Recent comments

Good question, Green. The short answer is that DEA doesn't have the manpower needed to tackle each and every incident across the country. Swed pointed out to me that, while DEA officials are working with park officials as well as Forest Service and county officials to track down the cartels involved and bring them to justice, Sequoia is the jurisdiction of the National Park Service and the park rangers are tasked with upholding all laws in the parks, whether that be illegal camping or illegal drug running. I agree that things are getting crazy out there, that park rangers in many areas are being asked to wear a multitude of hats, from park ranger to Border Patrol to Customs Agent to DEA. Unfortunately, the financial resources don't adequately exist to help the rangers in all those areas, so they have to pick and choose.

I'm curious as to how these drug lords get access to the park. Are there that many roads into the chaparral areas? Why doesn't the park or the DEA set up checkpoints on the roads, looking for vehicles carrying fertilizers, irrigation equipment etc. Or are all these things being packed in on foot?

Well, Kurt, as I also mentioned, actually Washington, D.C., is close to many parks run by the NPS, several battlefields, Great Falls NP, Shenandoah, and of course the city parks of DC. We have a whole different experience with the NPS here, and they are definitely noticed due to the very complex and overlapping law enforcement jurisdictions. But, I get your point.

You had me at hello. For a second there, I thought someone tipped you off about my time at Sequoia. Just kidding :) But seriously, this is yet another reason to decriminalize.

To make this Skywalk even more attractive, charge extra for free base jumping. Just a gruesome thought but who picks up the mess if don't make it...and there's the suicide jumpers to contend with...does the NPS pick the tab on this one? Being cynical of course, but the Skyrink is pure junk and bad medicine for the tribe.

So if the Hualapai build a skywalk over the canyon, it's okay. If the NPS were to do it, it's not okay. Yeah, I see the double standard. Do I think that too much development in the park is a bad thing? Absolutely. But it's naive to think that people want to endure the hardships of a John Wesley Powell in order to see the canyon. Some development is necessary. Is the building of a skywalk over the canyon necessary. No. It is the attraction, like a Disneyland attraction, not the canyon itself. Do I think that the Hualapai should live in poverty? Of course not. But do I think they should be held to laxer environmental rules and standards than everyone else? No.

"The arhitects of the El Tovar and the other buildings at the South Rim kept the buildings aesthetically in line with the canyon." What a load of crap. The Market Plaza at the South Rim is the size of a K-Mart. Why do we need such a big store in a National Park? "The facilities the National Park Service built at the Grand Canyon are, for the most part, necessary in order for people to visit the canyon." Again I need my hip waders. John Wesley Powell and early travelers didn't need a small city on the South Rim to sustain them. Nor did Clarence Dutton or John Muir or Teddy Roosevelt, who expressed his wish that it remain pristine for future generations. Today, the Canyon is anything but pristine with houses and pay phones at Phantom Ranch, a water pipeline across the canyon, a bank, an ATM, 11 restaurants, an auto mechanic shop, Internet access, a kennel, a medical clinic, a post office, gas stations, gift shops, six lodges with almost 1000 rooms costing up to $300 a night. There are 228 miles of roads and 1143 buildings. This isn't "necessary". It's excessive and it's impossible to find solitude on the South Rim. So back off the Hualapai. I'm fed up with this racist double standard. After everything the US government has done to native peoples, how dare you smugly anticipate the financial failure of their tribe! Condemnation of the Hualapai smacks of Anglo hypocrisy. It's like that 1990s drug commercial where the dad catches his son with marijuana and asks how he learned to do drugs. His son replies, "I learned it by watching you! Ok?! I learned it by watching YOU!"

It does. Doesn't mean it *should*, but more than not, it does.

"Should economics trump spiritual beliefs?" You can't eat spiritual beliefs. Peyote aside of course.

Last summer, my family came together for a quick reunion at Mt Rainier NP. Four cars came to the park from four different corners of the state -- carpooling would have been a difficult option. We met at Sunrise for a picnic, and to share photos from a recent vacation. This exact same experience at a city or state park would have been free. But because we chose to convene at Rainier, at $15 per car, our family was out $60.

We are the privileged class which can afford $60 for a Sunday afternoon picnic. Had our same picnic been in Yellowstone though, at $25 a car it would have cost us $100. Had that been the case, we probably would have been priced out of our picnic. And at that price point, only the most privileged class of Americans could afford the luxury of a large family picnic on federal land.

In a democratic country which celebrates social equality -- where all men are created equal -- this type of social class separation, created by this fee structure, is just wrong.

Ed, I appreciate your comments, and I'll be sure to post more information about this issue as I learn about them.

Clearly illegal border crossers using the national parks as trash dumps and dope growers turning the parks into marijuana farms are a major problem for the NPS and those of us who love the National Parks. Meanwhile the national media is virtually silent on the damage done to the parks by illegals.