Accessible
Watched National Geographic's "Into The Grand Canyon" (on disney plus) last night and was really taken with it. It’s about two journalists that walk the entire length of the canyon- not rim to rim, or floating down the river, but actually walking along the entire length of the landforms that make up the National Park. What they see is amazing- there are deeply remote spots in the canyon that are pure wilderness and don’t look like the rest of the canyon; they look more like Zion or even Antelope Canyon. The documentary also covers the story of the Navajo National fighting back against the proposed Escalade project that would build a tramway down from the rim to the confluence of the Colorado River. The CEO of the company said that his goal was to give everyone a “deep canyon experience” and to make it accessible. While I always crave accessibility for the National Parks… and while I always want to see as much as I can… this rubbed me the wrong way. Accessibility that robs the landscape of its purity and silence isn’t accessibility, it’s hubris. Sometimes, places are meant to be hard to get to. Everyone should be able to have an experience at the Grand Canyon but not at the expense of the canyon itself. That’ll probably mean that I never get to see the amazing vistas that this documentary showed me. And you know what? That’s fine. They’re protected. I know they’re out there. And protected. And that’s more important than me getting to see it.
Accessible
Watched National Geographic's "Into The Grand Canyon" (on disney plus) last night and was really taken with it. It’s about two journalists that walk the entire length of the canyon- not rim to rim, or floating down the river, but actually walking along the entire length of the landforms that make up the National Park. What they see is amazing- there are deeply remote spots in the canyon that are pure wilderness and don’t look like the rest of the canyon; they look more like Zion or even Antelope Canyon. The documentary also covers the story of the Navajo National fighting back against the proposed Escalade project that would build a tramway down from the rim to the confluence of the Colorado River. The CEO of the company said that his goal was to give everyone a “deep canyon experience” and to make it accessible. While I always crave accessibility for the National Parks… and while I always want to see as much as I can… this rubbed me the wrong way. Accessibility that robs the landscape of its purity and silence isn’t accessibility, it’s hubris. Sometimes, places are meant to be hard to get to. Everyone should be able to have an experience at the Grand Canyon but not at the expense of the canyon itself. That’ll probably mean that I never get to see the amazing vistas that this documentary showed me. And you know what? That’s fine. They’re protected. I know they’re out there. And protected. And that’s more important than me getting to see it.