Three decades ago, says musician Paul Winter,
solitude was easy to find in and around Grand Canyon. Some of his
award-winning recordings feature wind, ravens and other natural
sounds from the national park. Not these days.
When Winter and guide Fran Joseph of the Grand Canyon Trust went to
a spot this fall where the reverberation was the same as in a
cathedral, with sounds lingering for seven seconds, the sounds of
aircraft constantly
intervened.
“If noise was the
equivalent of smell, people would be up in arms,” says Winter of
the experience. Stationed above Lee’s Ferry and below Glen Canyon
Dam, Winter’s engineers were forced to stop recording up to eight
times an hour. “You get used to challenges in the wilderness, like
wind and storms, but this time we met our match.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected
to issue new rules regulating canyon overflights by the end of the
year. Marble Canyon, a few river miles below where Winter tried to
record, could be declared a flight-free
zone.
” Jim
Bishop
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Profound noise reigns.
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