By
Andrea Leigh
One feature of this
ever-changing spectacle never changes—its eternal silence.
--Zane
Grey, Grand Canyon visitors register, 1906
Imagine travelling for business to Las Vegas and
finding that you have a day free. Lying down on your bed in your luxury suite
at Mandalay Bay, you happen to glance over at your nightstand and eye a copy of
“The Las Vegas Survival Guide.” Leafing through the pages you find what you’d
expect—a list of dining options, show guide, tours to Hoover Dam--but what
draws your attention are the more than a dozen ads offering scenic air tours
over Grand Canyon.
$218 Grand Canyon Deluxe includes air tour over Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, fly beside the Schuwitz
wilderness preserve, fly to Grand Canyon—enjoy air tour including Indian
Villages, waterfalls, extinct volcanoes, colorful rock formations. 2-1/2 hour
motorcoach tour along South Rim with plenty of photo and view stops. Delicious
buffet luncheon. Enjoy relaxing flight back to Las Vegas for evening shows.
At least two-thirds of tourists who fly over the Grand Canyon are business
travelers or foreign visitors out of Las Vegas who are in a hurry and, therefore,
are willing to pay the exorbitant price in order to see the Canyon as quickly
as possible. This excursion is little more than thrill ride entertainment,
instant wilderness at a price, while
disrupting the experience of those who choose to come to the canyon to appreciate
and experience it on its own terms.
Although proponents of scenic air tours claim that
air tours provide access to the elderly and disabled, this is nothing more
than a smokescreen. In fact this view resulted in some within the disabled
community to rally against the air tour operators when a quadriplelic testified
that she had been refused a helicopter tour due to her disability but had
no trouble getting on a raft trip. Grand Canyon is one of the most accessible
national parks in the country. It takes little effort to take in its grandeur
along scenic viewpoints easily accessed by automobile.
Another point the air tour industry tries to make is
that scenic overflights are the most non polluting way to view Grand Canyon
since air tours do not impact the park by leaving trash behind or causing
trail erosion. This is a claim made by the American Recreation Coalition (ARC),
whose recent lobbying efforts have included pay
to play recreation in collusion with the National Forest Service. ARC,
as a service to its air tour partners, has lobbied hard for virtually unregulated
air tours.
Of all the things sought in wilderness, natural
silence has become one of the hardest to find. There are certainly thousands of
acres of wilderness that look the
same as it did centuries ago, but few of these places exhibit pure, uninterrupted
natural sounds. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency that
controls airspace over national parks, has opposed restrictions of airspace to
the point that working with the FAA to set limits has become extremely labor
intensive and slow in coming. Currently there are some restrictions over Grand Canyon where there were none before.
The main Grand Canyon corridor trails are off limits, for instance, as is the
main visitor area along the South Rim—little comfort when considering that
these areas make up a small percentage of the park.
John Muir wrote of the “silent, serene wilderness
where the weary can gain a heart-bath in perfect peace.” With the constant
drone of aircraft proliferating so many of our natural areas, it becomes
increasingly difficult to seek the kind of peace Muir so long ago cherished.