thedrifter
04-10-07, 05:58 AM
Close to the Edge
At the Grand Canyon, the force is with you, young skywalker.
BY MARK YOST
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
GRAND CANYON WEST, Ariz.--It's easy to see why this Sonoran patch of land sitting on the lip of the Grand Canyon has never flourished. Unless you're a coyote or a scorpion, it's literally in the middle of nowhere.
But the once-nomadic Hualapai, who settled here about 1883 and now number about 2,500, half of whom are chronically unemployed, are hoping that their newest attraction, Skywalk, will change all that. Opened to much acclaim in late March, the horseshoe-shaped, glass-bottom platform extends 70 feet from the rim and is suspended 4,000 feet above the canyon floor. Before it opened, the reservation averaged about 500 visitors a day, most taking helicopter tours and float trips through the Grand Canyon.
"We estimated that the Skywalk would double the number of visitors," said operations manager Robert Bravo Jr. "But the number has quadrupled to about 2,000." As a result, Mr. Bravo will double his work force to about 120, most of them Hualapai.
Skywalk, which exceeded its $30 million budget, is just the first phase of a five-part master plan. Currently, the tribe is working on a $56 million runway expansion--mostly funded by the FAA--that will allow it to handle small commercial jets. There also are plans for a new visitors center, hotel, restaurant and upscale casino. "Table games, no slots," Mr. Bravo said.
Of course, an undertaking of this magnitude has its critics, including some Hualapai. "This should never have been done," said tribe member Leatrice Walema. She and others say Eagle Point, the site of Skywalk, is "sacred ground."
Environmentalists don't much like it either. "The Eiffel Tower is an architectural wonder," Kieran Suckling of the Center for Bio-Diversity told CNN. "But do I want the Eiffel Tower on the edge of the Grand Canyon? No."
"I think it's a real travesty," Robert Arnberger, superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park from 1994 to 2000, told the Washington Post. "It desecrates the very place the Hualapai hold so dear."
Really? If it averages 2,000 visitors a day, Skywalk would draw 730,000 tourists a year. If that's desecration, then what are the four million tourists doing who visit Grand Canyon National Park every year? The Hualapi would argue that the whole canyon is sacred, not just the land they have.
Chris McDaid, a cultural anthropologist who has worked on reservations in the Southwest, finds the criticism from outside the tribe a bit ironic. "Three-hundred years of Indian-government relations have been all about trying to make the Indians more like the white man," he said. "Now that they're doing that, we don't like it."
Indeed, Mr. Bravo is quick to note that the Hualapai are developing only about 9,000 acres of their 997,000-acre reservation, and just a sliver of their 108 miles of riverfront. Furthermore, the trip here offers ample evidence of the economic challenges the Hualapai face.
Skywalk is a solid three hours southeast of Las Vegas, mostly on rural two-lane roads through long-forgotten towns like Dolan Springs, home of the Wishing Well Saloon, a VFW and little else. Along the way, you pass more abandoned trailers--and some that should be--than you can count. Their dusty lots are adorned with rusted pickup trucks, caved-in sheds and enough broken fence line to keep an army of ranch hands busy for decades.
About 14 of the last 21 miles are over bone-jarring dirt roads. The trip here from points south, through Peach Springs, home to about 1,400 Hualapai, includes about a 40-mile stretch of suspension-rattling washboard roads.
The arduous trek didn't seem to be keeping people away the first week Skywalk was open. The parking lot was jammed with tour buses from Las Vegas and tourists from as far away as England and Japan. Some were overjoyed; others were terrified.
Some of the shock was over the admission price. While widely advertised as $25, the real cost is $75. Yes, it costs $25 to walk on Skywalk, but you first need to pay $50 to get on the reservation. A woman in line in front of me calmly ordered four tickets for her family. When the cashier gave her the total, she shrieked, "Excuse me!"
Visitors park their cars at the tiny airport here and then take Hualapai-operated tour buses onto the reservation. In addition to Skywalk, there's an interpretive center and other observation points. The price of admission includes lunch and a trip to the nearby Hualapai Ranch, an Old West town complete with stables, a jail and a Wild West show. For an additional fee, guests can also rent horses or take a wagon ride.
But the main attraction is clearly Skywalk. The wait to get on it was a merciful 20 minutes. And during that time in line, I met Roger Rawstron, a 60-year-old expat Brit now living in Green Valley, Ariz., and his sister, Anne Sturzaker, who came all the way from Manchester, England, to experience Skywalk. "I've been watching this for over a year on the Internet," she said. "My friends all think I'm mad because it's made of glass."
Before we could venture forth, we had to surrender most of our belongings. That's because myriad cameras, purses and other items had already been dropped over the side. After donning slip-on booties--so as not to scratch Skywalk's surface--there we were, staring down at the canyon floor below.
While I was a bit unnerved by the surreal experience of standing on the platform suspended over the canyon, I had no qualms about the structural integrity of Skywalk. It was built to support 70 tons and withstand 100 mph winds and a magnitude 8 earthquake. But others weren't so sure. A Japanese woman clung nervously to the rail, while a Hispanic woman couldn't get off the platform quick enough. One teenage girl never even got on Skywalk. She took one look over the canyon rim and went screaming back to terra firma.
So, was it worth the long, bumpy trip to the reservation and the $75 in admission fees--not to mention the continuing debate its creation has stirred over Native American rights, economic improvement, the environment and all the rest? Well, for me, Skywalk was a bit anticlimactic. It wasn't suspended over the Colorado River, but a side canyon. And it didn't extend out as far as I'd expected. Yes, you had the feeling of being suspended in midair, but once your brain realized you weren't in danger, it was sort of ho-hum.
"I think it's a bit of a rip off," Mrs. Sturzaker said.
I have to imagine that many people felt that way the first day that Disneyland opened. Not all the rides were running. It still smelled of fresh paint. I'll be curious to come back here in a few years and see if Skywalk turns out to be the economic engine that the Hualapai are betting it will be.
Ellie
At the Grand Canyon, the force is with you, young skywalker.
BY MARK YOST
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
GRAND CANYON WEST, Ariz.--It's easy to see why this Sonoran patch of land sitting on the lip of the Grand Canyon has never flourished. Unless you're a coyote or a scorpion, it's literally in the middle of nowhere.
But the once-nomadic Hualapai, who settled here about 1883 and now number about 2,500, half of whom are chronically unemployed, are hoping that their newest attraction, Skywalk, will change all that. Opened to much acclaim in late March, the horseshoe-shaped, glass-bottom platform extends 70 feet from the rim and is suspended 4,000 feet above the canyon floor. Before it opened, the reservation averaged about 500 visitors a day, most taking helicopter tours and float trips through the Grand Canyon.
"We estimated that the Skywalk would double the number of visitors," said operations manager Robert Bravo Jr. "But the number has quadrupled to about 2,000." As a result, Mr. Bravo will double his work force to about 120, most of them Hualapai.
Skywalk, which exceeded its $30 million budget, is just the first phase of a five-part master plan. Currently, the tribe is working on a $56 million runway expansion--mostly funded by the FAA--that will allow it to handle small commercial jets. There also are plans for a new visitors center, hotel, restaurant and upscale casino. "Table games, no slots," Mr. Bravo said.
Of course, an undertaking of this magnitude has its critics, including some Hualapai. "This should never have been done," said tribe member Leatrice Walema. She and others say Eagle Point, the site of Skywalk, is "sacred ground."
Environmentalists don't much like it either. "The Eiffel Tower is an architectural wonder," Kieran Suckling of the Center for Bio-Diversity told CNN. "But do I want the Eiffel Tower on the edge of the Grand Canyon? No."
"I think it's a real travesty," Robert Arnberger, superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park from 1994 to 2000, told the Washington Post. "It desecrates the very place the Hualapai hold so dear."
Really? If it averages 2,000 visitors a day, Skywalk would draw 730,000 tourists a year. If that's desecration, then what are the four million tourists doing who visit Grand Canyon National Park every year? The Hualapi would argue that the whole canyon is sacred, not just the land they have.
Chris McDaid, a cultural anthropologist who has worked on reservations in the Southwest, finds the criticism from outside the tribe a bit ironic. "Three-hundred years of Indian-government relations have been all about trying to make the Indians more like the white man," he said. "Now that they're doing that, we don't like it."
Indeed, Mr. Bravo is quick to note that the Hualapai are developing only about 9,000 acres of their 997,000-acre reservation, and just a sliver of their 108 miles of riverfront. Furthermore, the trip here offers ample evidence of the economic challenges the Hualapai face.
Skywalk is a solid three hours southeast of Las Vegas, mostly on rural two-lane roads through long-forgotten towns like Dolan Springs, home of the Wishing Well Saloon, a VFW and little else. Along the way, you pass more abandoned trailers--and some that should be--than you can count. Their dusty lots are adorned with rusted pickup trucks, caved-in sheds and enough broken fence line to keep an army of ranch hands busy for decades.
About 14 of the last 21 miles are over bone-jarring dirt roads. The trip here from points south, through Peach Springs, home to about 1,400 Hualapai, includes about a 40-mile stretch of suspension-rattling washboard roads.
The arduous trek didn't seem to be keeping people away the first week Skywalk was open. The parking lot was jammed with tour buses from Las Vegas and tourists from as far away as England and Japan. Some were overjoyed; others were terrified.
Some of the shock was over the admission price. While widely advertised as $25, the real cost is $75. Yes, it costs $25 to walk on Skywalk, but you first need to pay $50 to get on the reservation. A woman in line in front of me calmly ordered four tickets for her family. When the cashier gave her the total, she shrieked, "Excuse me!"
Visitors park their cars at the tiny airport here and then take Hualapai-operated tour buses onto the reservation. In addition to Skywalk, there's an interpretive center and other observation points. The price of admission includes lunch and a trip to the nearby Hualapai Ranch, an Old West town complete with stables, a jail and a Wild West show. For an additional fee, guests can also rent horses or take a wagon ride.
But the main attraction is clearly Skywalk. The wait to get on it was a merciful 20 minutes. And during that time in line, I met Roger Rawstron, a 60-year-old expat Brit now living in Green Valley, Ariz., and his sister, Anne Sturzaker, who came all the way from Manchester, England, to experience Skywalk. "I've been watching this for over a year on the Internet," she said. "My friends all think I'm mad because it's made of glass."
Before we could venture forth, we had to surrender most of our belongings. That's because myriad cameras, purses and other items had already been dropped over the side. After donning slip-on booties--so as not to scratch Skywalk's surface--there we were, staring down at the canyon floor below.
While I was a bit unnerved by the surreal experience of standing on the platform suspended over the canyon, I had no qualms about the structural integrity of Skywalk. It was built to support 70 tons and withstand 100 mph winds and a magnitude 8 earthquake. But others weren't so sure. A Japanese woman clung nervously to the rail, while a Hispanic woman couldn't get off the platform quick enough. One teenage girl never even got on Skywalk. She took one look over the canyon rim and went screaming back to terra firma.
So, was it worth the long, bumpy trip to the reservation and the $75 in admission fees--not to mention the continuing debate its creation has stirred over Native American rights, economic improvement, the environment and all the rest? Well, for me, Skywalk was a bit anticlimactic. It wasn't suspended over the Colorado River, but a side canyon. And it didn't extend out as far as I'd expected. Yes, you had the feeling of being suspended in midair, but once your brain realized you weren't in danger, it was sort of ho-hum.
"I think it's a bit of a rip off," Mrs. Sturzaker said.
I have to imagine that many people felt that way the first day that Disneyland opened. Not all the rides were running. It still smelled of fresh paint. I'll be curious to come back here in a few years and see if Skywalk turns out to be the economic engine that the Hualapai are betting it will be.
Ellie