At Grand Canyon skywalk, controversial twist on eco-tourism
The Hualapai Indians' glass horseshoe over the lip of the national treasure stirs awe – and ire.
from the April 10, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
The seat of the Hualapai reservation is 60 unpaved, extraordinarily sinuous miles away from the Skywalk in the town of Peach Springs. It is an outpost along Route 66 that bustled with traffic until Interstate 40 was built in 1960s. Today, like similar small towns on that much-traveled mid-century road, it's desolate, the last gas station abandoned within the past year. Trash is strewn along roadsides and in front of the small houses that line streets near the railroad tracks where freight trains shudder by several times an hour. The most opulent spot is the Hualapai Lodge, where visitors stay before they head out for rafting trips or other tours in the region.
While clearly not a prosperous place, debate swirls about the level of poverty on the reservation. The 2000 US Census put the average income for the 600 residents of Peach Springs at about $18,000 a year. It's important because people like Sheri YellowHawk, the chief executive officer of Grand Canyon West Corp., the arm of the Hualapai Tribal Council that manages tourism operations, argues that Skywalk and its accompanying development are necessary to prop up a flailing economy. Similarly, David Jin, a Las Vegas entrepreneur who is the lead investor in Skywalk, has long insisted that his main motive in building the walkway was not profit but "to help these poor people improve the way they live."
No one doubts the importance of tourism to the reservation. It accounts for 70 percent of the Hualapai Tribal Council's budget. Visits to the area has stagnated in recent years at 200,000 people annually – a fraction of the 4 million who flock to the US-owned south rim of the Grand Canyon.
With the latest development, the Hualapai believe they could finally mine real treasure from the vast swath of the Grand Canyon they control. The Skywalk, in fact, is just the most spectacular piece of a $45 million development plan on the reservation. Blueprints also call for a 6,000-square-foot visitors center, a vertical tram that will whisk people from the rim to the canyon floor, and more lodging. They will pave some of the washboard roads to make the trip to the glass menagerie seem like less of a Safari.
Something "had to be done for the future," says Ms. YellowHawk.
To boost tribal incomes, the first 30 Skywalk jobs were offered to Hualapai members, although not all could be filled because of educational deficiencies and other problems. Daniel Havatone says he didn't make the cut because he failed a drug test. Even so, he's enthusiastic about the development. "I hope it will attract more tourists and more people," he says. "That will help us."
Other tribal members are less enchanted. Many older Hualapai, in particular, consider their piece of the Grand Canyon holy and protest the project on those grounds. "They're mad and their hearts are hurting, but they don't talk about it anymore because it's such a hard thing for them," says Rhiannon Watahomigie.
Some outsiders bristle at commercializing such a sacred natural wonder in this way. What's next, they wonder, bungee jumping to the canyon floor? When he was superintendent of the Grand Canyon National Park, Mr. Arnberger says he heard all kinds of proposals to make money from the canyon: tramways, hot air balloon rides – even stringing bras from one side of the rim to the other to raise awareness for breast cancer. "I turned all of that down," says Arnberger. "The Grand Canyon deserves special care by everyone responsible for it."
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