An On-Going Hiker's Journal.. (beginning) July 2009

June 3, 2012

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2012/06/01/take-it-or-leave-it-glen-canyon-50-doug-meyer-responds-to-hedden-and-the-gct-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-hair-by-jim-stiles/

In another 25 or 30  years, not a living soul on earth will be able to say, “I saw Glen Canyon.” The stories and the memories will have been passed along from that last lucky generation to the ones that follow. I once dreamed of a movement to decommission the damn and drain the reservoir, but recently I’ve had second thoughts. I don’t know if we’re worthy of a “restored” Glen Canyon in these conflicted, contradictory, hypocritical days of the early 21st Century.

I wondered recently if its restoration would be anything but a cash cow for the “tourist/recreation/amenities economy?”  Would it simply be the latest natural wonder to be exploited by thousands of entrepreneurs and trampled by millions of  insensitive, thrill-seeking recreationists? Trying to protect Glen Canyon from a shameful greed-driven economy that wraps itself in the trite banners of  the ‘green’ moral high ground, all the while looking to expand its bottom line, is as noble an effort as removing the dam itself.

                                                            

                                                                Jim Stiles— author/ publisher