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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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Here are some facts. During the years I was in charge of inner canyon mule operations for Xanterra, my 4 person trail maintenance crew did almost all the work keeping the south rim corridor trails open. NPS crews were rarely seen, and when they were, they spent precious time engaged in things like yoga while my crew had been working trail for hours. My budget for this trail crew was about 100,000 dollars.
With the NPS budget of 1.5 to 2 million, I could have kept those trails like interstate 40.
The mules were not kicked out because the NPS cant afford trail maintenance. They could afford it just perfectly fine on lower budgets in the 90's when I was there. Starting in the late 90's, they wasted the money they recieved and let the trails fall apart, some say on purpose.
I had asked more than once to be given the NPS money for trail maintenance and to take over all responsibility for this maintenance, and was told not only no, but that NPS wanted my trail crew to stand down and spend less time on trail repair.
Casey Murph
Former manager of Mule Operations, Xanterra
South Rim


I know several people that work on the NPS Trail Crew, these are some of the hardest working people I have ever known and they are passionate about their work. Billy Allen gets too much bad press for a guy who works like everyday and has to deal with short budgets, the government and the upper tiers of park management all the time he preaches to the trail crew about a greater cause. When something bad happens he is typically the first person to respond either personally or with his trail crew. I remember actually going in with him to remove mules from the trails that had fallen off - these were xanterra mules too. I wouldnt call you in for volunteer work if you complained on the internet and at public meetings about me or the things I feel strongly about either.


What really tipped my hat in this hole thing was the fact that Martin had the Mules inspected for abuse from a very non qualified person with no appropriate back ground on the most cared for animals in the world and bringing down one of the best hands that Ive ever had the pleasure to work with ( Casey Murph ) a man I truly respect, from what Ive read I believe Martin to be about the most dirty person I can think of in that type position, these NPS people just dont get it, this is like a mtn biker telling all the cars on I-15 he has the right away because they have exhaust, DUMB, the cars where there first, its very clear now that using tax payer money to build bike paths that go no where are more important than providing world travelers the chance to take a historic mule ride, or protect the most remarkable remote rock art sites on the planet, and to bully and threaten when there agendas are in peril, this is CORRUPTION at its finest and there's some tree huggers on here wonder why Im pissed,just a bunch of self proclaimed owners of the people park that aint got a clue how to run it or cater to its visitors, GOD BLESS TEDDY ROOSEVELT.


Like, really? Like, wow, shaggy! Thanks for illustrating to my point trailsman!


Quote from a YAHOO,It doesnt effect private use at all - you got a mule, get a permit go ride it in the Grand Canyon - celebrate being American.... All right now, every one with a private mule or horse it would just tickle me pink for you all to apply for a back country permit to ride the Tuck Up Trail, you get to the trail head through Han Cock Noles, just go South 32 miles on the main Tuweep RD and turn left at June Tank, If ya get denied please come back on this post and let us know all about it, :)


Casey, I cant stand by and watch this insanity with out puttin in my 2 cents, Be good to talk with ya again one of these day's, Hope your doing well pard,... if ya ever wish to contact me for any reason Laurie Briegel I believe has my email, even though I will never guide again mainly because of the pay :) I wish that little Murph and my daughters to ride to phantom on MULES together one day, Best Gordo


How is this possible?

Napkin math here: Just say you did almost all the ditch digging. Never mind all the other items that require maintenance and repair.

This section of trail is about 15-miles in length, it has a ditch running along side it. a 4-person crew would have to dig 15x 5280 ft of ditch, or 79,200 foot of ditch. Thats approximately 19,800 lin ft of ditch for each person - plus travel time, plus sick days, plus the considerable amount of training they are required to work on historic features. So, at best they get a little more than half that total in ditch digging time, say 1300 working hours out of a 2080 work hour year.

Insert math: 19,800 lin ft / 1300 person hours - your digging 15. ft of ditch per hour. Digging a ditch in the Grand Canyon is some pretty rocky buisiness. How did you manage all the other stuff.

Also - if I remember correctly - even 20 years ago, in the 90's ...things where quite a bit cheaper....even gas is 3.50 a gallon now, welcome to 2011. The Park Service has not received any significant budget increases for years.

Just a question - what type of training did you provide your crew with annually to be qualified to work on something as significant as the trail system in Grand Canyon?

What type of compliance did you use to perform the work you are claiming here? Who provided your approvals?

Where and how did you access materials to perform repairs to these trails?

What types of tools and equipment did you use? Pick and shovel? I dont see how you could afford tool upkeep and repair and crew salary with $100,000.

Either I am misunderstand your statement or your claims are just intended to be inflamitory and are not facts at all as you open your post with. Or maybe you could point me to the factual part/s of your post.


What I always envisioned and worked toward while working at the Canyon was engaging every person on the trail in an effort to make the experience the best it could be. Just the effort to edify individuals paid great rewards. The woman that had come to the Canyon after a bad breakup and was thinking of doing the worst (turned out well). The Asian family hiking in the heat in the Red and Whites that looked like lobsters but were transformed to the living by a half gallon of water pored over their heads and bodies and supplied with electrolytes. The woman in the 22nd mile of her RXR hanging by one arm from a Gamble Oak limb with her body hanging over the edge looking up at me and pleading to "not let her die because she had four children at home (turned out well)." The letters she wrote saying how her life was so precious, her family, and how every blade of grass or the most insignificant thing had so much meaning. Similar stories are told by most all that work and frequent the Canyon and fill a special place in us that sustains us. All the testing that goes on with everyone that is willing to enter is the prelude to something very gratifying and meaningful. I'm just bringing up a reminder of something that gets lost in the arguments and testing of the moment but drives me to continue doing the challenging work with great personal rewards. Wranglers, Packers and Back Country Rangers are blessed !


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