Editor's note: This rewords the 15th paragraph to reflect that park officials did not say most comments received on the environmental assessment spoke in favor of above-the-rim rides over Inner Gorge rides.
The recent debate over mule rides in Grand Canyon National Park has left park officials, who say they have to live within their budgets and the public's desires, strongly criticized by mule backers, who say trail impacts might be less of an issue if park managers were smarter with how they spend their money.
Unfortunately for outsiders, fully understanding National Park Service budgeting is not always an easy task. There are funds dedicated to specific aspects of a park's operations, overlapping assignments that can make it difficult to tease out how much is spent on a specific area, and, among other things, funds that must be spent within a specific time-frame.
These challenges can be found in just about every one of the 394 units of the National Park System, which makes the following a helpful primer for those trying to understand how spending decisions sometimes are made in their favorite parks.
When Grand Canyon officials in March 2010 embarked on an environmental assessment to help chart the future of livestock use in the park, they pointed out that "an annual budget of approximately $3 million is needed to adequately maintain the park’s corridor trails; however, the park only receives between $1.5 and $2 million annually through entrance fees, concessions franchise fees and other sources for trail maintenance and repair."
"Additionally," they continued, "deferred maintenance costs on inner canyon corridor trails currently exceeds $24 million (GRCA PAMP 2006) – unless management actions are taken in the near future, trails will continue to fall into disrepair and deferred maintenance costs will continue to increase."
The uproar over the park's eventual decision to restrict public mule rides down to Phantom Range in the park's Inner Gorge to 10 mules per day along the Bright Angel Trail, and 10 a day from Phantom Ranch to the South Rim via the South Kaibab Trail, got me wondering about the trail maintenance funding woes, and how easily it might be to move money from another area to help meet those needs.
Since river trips down the Colorado River are a main attraction of the Grand Canyon and require more than a little attention from the park to manage, I figured that'd be a good place to look into the funding quagmire. What I found out is that nothing is entirely cut-and-dried when it comes to park funding.
For starters, Grand Canyon National Park currently spends about $1.4 million a year on river operations -- the permitting office, river patrols, concessions program, rangers staffing the put-in and takeout, environmental audits, and fee collections from river trips, just to name the most obvious tasks.
To cover that $1.4 million, the park receives a little more than $200,000 for river operations in its base funding from Congress, according to park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge. Another $600,000 or so comes from private user fees, she added, and the balance -- some $500,000 -- comes from concession fees.
“That pays for us to administer that operation," she said, "and that, too, pays for a ranger at Lee’s Ferry (the put-in), it pays for a ranger at Meadview (the takeout), it pays for river patrol operations."
And often those river patrols are multi-purpose, Ms. Oltrogge continued, explaining that while there might be a river ranger on the boat, there often might be someone working on Inner Gorge trail maintenance, vegetation studies, or archaeological or fisheries research. As a result, here can be a mingling of park funds traveling in that boat.
"It’s not as clean as you can take it from here without affecting something else. As nice as that would be, you just can’t do that," said Ms. Oltrogge.
Indeed, added Barclay Trimble, the Grand Canyon's deputy superintendent for business services, the money generated by river trips has to be spent on river management.
“All the stuff that comes from cost recovery from the privates (trips), that has to be spent on the resources that are being used to generate those fees. So that really can’t be reallocated at all," he said.
As to the furor over just 10 mule rides a day, park officials pointed out that current use patterns overwhelmingly show there are more hikers in the canyon than mule trips. Nearly 200 comments were received on the draft EA, they said in their synopsis, and "a wide variety of comments were received and a majority supported retention of at least some level of stock use in the park." By making more above-the-rim mule rides available, the park was responding to public demand, the officials said.
"I would say we're providing an opportunity for a bigger population, a bigger visitation base, to have that experience" of a mule ride atop the South or North rims, rather than in canyon's Inner Gorge, Mr. Trimble said during an earlier conversation. "We have had several comments over many, many, many years ... about a need for some above the rim. Not everybody wants to spend a full day going down into the canyon, baking in the sun, and coming back out.”
“The opportunity is still there, we are still providing mules down into Phantom Ranch and the North Rim is providing a ride down into the canyon," he added.
In an editorial endorsing the park's preferred livestock plan, the Arizona Daily Sun pointed to the disparity between the numbers of hikers and mule riders in the canyon.
In truth, it hasn't been the mule rides that have increased dramatically but the number of hikers -- hundreds of thousands now use the Bright Angel and South Kaibab trails each year. The two groups have combined to wear out the trails much faster than they can be repaired, resulting in a $20 million backlog of repairs.
But because there are no other viable trail corridors into Phantom Ranch, something had to give, and it was clear that the visitor experiences of 300,000 annual hikers were going to outweigh those of 10,000 mule riders. Deeply rutted trails filled with mule dung and urine, combined with rules of the road that give mule trains priority -- even when they step on a hiker's foot -- made it a foregone conclusion that some of the mules would have to go.
The move to fewer mules in the Grand Canyon is a changing of the recreational guard. While mules long have been associated with the canyon -- Brighty, anyone? -- the demand for mule rides into the canyon at a minimum seems to be slackening, while the influx of hikers determined to hoof it with their gear on their back is climbing.
Under today's budgeting scenario, something had to give, and park officials went into their deliberations with one certainty, as Ms. Oltrogge pointed out during our conversation.
“No matter what decision you make, you’re going to have people happy with it and people who are not," she said.
Comments
What the big question here is whether NPS can correct this "injustice on so many levels" and be viewed as an organization that deserves these responsibilities are someone initiates a Congressional investigation and hauls in to sub-committees Superintendent Steve Martin and IMR Director Wessels (again) with the likes of Senators John Barrasso, Doc Hastings or Rep. Rob Bishop asking the questions that just might vier into the Hubbell Trading Post affair. Does NPS want this kind of Public Affairs challenge? Does the whole environmental industry want their dark underbelly exposed?
Breakthroughs are difficult but this is a burden that needs to be lifted with validation and good public policy the reward.
Respectfully
Just to add a fact or two here to add some balance to the verbal bar fight (better use of time). By the way, I respect the trail crews that do the heavy lifting and are at the whim of politicos.
Find some real here and talk to the trail crew that had to hike from Phantom to above Tip Off to start the day and then hike back to Phantom that afternoon. They accomplished 600 ft of trail ALL WINTER then when the weather was ideal and they could have camped there they were pulled off to build NEW trails above the Rim. Uh...leadership decisions not the great bunch that are solid and get jerked around. The job and the character that is required by either crew does not deserve the heat that management deserves.
to Randy Thompson, i have never been employed by Xanterra or NPS ... i am a mule rider. i don't own mules, or breed them, i don't make money off mules or anything to do with the mule ride. i have always loved to ride horses, never been able $$ to own my own. i set a personal goal for myself to lose weight and get in shape for the mule ride to the bottom of the canyon as a reward and a bucket list item. i live in Michigan. i saved up the $500 or so that was the cost of the actual mule trip. i used frequent flier miles for my airline trip to Arizona.
i was not even aware there were changes being considered to the ride until i WENT on my ride. i made reservations, and paid, a year in advance for the down the BA, up the SK ride advertised. when changes were made, Xanterra and NPS did not even have the decency to notify me in advance that i was not going to get the ride i had paid for, when they closed the SK to mule traffic. they made the wranglers share that somewhat disappointing info when i arrived for my ride. the staff at the mule barn were all wonderful! Steve and Anslem, and Norman, and KBar were great--i had the best vacation experience i have ever had. the staff at Phantom was also very good, friendly and professional.
i was fortunate to take the 2 night trip, so i did the 12 mile ribbon falls hike on my off day between riding down and riding up. i'm such a fat lazy mule rider....
i am curious, of all the people who use the canyon, where do the hikers come from and where do the mule riders come from? ie what percentage of canyon users are from out of the southwest states? i think there is a very strong, and yes elitist, group of "vocal locals" who feel that because they have the time/money to visit and enjoy the canyon year after year, that it is "theirs." since the vast majority of people who visit the canyon do not venture below the rim, they are not a bother to these elitists. the mule riders, though, are another story. we dare to enter the canyon itself.
i haven't noticed that any hikers have called for the banning of the mules who service THEM once they are ensconced at Phantom or in one of the very difficult to get campsites. i guess these mules don't poop or pee on the trails. until hikers have to pack in and pack out EVERYTHING, in my opinion they should stop complaining about the mules.
there are HUNDREDS of miles of trails in the canyon that hikers can use where they don't have to worry about the mules. but those trails aren't the easy ones, and those trails aren't the convenient ones. so who is lazy now, hikers?
visit my facebook group, and watch some of the several hundred links/videos, and look at some of the more than 500 pictures posted by our more than 1,100 members.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=188057931399
educate yourselves with something other than the NPS propaganda.
talk to some of the people who have been at the canyon, down in the ditch, for 15, 20, 30 years ... learn something :-)
This comment was very lightly edited. Let's try to be civil folks, or we'll bring things to a halt. -- Ed.
Keeper - If you are still interested in volunteering, or would like a site visit of the work we are doing on the SKT, please contact me at 928.638.7862. I would be more than happy to help. I currently over see inner canyon trail operations, and have been working on Grand Canyon Trails for going on 19 years. I am intimately familiar with the trails.
I'd also like to say I am an advocate of mule use in the canyon, but cannot deny the damage caused by mules.
If you have any questions and would like to pick my brain, feel free to contact me.
Take care and happy trails,
Rich Goepfrich
I would like to correct your statement regarding crew size; each of our trail crews is supported by a 11 person conservation corp. That puts 18-20 people working on the trails in any given location.
I have worked to better Grand Canyon Trails for going on 19 years now with what is provided to our program to facilitate this.
Currently, in the Red 'n' Whites, a location that is the most difficult to work on logistically, has 100% NPS coverage with rotating crews of 18 back breaking workers who all have a passion for the resource in which they work.
Feel free to contact me with any questions for clarification regarding the work we are currently accomplishing, and the standards/specifications we are building to (we build these trails to livestock standards).
I also want you to know we always try to keep good relations with Xanterra pack barn/Trail Crew, and at our level (not management) we appear to succeed in this, and always have. Where the rubber hits the road, or the shovel hits the dirt, we (NPS Trail Crew) are very passionate in our work on these trails.
95% of the work we do on over 600 miles of trail in the Grand Canyon is on the 28 miles of corridor trail we maintain.
Thanks for your passion, and happy trails,
Rich Goepfrich
928.638.7862
Thank you, Rich, for the considerate offer. I will give you a call and welcome the opportunity to visit and volunteer. I'll be in contact, soon.
Thanks again,
Keeper
Keeper - I really have no animosity towards the mule rides per se. It probably would have been the highlight of my week to have come across a mule train when I was on the South Kaibab Trail. My only reservation is about the poop. I don't care for the whole blame game; blaming hikers for the bad behavior of a few isn't going to make the conflict go away. If something could be done about cleaning it up regularly (like people picking up dog waste on the street), a lot of the animosity could be reduced. Maybe see if the maker of this product could come up with a mule/horse sized version:
http://theshapoopie.com
I'm 6'0" and slowly inching over 180 lbs. I'm thinking by the time I could reserve a ride, I (along with my equipment) might not be under the 200 lbs limit.
YPW,
I wouldn't think you would have a problem with the weight limit. I've had people lose up to 10 pounds the day before the ride. One very determined Texan in his late 60's lost 6 pounds over night and we had to watch him closely for dehydration in the late June 120 degree heat. He made it fine but won't be coming in July again :). I'm sure if you want the experience you'll make it happen. I don't know what all you would want to bring but hikers very frequently duffel stuff down and back with the packers. There are scattered periods where the processed alfalfa and water do get excessive but the problem for some is well taken care of on the North Kaibab by Canyon Trail Rides. South Rim Crew seems to be doing well with not making it an issue. With what's left it might be better to think of it as good traction on the ice:). I appreciate your effort, here.