Current mood:	disappointed
Entry tags:	grand canyon

Grand Canyon West - The World's First Tree Museum
When I first heard about The Grand Canyon Skywalk, I have to say - I was impressed. No, not just impressed - excited! The web site and Snopes article made it seem to me like it would be a job done right - a tremendous engineering achievement that respected the natural beauty of one of the natural wonders of the world. What my wife and I found was something...quite different than expected.

On the scenic tour we took ourselves on, best described in misty_moonlight's blog post on this very subject (with pictures!), I became increasingly excited. When passing a sign noting this area was of "Vital environmental concern", it actually made me giddy - "WOW!" I thought, to be allowed to do this they must really be going to great lengths to minimize any negative impacts on this amazing, holy place!

You see, about a year and a half ago I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time. Now, I am not what most people call "spiritual" - I do not believe in divinities or spirits, an afterlife, the supernatural, or just about anything that I don't have very good affirmative reason to believe in. But I am far from being without spirituality - it is this very world we live in that I look to as my sanctuary. When times are tough I look to this extraordinary universe, observe it's many wonders, ponder it's many mysteries, and revel in awe at my place within it. If the universe and natural law is as close to anything that you could say I 'worship', a place like the Grand Canyon is as close to anything as I will ever have to a church, a temple, a shrine. To look out at it standing at the very edge of it's rim, one feel's a reverberation in one's heart, a reckoning of the truth of our existence - our world is very old, very strong, very beautiful, unbelievably vast, and we are but small and short-lived, yet we are inheritors of the tremendous honor and reasonability of being able to choose how we spend the little time here that we are so privileged to receive.

It is in this spirit that I approached Grand Canyon West and the extraordinary Skywalk. Now, I also happen to be a free-market libertarian and capitalist of quite a high order, and that there would be development at the edge of the Grand Canyon did not bother me. Sure, they are building a resort - with a $30,000,000 gimmick! How can they afford not to take the greatest care to prevent marring the natural beauty of the place? What bigger incentive can you have in the material world, really? Surely this will be a top-notch establishment, I reasoned.

I don't consider humans to be outside the natural world - and I believed this Skywalk would be a man-made wonder of the world! You see, whereas the natural wonders of the world show us how extraordinary nature as a whole is, man-made wonders should impress upon us how incredible humans really are. They should inspire and fill us with pride - experiencing them should push us to release the tight grip we have upon our dreams, letting them soar, gliding upon the emanating power of the unmistakable reality of what mankind can achieve if only we will dare to try. They are shrines to humanity - monuments of our greatness, of which we should feel no shame.

To top it all off, it will all be done on an Indian reservation. I am of Indian ancestry myself (Cherokee, specifically), and this also thrilled me. "Finally! A tribe is finally thinking big! Bigger than some god awful obnoxious casino!" At long last, a tribe who is not trading the priceless for a pittance - people who know the true worth of things!

What we found upon our arrival was, to say the least, not what we hoped to see. Where to begin?

First, after parking and going to the set of buildings in the parking lot, we got directions from a nice Indian man. A nice Indian man in a gimmicky ceremonial headdress, in what appeared to be a leather jacket, Hanes T-Shirt, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes. "Uhhh..." is all I could think. Then a few tourists came and took and picture with an especially overweight, even more ridiculously dressed Indian man in a headdress. I just figured this was a bit silly, but wasn't going to let myself be down heartened. Then I noticed how remarkably cheap the buildings were - little more than metal sheds laid out next to the permanent structure. I figured this would just be temporary, but it sure was cheap looking - though I decided to just ignore it and forge on.

After some heavy consideration, we decided to go inside and inquire about the "shuttle ride" the nice gimmicky embarrassing Indian man outside had told us about. There we were confronted with an interesting array of options. To see anything at all, other than the Grand Canyon in the distance beyond ugly chain-link fencing, we would have to at least pay $29.95 Per Person just to do...well, anything other than stand in the parking lot. You can't even stroll along the rim - it's blocked off by fences with No Entry signs and such all over, completely inaccessible. This is where things started to get ugly.

There were 4 package options, of increasing cost and (theoretically, at least) value - Earth, Spirit, Sky, and Explorer. So, you see, Earth is the "entry-level" model. One step above that in worth is Spirit. Then, interestingly enough, above and beyond that is...the sky? This set me to wondering, I must say - I'm no expert on Indian religious beliefs, but I'm pretty sure The Great Spirit is quite a bit 'greater' than merely just the sky. It was obvious they were sticking to the Indian-theme with everything - all the employees appeared to be Indians - so it really started to set in with me now that something was seriously screwed up here. Then, above everything else, in a position literally above all the others (the sign itself was clearly in a place of superiority to the others, as was it's description and pricing), was...the Explorer package? Oh, let me get this straight - greater than the Earth Mother, greater than The Great Spirit itself, above and beyond the sky, is the Explorer - the white man. Columbus. Ponce De Leon. I hear they're hard at work putting together a new, even-better package - it'll be called "Conqueror".

Oh but wait, that's not all! The Indian run gift shop? Clearly displaying "Proud of our heritage" T-shirts for sale, within could be found such tribal treasures as incredibly low-quality, cheap Mexican rugs done in native American styles, and Indian dolls with barcodes (I couldn't bring myself to see if they were made in china as I suspected they were), and the exact same kind of crappy merchandise you can find in just about any gift shop or truck stop in the tri-state area.

But I hear in the future they will have all sorts of great things. For instance, starting in 2007, for a nominal fee one of the poorer local tribesmen will dress up like an Aztec villager, and you will be provided with authentic, genuine imported Malaysian clothes inspired by the original historic garb of Francisco Pizarro! And then, you get to kill the Indian! Fun for the whole family. Photograph opportunities are available for an extra charge.

Top on my to-do list though is The Grand Canyon West Package! Here, for only $299.99 a person you get entrance to the Skywalk, whereupon you can walk up all the way to the end, stand up on a specially designed pedestal, and take a shit right on to the grand canyon itself! The Grand Canyon West developers had to spend over 30,000,000 dollars for this privilege - but it can be yours for 0.0001% of that! What a bargain!

Also inspiring is the genuine, authentic, one of a kind Hualapai Indian Package, where, in addition to being inducted as an honorary member of the most sacred mystical inner-circle of the tribe, you will be issued a ridiculous headdress and given extensive training on how to be a horrifically greedy, bad businessman and utterly incompetent trader! Can't you just TASTE the pride? Yours for only $9.99 per person!


As I said, man-made wonders should inspire us with their grandeur, fill us with pride in our heritage and society, overcome us with their magnitude and splendor, and set to soaring our imaginations as to what our incredible race is capable of - if only we will dare to dream. The Grand Canyon West is, so far, a wonder all right - a wonder of an entirely different kind. My wife and I left ashamed, awed by the sheer greed, off put by the small-mindedness, horrified with it's ghastliness, and depressed at the thought of what could have been - and yet, clearly is not, and will not likely ever be.

Indeed, what is being made at Grand Canyon West is, as far, not a resort - it is perhaps the very first attempt at a Distopian Tree Museum. Whereas the Joni Mitchell song tells of people being made to pay $1.50 just to see trees, this marks the beginning of something far more real, and thus far worse - the beginning of attempts to literally fence off the Grand Canyon, restrict private access, and charge exorbitant fees for even the smallest of privileges of viewing it without obstruction. If they could have their way I would not doubt for a moment that they would happily fence off the entire Grand Canyon - or, for that matter, enclose it in the world's largest ever mega-dome - just to prevent anyone for getting to experience it without paying them a fee.

Perhaps the developers will wisen up, force the Indians into cleaning up their present day farce, and hire people who actually know about and care about the Grand Canyon to guide their presentations. They would do well to be rid of their horrid fences, hide their audacious tanks, and replace their ugly buildings.