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
Ok Gordon - lets get rizzel. First off a lot is 2 words - one L.
I dont know what the yoga thing is you keep referring to - maybe the crew streching out prior to activity....I dont know. I would assume that getting a person to warm-up prior to performing physically demanding activity is a good thing. Sore back and shoulders can cost a lot at the doctors office - touching your toes for 10-mins is relativly cheap. I wonder if they practice Governement Employee pose (this is where you grab both ankles and bite your lip).
But if you used 10-mules to haul dirt, that is 200-lbs of dirt per mule string - 10 mules would be 2 strings. so you moved around about 1,000 lbs of dirt per string or 1-ton per trip with 2-strings. Good Job - Im sure the NPS appreicates it - but wait this is a recurring maintenance activity as I describe earlier. You where probably doing this work to protect the structures that the NPS was building....correct?
But what this tool thing you mention, earlier it ws discussed that the 4-person crew got approvals and equipment from the NPS. Are you telling me that the NPS crew are under-equipped with the necessary tools to do their work? Maybe this is part of the problem, if the NPS had adequate budgets maybe there wouldnt be this problem. I dont know.
Either way - 2hours work seem hyper critical - was there significant travel time to the job site that caused this>? if so how did you mitigate the travel time to work in the same area as you are stating here? Personally - if I worked on a crew I dont think I would agree to hike to the jobsite for free - im certain that this time is budgeted into their cost.
I would assume that trail crews hiking to and from jobsites is pretty common - if they where hiking that many hours to and from the work, there must be other issues that casued that to occur.
In your statement you said you worked you a___ off - is it possible that the NPS crews maybe felt the same way> I would guess that if they were spending that much time hiking to and from a jobsite there may have been some exhaustion issues associated with the project. Hiking in the Grand canyon is tuff enough - add swinging a hammer and using a shovel to that effort and you have quite a few other issues to consider (such as employee safety, visitor safety) to consider - in addition to getting the work done.
I'm just saying - sounds like you maybe have done some trail work, but the scope of work you performed sounds pretty narrow/limited. But yet - here you speaking as an expert .... is that real enough for you Gordon?
Come On Shaggy, Where ya at ? This is getting interesting now, Like Murph's statement, His trail crew's where trained in trail work and was approved by NPS, and as far as his reputation, that means a flawless safety record wile providing a prestine experiece for mule riders and above and beyond the call of duty in all the years of trail mantanence and for your info SHAGGY thats 20 yrs plus, so dont knock a man that worked that hard for that long and who really deserves some kind of an award for his complete devotion to everything that the canyon visitor represents, I State my peace , God bless you Casey Murph, and I want to thank you for being a man that always done the right things and had a way of seeing right from wrong and ALWAYS being honest and a straight shooter in every aspects of our work together, Kind Regards Gordo
Gordon - I dont understand what point your trying to make in your last post. Is this a "I work harder than them" statement?
Interesting that Shaggy would say that former mule operations manager Murph doesnt understand business, when in fact Murph ran the largest backcountry outfitting business in the world at a consistent profit. Perhaps it is Shaggy who should take some business tips from mr. Murph. Shaggy, if you are so business savvy, why do you remain anonymous?
The mule have been kicked out simply because some hikers want the place to themselves, and had powerful allies to help them do this, this is the crux
Yeah - Casey Murph 's word is solid - only thing more solid is his skills as a livery manager (why did you lose your job?). No proof necessary - no math please....too confusing, just his firm handshake, his steely gaze, and all these problems are solved.
In regards to someone else paying the Park Service legal bills maybe they would be more accountable if they had to pay their own legal fees. Quit living off your daddy and Mommie and live in the real world. Be responsible and be more accountable for your actions. Bad Park Service employees cost good people their jobs and damage the assets that the Park Service is to protect. Arrogance!!!!!!!!!
I knew I would find this little gem in the comments somewhere. It comes up every time there's a debate about mules or public land travel management.
People that choose the less expensive option (walking, aka hiking) are the elitists. Able bodied people that PAY to be carried down the canyon aren't elitists, they're just good Americans.
I'm young. Just about thirty. But I have a sense that people a few generations back used to take pride in being kind of tough. Now when someone has the discipline and good sense to get in shape before they take a trip to some place like the Grand Canyon we sneer at them (who do they think they are...some kind of elitist?).
I guess people should just expect that a trip to the Grand Canyon is not a wilderness trip. The Grand Canyon is now a playground, just like Yellowstone, but with more mule crap.
Here is just more proof of the park service threats, Ya cant do this in France :) and to these comments:Re: gordon's panel
Oh yeah. One last comment on the subject. Very broad, but noteworthy.
2 weekends ago I went to the Grand Canyon River Guides Training at
Hatch Expeditions at Vermillion Cliffs. One of the presentations was
a "Panel of Native Americans" expressing their views and thoughts.
Present were Hopi, Navajo, Paiute, Zuni and Hualapai tribe
representation. I think that they have a bigger role (or should have)
in what happens or doesn't happen. For the most part they all welcome
visitation to "their ancestors" sacred sites, but ask for respect in
their customs and behaviors when visiting them.
Bo
--- In [email protected], "Sam" wrote:
>
> Bo-didn't you and that wild/crazy hiking gal publish a piece on
this?
>
> Did you get a nasty a nasty letter from the NPS too?
>
> I don't know the rest of the story but it appears this guy
discovered
> the site but something isn't what it seems? Do you know Gordon?
>
> http://www.gordonspanel.com/news20060310.html
>
> http://www.gordonspanel.com/location.html
>Re: gordon's panel
We got a letter from some organization who's goal is to keep the public away from rock art - and thus protect it --- even if it is in a National Park. Bo and I feel that it is our lands - public lands and it should not just belong to some organization -- and that education on how to protect the rock art is much better than hiding it.
We did not get any letter from the park but Bo did talk to someone from there.
Gordon has contacted us. I am not sure what the story is except I do believe that Gordon did find the rock art and showed it to the park.
--- In [email protected], "Sam" wrote:
>
> Bo-didn't you and that wild/crazy hiking gal publish a piece on this?
>
> Did you get a nasty a nasty letter from the NPS too?
>
> I don't know the rest of the story but it appears this guy discovered
> the site but something isn't what it seems? Do you know Gordon?
>
> http://www.gordonspanel.com/news20060310.html
>
> http://www.gordonspanel.com/location.html
>