take a vacation here he said his wife told me to go "EFF" myself.

The Canyon is gigantic, I can think of a million more interesting ways to make visiting it not a nightmare, for starters putting a 9 year old on a donkey hanging on for dear life and scared senseless does not a vacation make particularly when it's 3hrs down at 103 degrees with no bathroom.

There is 300 Miles of wilderness in every direction, the trees are 12 stories high you'd never even see this it's 400 acres the environmental FANATICS need to stop being dummies.

I get what you guys are saying but I say no to development. Once they get their foot in the door, there's no telling what they will be allowed to build in the future. Before you know it, the Grand Canyon could be known as Las Vegas East.

There is a reason it is not very accessible. It's a giant canyon in the middle of the desert. If you can't take the heat or the hiking and climbing, than stay home in the A/C and look at it on NatGeo in your LaZboy.

You know... I am a fairly big conservationist. But I think you have to live here to realize how insanely protective the people are of the environment and how god awful a problem the poverty is both for the natives and everyone else... and the scope, the sheer scope of "nothingness"

My town is the nearest "thing" and it's a good 100 miles and the mountain is in 20 years of litigation just to allow artificial snow so there is actually some kind of sustainable tourism, was just talking in another thread about how we don't allow real street lights for light pollution and a 2 story shopping center is illegal.

Seriously, the area is "over board"

For example, the Ponderosa Pine has to burn to propagate, left alone to become a "thick" forest it went out f control, now when there are fires they are ridiculous because they over conserved to a point where it' unnaturally dense, the forest could use "some breaks" and there is really no reason those gaps shouldn't have some human attraction...

I think the next train stop from me is Albuquerque 400 Miles East, the Res is all but empty and if it was a State it would be one of the larger ones covering a good cross section of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado and what is there is often a shanty town, The Mogollon Rim is 300 Miles long... I can cross it to nearly the border of Mexico in New Mexico and do it without being seen that's East, NW is another 300 Miles of Canyon and there is virtually nothing there and it seems hardly anyone goes anymore...

There is not a chance in the world of "over development" and yeah it NEEDS some stuff, a donkey down is a nightmare lol, there is nothing to do once your there and 420 acres is... nothing, the ability to park an RV? The chance to go down? It's impossible for people on normal vacation time to even see with the hike up and down absorbing time... No one will ever develop the North Rim it's so out of the way as to be virtually untouched, the trees are too high for this to even be seen from anywhere around the canyon, 90% of visitors come and go to one or two observation points and humans barely encounter .05% of the 300 mile rim on the south side...

I welcome it, there is also a an Actual amusement park of the same size going up in Williams, I welcome that too that's well south of the Canyon and it's needed, the 40 needs stuff along it badly, something anything inbetween here and LA 500 miles away is welcome.

It wouldn't be an issue

This used to be Route 66, there was a time when Car loads of families passed through in far greater numbers than today and it never dented a thing, people thronged to the Canyon for vacation and those days are gone, Standing on a corner in Winslow AZ means you probably are looking for a place to hang yourself these days, If a girl drives by in a flatbed Ford it's 50/50 she's missing a few teeth from lack of dental care...

please put in an elevator so someone not on a tour from Germany or Japan actual comes here and eats something, throw in the amusement park for some jobs, the Navajos wont let anything get over developed you can be sure of that but they might slow down the drinking and stop beating the crap out of each other with some extra jobs... and you'd be filling .01% if you tripled what they have planned.

You know... Money from visiting funds the forest service and well, if nobody wants to come the whole frackin rim is going to burn down soon anyway with rising temperatures, a few fire breaks would only help preserve it in so many ways, starting with cash flow in...

I wish that the government will do something about it. It needs to be preserved. Of course this development may create thousands of jobs, but it's sad that the next generation can only see how picturesque it was on books alone. Commercialization is oftentimes destructive, especially when we're talking about a World Heritage site.

a reply to: roth1

There should be no issue. If it is Navajo land, it is their decision.

Exactly.

If the Navajo legally own this land, then there's not a damn thing the developers can do about it other than beg and plead for the Navajo to agree to it. Otherwise, it's a no go.

End of story.

I'm 1/4 Native American (Cherokee)

I think they are right to protect the floor of the canyon. Build on the rim, but not in the canyon itself.

I got into an argument with a Lakota friend about Mt Rushmore once. He was saying how the white man destroyed the mountain, and it was "desecrated"

I then asked him if the Crazy Horse Monument being constructed about 20 miles away is also desecration. It's on Lakota land, and is being funded by the visitor's center's profits. So, it's a tourist attraction, just like Mt Rushmore. He said that because one was built by White men, that it is desecration, while the other being built by natives, is not. I say that's hypocritical. Either you want to keep the mountains untouched, or you do not. SMH.

This cannot be frickin serious?

a reply to: lostbook

The Canyon is the attraction

From your link:

Developers Confluence Partners want to provide the more than 5 million annual visitors to the Grand Canyon National Park with a new 420-acre attraction. Their plans for the canyon's rim include a multimedia complex with an IMAX theater, retail shops, hotels, an RV park and a gondola tram that would take visitors 1.6 miles to the canyon floor in ten minutes. Confluence Partners has also drawn up plans for a "Riverwalk" on the canyon floor that would include elevated connected walkways, a food pavilion, a tramway station, a terraced seating area and a wastewater package plant.

The Grand Canyon will never be the same again. You can't get back what you once had - this would be a tragedy

America has more than enough IMAX theaters, shops and restaurants...

Why don't we just pave America over and get it over with