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Updated: Budgeting At Grand Canyon National Park Is Not Always As Simple As You Might Think

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In a park with many uses -- mule rides, backpacking, river running -- budgeting to meet needs at Grand Canyon National Park is not always easy or simple. Top photo by Cecil Stoughton, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection; middle photo NPS; bottom photo, Mark Lellouch, NPS.

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.

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Comments

Jim, Being how your a Ranger your mind set does not surprise me in the least, You forgot to mention the thousands of seniors that are to old to hike to Phamtom but are still in good enough shape to ride a mule that will never get a chance to see the river at the bottom now, and all the youg folks from all over the world that want to be able to do what there parents did, its not your decision nor any other NPS, ITS THE PEOPLES PARK DON'T FORGET THAT, and dont forget that the trails were made for mules and by mules and they were there FIRST,, This is all a simple matter of a over zealous MARTIN on an ego trip, and not managing funds correctly, This is a huge issue, its about the Mules#1,#2 The jobs,#3 The History,#4 And the right of those People who want to ride a mule,#5 And American pride, now don't come on here and try to justify things differently, the Mules survived the Great depression and by God there goona survive this one, so pull your head out mister ,an opinion from you is like a hikers pile of toilet paper in the trail as so all my riders can view it first hand, you need to read the John Wayne Quote above and give that a thought, Kind Regards Gordon Smith Former Wrangler. And God Bless Jack Church.


Most folks over 50 yrs of age cant hike to the river and back out even in good health, But as a rule they all can make it in and out by mule, thats just a fact, I remember one rider I had that was 92 years old and could barely walk but he rode great, I had him behind me all the way to Phantom but on our way out the next day I had him ride drag bringing up the rear and helped in keeping everyone bunched up and he done great, so I all so see this as a profiling problem excluding our elderly from the inner Canyon and thats wrong and may be against the law all together,,, to this day I get Christmas cards from people I had on rides as far back as 20 yrs and they stay in touch with me, and its not about me, its about how important that mule ride in the Canyon was to them, and this is going on with every guide, experiences that are that important to folks ya just cant put a price on and I feel humble that I was apart of that for many thousands. Kind Regards Gordon Smith


Impact on the Canyon, Mule Versus Hiker: Section's of Trail without properly placed water bar's will wash out and that is an issue the NPS has not done correctly and that's proof in past photos, and dont tell me 1000 hikers a day dont do more damage than 60 or so head of mules.Everything that go's in with a mule comes back out on a mule, except the natural thing that I must say is certified weed free. Now when it comes to hikers there numbers are not regulated for day hikes and the things they discard on purpose or accident in the inner Canyon Ranges from tent poles to plastic bags to Granola wrappers to plastic canteens and once these products get blown or pushed of the edge they are there to stay baby, in every nook and crany out of site in the bottoms of remote draws and canyons, and most of this trash aint breaking down to nature in the next ten thousand years, and this is only goona get worse, you dont see NPS repelling from cliffs to do any clean up, whats up with that, I thought this is a impact issue, I STATE MY PEACE, any more impact arguments ? Oh now lets bring up the subject of Buro's still in Remote areas of the canyon a non native species trampling ancient indian ruins as well as wild cattle, these are out of pubic view so NPS lets it go on, Do I really need to paint more of a pic. Best Regards Gordon Smith


According to a survey published in 2006 by the Park Service, the average age of day mule riders was 48 years in summer, 49 in winter. The average overnight mule rider was 47 years old in summer and 56 years old in fall. The average age of the overnight Phantom Ranch hiker was 47 in summer and 54 in winter. Almost half and half as to men vs. women. The oldest person I've taken on a rim to rim hike was 82. I think Maverick, of the 100 plus rim to rims, was 82.

Here's a gal who hikes to Phantom every year on her birthday: this year is her 80th.

http://www.prescottaz.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=...


Nothing is as simple as you would think with the federal government. My people can attest to this. The Great Father has nothing but contempt for anyone in his way. "Grand Canyon National Park" is a sacred place to the peoples of the Southwest. The Great Father stole it. He lied to the people. He came back after the Great War and lied to the people again and made their land radioactive. Now the Great Father cannot balance his budget. The sacred land has been defiled and Great Father cannot properly take care of it like the people who came before him did. Who will take care of the sacred lands?


Rock On, Dorothy! I look forward to seeing you on the trail. I do love it when I see people pushing their comfort zones to do exceptional things. Just plane nice to be around!
K


The notion that mule traffic dosen't damage the trails is mindless, the photo I saw showed a properly built and spaced series of check steps that had been washed over in a recent rain event. I would assume any moisture in topography like the Grand Canyon would cause some natural erosion.....mix this minor, recurring effect on the trail structures with the rigors of any livestock traffic, and the damage would undoubtly be worse and thus the mainteance cost would be higher.....much higher.

I have read several nasty comments in regard to the trail construction and it appears to me, that the NPS trail crews that are working on many years of erosion natural or "mule made". Why all the critisism on work that employs young men and women? - think of historic programs such as the WPA or CCC, programs such as these teach young people job skills and make them better prepared for future careers. With youth work groups I would also assume there is a variety of skill sets working on these repairs, there may be some other sections of this trail that look much more more finely constructed. I say there may be a debt of gratitude for the work the NPS trail crews have done, these nasty comments just make the people that make the repairs to the resource feel bad or resentful.

And dont tell me that the concessionaire did all the work, I asked some people I know - and the wrangler trail crew is only 4 people and has a high turn over rate and minimal support from the concessionaire; the NPS has employed several hundred over the last couple years making repairs to the South Kaibab trail just for mule traffic. Other NPS trail programs seem to have a fairly high opinion of the people that do the work at Grand Canyon.

Also, seems like there are only a handful of ex wrangler making most of the comments - there may be some sour grapes on this issue.


I'll try and bring you up to speed,Anonymous. There is some truth to some of what you say and I agree improvement in certain areas would be helpful. That's why I'm staying in the conversation. The comment about "ex-wranglers" is a low blow and doesn't show much in the way of, well, knowledge The retention of Xanterra's trail crew, packers and guides has to do with Xanterra's operating model that does have more to do with all of this than has been mentioned. A lot of dancing around the issue is in place. Let's GET TO IT is my suggestion and not destroy something so iconic and REAL for pretty questionable excuses/motivations. I really do not like that I have to spend so much time on this political stuff when everything seems so much clearer and solvable when I'm in the Canyon with humbled and respectful guests that come out with something so significant. I'd like to sit down with the principle decision makers, their public relation specialists and visit in a public broadcast situation to shine some light on things. NPS probably would say that the public comment period is over which is true but it appears that that was just a formality. I have all the public comments submitted and they reflect a much stronger pro-mule ride stance than has been presented. I approached NPR (KNAU) and NPS with the on air suggestion and they refused saying it wasn't appropriate until AFTER the EA was signed and in place.
What is also significant is the fact that most of the mule traffic is in support of HIKERS. A very high number of hikers use the mule duffel service to Phantom so they don't have to carry much more than water and snacks while on the trail. My last load I packed in to Phantom was 40 cases of beer for mainly, hikers. Mules are responsible for almost ALL support of Phantom Ranch and the mostly all hikers that stay there along with the needs of 13 full time employees. What has been gutted is the opportunity for a few riders to participate. Like I said a little light on the reality of this could go a long way. Thanks for the dialogue. K


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