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Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

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Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#31

Post by pmjordan »

raldi wrote: post #19
japhyr wrote: post #4

A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride to the top of Everest. These projects are deeply frustrating because all the developers have to do is get them built once - they can essentially fail as many times as they need to in order to get their project built. If you oppose this kind of project, you have to succeed in your efforts over and over again. If you fail once, the wild natur…

> A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride to the top of Everest. Yeah! Oh wait, you mean bad. Counterpoint: I once rode a sled down a shiny metal track to get down from the Great Wall of China, instead of walking back down the equivalent of 20 flights of steps. It was great! http://kiplingandclark.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mutian... If they'd also had a gondola to ride up in…

Yes, the Great wall of China, that strange natural phenomenon, formed by tectonic forces over millions of years.

Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#32

Post by Shivetya »

japhyr wrote: post #4

A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride to the top of Everest. These projects are deeply frustrating because all the developers have to do is get them built once - they can essentially fail as many times as they need to in order to get their project built. If you oppose this kind of project, you have to succeed in your efforts over and over again. If you fail once, the wild natur…

likely any new development near the Grand Canyon or similar would be required to have something akin to gondola because of the ADA.

While I agree preserving nature is the best reason, guilt over treatment of Indians by past generation has effectively allowed the greediest of them to run all over conversation areas and state laws.

Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#33

Post by mc32 »

sp332 wrote: post #10
japhyr wrote: post #4

A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride to the top of Everest. These projects are deeply frustrating because all the developers have to do is get them built once - they can essentially fail as many times as they need to in order to get their project built. If you oppose this kind of project, you have to succeed in your efforts over and over again. If you fail once, the wild natur…

A gondola ride to the top of Everest would be awesome. Right now, 1.4% of the people who try to summit it die. That's ludicrous and totally indefensible. Anyway it's not as wild as it used to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest#Everest_economy

There are two problems with that. One is that for previous and future traditional ascenders it would "cheapen" the experience. In essence it makes scaling it mundane, so you would have elitists oppose this. The second is that unless you institute a limited lottery system Everest would become littered like mt Fujiyama. So basically nature becomes spoiled by commercial interests.

So given those choices, what's the answer?

Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#34

Post by bmelton »

sp332 wrote: post #24
gambiting wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Right now, 1.4% of the people who try to summit it die. That's ludicrous and totally indefensible. The only problem I have with it is that bodies are rarely taken back and therefore contribute to the pollution of the mountain. Other than that....as long as everyone climbing knows that there is a 1.4% chance of dying, it's fine. I imagine there are extreme sports which have a similar if not higher death ratio,and I…

I'm not saying we should forbid climbing. But offering a way to make the trip without dying would be nice. Also, having a gondola that goes up there would make it easier to remove dead bodies of climbers.

Putting a set of stairs to the peak appeals to the type of person who wants to be on top of Everest, but not to the type of person who wants to climb Everest.

A set of stairs, obviously, ruins the wildness of one of the world's great wildnesses, as well as costs a lot of money for something that would likely go relatively unused.

Otherwise, as has been pointed out, you can take a helicopter to the top, but honestly, that may prove over time to be more risky than the slower way.

Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#35

Post by nsxwolf »

Fede_V wrote: post #26
sp332 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gondola ride to the top of Everest would be awesome. Right now, 1.4% of the people who try to summit it die. That's ludicrous and totally indefensible. Anyway it's not as wild as it used to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest#Everest_economy

That's because those people have no business being there. Those mountains are for genuine climbers that can earn their ascent there, not idiots with too much money and no respect for a mountain, who have sherpas basically push them to the top. I hate this ridiculously entitled attitude. If you aren't a great climber in fantastic physical shape, just don't go to Everest. I have the same kind of contempt for people who…

That's mountain climbing elitism. The "great climbers" made it look cool, then others with more money than skill figured out their own way to do it, and had a great time to boot. I'm sure that drives elitists nuts, kind of like how I'm sure software hackers building with Arduino makes EE majors nuts.

Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#36

Post by rayiner »

Irrigating the southwest in the first place was a Big Government mistake. That's the real disaster here. The Grand Canyon is pretty, but it's just a big ravine. Damming up the Colorado so people in Tuscon can have grass lawns is the real crime.

Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#37

Post by throwaway5752 »

jasonjei wrote: post #25
sosuke wrote: post #7

I couldn't get a real sense of just where this development wanted to be, what it looked like: http://grandcanyonescalade.com/comparison-chart-grand-canyon... That monstrosity should absolutely not be built.

Having lived both in Phoenix and Tucson, I can say for sure state politicians will be in no hurry to protect the Grand Canyon. Sen. McCain wanted to dig up the canyon for resources. The argument will be "job creation," and anyone that opposes this project is against jobs. Not that I agree with it, but AZ is a big red state that also taxes solar panels even though sunlight is cheap.

For better or worse, it's not an Arizona problem, but a problem on the sovereign Navajo nation land. There were major conflicts in the northeast over this kind of stuff before the gambling money got into the political process. Sadly the reservations intended for native Americans have become a easy way for foreign interests to skirt state regulations and freely obtain the necessary property (even if currently occupied) to do so.

Re: Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?

#39

Post by peteorpeter »

The price of solitude is effort. Don't want to share nature with others? Walk a mile and you will filter 99% of humanity. Three miles uphill will filter 99.9%.

My trip to the Grand Canyon was tailored for solitude. We drove hours to get to a trailhead on the North Rim, hiked a a steep trail down, camped (by a hard-to-believe falls/spring), and hiked up and out by moonlight to avoid the heat. I don't mean to sound hardcore - I'm really not - I just like solitude and that's how you get it.

I'm ambivalent about this particular proposal. Exposure to nature creates naturalists. At the same time people ruin nature - the experience of it and it's physical environment. It's a balancing act and I have no idea if this is too much or too little.

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