Recent comments

  • Mountain Bikers to Seek Access Through Listening Sessions   6 years 10 weeks ago
    Let's see. The "listening session" will revolve around a series of little tables supporting poster displays focusing on different topics, all of which will somehow be related to strengthening the "productive relationship." The gullible public will walk from table to table, filling out little 3X5 index cards at each on which they will write out a sentence or two expressing their thoughts on the various "issues." At the 12th, and final, table, they will get to greet an agency grand poohbah, who will shake hands and thanks each and every person for coming out. Coffee and fingerfoods will be served over in the far corner, the java underwritten by REI and the food by Trek bicycles and Volkswagen.
  • Sequoia, Drugs, and Rangers   6 years 10 weeks ago
    Let's keep using federal funding and resource to round up and deport illegal immigrant workers, and handcuffing seven year old American Citizens, like the incidents in San Rafael and Novato California instead of pursuing drug cartels and abusers of our National Treasures.
  • Sequoia, Drugs, and Rangers   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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.
  • Sequoia, Drugs, and Rangers   6 years 10 weeks ago
    How come Swed is not receiving/demanding the necessary resources from the DEA? Back country rangers should be focused where primary Park use occurs not battling large drug plantations. That should be the focus of the DEA. Both organizations undergo significantly different training and offer different skills to the public.
  • Sequoia, Drugs, and Rangers   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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?
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    Like the government doesn't put environmental restrictions on private land. This tourist trap is akin to the proposed casino close to Gettysburg or the proposed Disney Americana theme park close to Manassas. Both, thank goodness, were voted down. They would have been on private land but would have degraded the area around a National Park.
  • Listening Session Two-Step   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    The Hualapai built the tourist trap on their own PRIVATE land. They are not legally bound to the 1916 Organic Act like the NPS. If you're not familiar, that establishing act requires that the NPS leave parks UNIMPAIRED for future generations, and I'd say that all that Disneyesque development at the Grand Canyon is a major impairment. Don't think it's Disneyesque? Here's another fact for you: there are more hotel rooms in the Grand Canyon than there are at Disneyland! The price is about the same for both, too.
  • Sequoia, Drugs, and Rangers   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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.
  • In Desperate Need of the Gray and Green   6 years 10 weeks ago
    K's working on one of the hats on e-bay. Pray for me. Heh.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    It's also revealing that not all the tribe wants this Skywalk. And do I think that travelers will drive many miles over dirt roads and pay $25 a head, $100 for a family of four, to spend a few minutes walking on this thing? No. But we shall see.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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.
  • Audiocast #1 : Washington State Plan to Abolish the FLREA   6 years 10 weeks ago
    We need at least some of the money brought in by fees to keep up the park lands. Maybe abolish the entrance/parking fees so everyone can enjoy the parks and increase the cost of camp sights. The sights in the parks, although without hookups for rv's are much nicer than most comercial campgrounds where you are packed in right next to each other. The cost of the sites at the parks, at least in my opinion are too low for the size of the camp site that you get. I would gladly pay more for this type of camping. We love going to the National Parks and will choose them over private campgrounds any day.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    "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!"
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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. Not many people could or would visit if there were no place to stay, no place to eat and no railroad or road to get there. The arhitects of the El Tovar and the other buildings at the South Rim kept the buildings aesthetically in line with the canyon. They don't obstruct canyon views. When you're on the viewpoints to the west or east of the South Rim developed area, you can't even see the El Tovar or Bright Angel Lodge. This tacky tourist trap is not only not necessary in order for people to see the canyon, it seems to have been designed by the Las Vegas/Disney school of architecture. What happens when this thing goes bankrupt which it almost certainly will.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    It does. Doesn't mean it *should*, but more than not, it does.
  • How Will Parks Cope With Climate Change?   6 years 10 weeks ago
    The most important issue pressing mankind on earth...and such very little response...and we talk about a little rink hanging over the Grand Canyon. No wonder mother earth is falling apart!
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    "Should economics trump spiritual beliefs?" You can't eat spiritual beliefs. Peyote aside of course.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    I think Claire's analysis is correct. "Should economics trump spiritual beliefs?" I can't pinpoint another documented case at the moment, but my gut tells me the answer is yes. And more than a few times. And not just in the West. At a national park.
  • Audiocast #1 : Washington State Plan to Abolish the FLREA   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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.
  • Grand Canyon Skywalk Moved into Place   6 years 10 weeks ago
    When it comes to sacred versus profitable, sacred sometimes takes a backseat and becomes profane. In a sense, I can't fault the tribe though. The river has been dammed, parts of the the canyon have been mined and ranched, railroad tracks have been laid practically to the rim, and most/much of it is now federal land that an approved concessionaire makes money from. I suppose the tribe sees this arc as an extension of others who have profited from the canyon.
  • Cubans Use Parks to Come Ashore   6 years 10 weeks ago
    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.
  • Cubans Use Parks to Come Ashore   6 years 10 weeks ago
    Whatever the case, we have very porous borders that will continously be a problem with illegal immigration. The question is, how do we stop the rich from reaping the wealth off of cheap labor: no workmens comp. to worry about, no benefit packages or health care concerns for the dirt poor illegal. Just pay them a cheap pittance! Let the middle class suffer with there broken bodies from excessive brute labor, let the middle class pick up the tab for all their illegal children born in this country, the free health care, the free this and the free that. Yes, what about all the drug gangs and what that's costing the police with blood and money? What about the drug farms in the National Parks: Point Reyes and Sequoia National Park? My point is, I love the Mexicans and the Latin Americans much as most Americans, but this killing the middle class in the pocket book and draining are human resources and money away from are natural resources that needs it to sustain itself effectively.
  • Cubans Use Parks to Come Ashore   6 years 10 weeks ago
    The law treats Cubans differently because they are escaping from a brutal repressive dictatorship and are not coming solely to make more money.