Dear HCN,
We waited seven years for
our permit on the Colorado River. Six months before our launch we
started planning: 16 good friends schemed to enjoy the Grand Canyon
for 14 days. We each went on this trip for a different reason. Some
were there to experience the beauty of the Southwest, some to be
teachers, some to learn and some to get pregnant. Some of us were
on our first river trip. One of us had floated the Colorado River
through the Grand Canyon 35 times – he plans to do his 75th trip
through the Grand Canyon on his 75th birthday. One of our group (a
geologist) was there to see and comment on the Great
Unconformity.
But most every day airplanes and
helicopters droned and whirred overhead, sometimes for
hours.
We heard birds – 60 different species; we
heard the wind slip through National Canyon; we heard the miniature
waterfall at Elves Chasm tumble over the 570-million-year-old
Tapeats Sandstone; we heard a late spring thunderstorm one night
after a dinner; we all heard a snake’s rattle in camp after dark;
we heard Lava Falls before, during and after running the rapid; we
heard the sand whisper across the beach at Bass Camp; we listened
to the Grand Canyon wake up at daybreak. And most every day we were
forced to listen to airplanes and
helicopters.
There are many ways to experience
Grand Canyon National Park: By foot, mule, tour bus, with a
presidential entourage (overflights stopped for the president),
motorboat, family station wagon, on your way from San Diego to
Chicago at 30,000 feet, a VW camper or a red hot single seat sports
car, by horseback, or simply by slipping through the lower canyons
in a raft; but not from a helicopter less than 2,000 feet above
those of us that have planned and dreamed about our river trip for
eight or more years. It’s time to stop all overflights of the Grand
Canyon.
Robert H.
Whitson
Boulder,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Aircraft noise where it doesn’t belong.
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