"Who Can Save the Grand Canyon": David Roberts' feature story in Smithsonian magazine

 by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Director

Smithsonian editors recently commissioned veteran writer David Roberts to research a contemporary controversy, “which has reached a white-hot urgency in only a few months.” The result is an in-depth essay that pits the sacred against the profane in ways that leave sound-bite clichés of today’s news cycle in the dust. 

“Escalade” is a proposed tourist resort and tramway to the bottom of Grand Canyon. Roberts captures the “turbulent coming-together of powerful forces that promises to shape America’s most iconic natural wonder for generations.” He writes: “The gondola complex would tear a mechanized gash through the canyon from rim to river. In a place that has forever been a paradise of silence …[it would impose] the chatter of tourists giddy with the ultimate Coney Island ride and the clutter that hotels and gift shops and hot dog stands inevitably produce.”

Escalade promoter Lamar Whitmer is selling the notion that this development offers a much-needed “way of democratizing the visitor experience.” He argues that it’s time to offer affordable access to the masses: “Why should we restrict [the bottom] of the canyon…to hikers and rafters, who can afford a $5,000 river trip?”

Several years ago, Whitmer and his investment partners enlisted a handful of politicians and residents to promote a plan that promised to bring “jobs and economic uplift” to an impoverished part of the Navajo reservation. Their well-funded publicity campaign still paints a myth that “the Scottsdale developers and the Navajo people speak with one voice.” But when the details of that plan were revealed, the reality of empty promises undercut the sales pitch, and support for the project is fading.

Roberts’ timely story interweaves voices of traditional families and a growing coalition, united against this development. His interviews include Navajo residents, who have opposed Escalade since its inception, and outspoken critics representing a rare alliance of speakers from Hopi, Zuni, river runners, conservationists, and the National Park Service. He complements this chorus with historical accounts and ethnographic interviews dating back more than a century.

David Roberts has devoted years of research to deciphering conflict (The Pueblo Revolt) and controversy (In Search of the Old Ones) throughout the American Southwest. It is a great credit to one of our nation’s most respected publications that it tapped him to tell this powerful story.