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Show THE ZEPHYRSEPTEMBER 1991 PAGE 10 chaos & disorder-- don't leave home without them by Jim Stiles "Balance, thata the aecreL Moderate extremlam. The beat of both worlda." Ed Abbey Each month when the Zephyr la printed, when the aubacriptiona are mailed and the newaatanda filled, I leave town. I await neither Kudoa nor tomatoea, applauae or letter bomba. I go away. Aa much aa we all grumble about the rapidly changing Weat & the yupplfication of Moab, it la atill poaaible to eacape the din of the crowd, the mountain bike track, even the aolltary aet of footprinta and be utterly alone if we chooae. I loaded my gear box and duffle bag Into the old Volvo, gasaed the car and reatocked the food box and cooler with all my favoritea (I am atill trying to prove that a grown adult can live a healthy happy life eating nothing but anack fooda). With the velvet voice of Nat Cole aoothing my nerves, I slid out of town on a morning aa atill and quiet and lovely as anyone could dream. My destination was...you should all know better than that. Never let it be said that I ever put on paper might be construed as a guide to aome aeldom aeen ewel of anything the Colorado Plateau. Never let ft even be whispered that I aounded like that undeniably prolific guide book writer, Michael Kelsey. After all, as Ive said before, guidebooks make good kindling. (Oh, a hint from time to time. But mostly, let's Just say I went thataway.) Near the South Pinto Hills, I left the pavement and endured hideous washboard and poat-publicati- on thick choking dust as I rattled onward and upward. The Mancos badlands faded behind me and I passed through the pinyon-Juniptablelands that lay below my mountain and my destination. At 8000 feet, on a particularly steep part of the road, I had to stop and tighten the door latches. I've learned that 28 year old cars have a tendency to vibrate themselves apart Always carry a screwdriver. But less than five hours after I left Moab I sat atop the pass, just two thousand feet below the summit To the west lightning bolts danced over Wildcat Mesa. A curtain of rain began to soak the desert below me. Near Bloody Hands Gap, the storm grew fiercer and in minutes, the wind swirled around my camp, and racing clouds enveloped the mountain. The wind and the rain and the thunder roared through the night My waterproof Go x bivy-ba- g once again leaked, and once again I spent the night in a puddle. But the next moming...the silence. The clean, polished sky, the startling clarity of each feature, of each butte and mesa and pinnacle that lay sprawled forever on the redrock desert below me. I climbed my mountain that morning, although It was hardly a "climb" - more a It walk. to was seventh the top. Since my last visit, a packrat had made its my trip steep way Into the summit register box and shredded 28 years of entries. A lot of profound thoughts (and some not so profound) passed through that rodent's teeth. It was sad to see all that history destroyed, but the mountain remained. I sat up there for most of the day. I was content to do nothing but watch the clouds pass over me and through me from time to time. The light changed, the shadows shifted, a group of deer browsed lazily in the meadow below Burned Ridge. I took a nap. Reluctantly, painfully, I threw my pack on my back and picked my way over the scree to the But would I ever see them? Would I even reach the safety of their home In the park residential area? I began to wonder. The ranger at the entrance station, I do not believe, was human; I would swear I'd seen him at Disneyland. His color was waxen, his movements mechancJeicome ua mon0f0ne. "That will be $10 for a dally permit" for the Wall Street Journal and I'm "My name is Stiles," said, "I'm on assignment here to see Ranger Meyer... Would you announce my arrival?" That will be ten bucks, the fee Having only been Instructed to say Welcome. tourists began to back up behind me and blast collector floundered badly. Meanwhile, angry n a I their horns. a "Nevermind," I muttered. I tossed him a bill and waved off hla offer of map. My I know this place like my own I great-gregrandfather was John Hance," explained. I'd sure. barely proceeded a hundred yards backyard." Yeah, rlght..Not anymore, that's for when I encountered absolute gridlock at Desert View Watchtower. Vehicles lined both skies of the road, making It too narrow for two lanes of travel to pass each other. Hundreds of could tell by their cameras) roamed Europeans (I could tell by their shoes) and Japanese (I I the parking area and cruised the rim. knew die Grand Canyon was out there somewhere, but I, for one, could not penetrate the mass of humanity that blocked my view. Somehow I threaded my way through the chaos and disorder and creeped the next I 25 miles In a procession that could only remind me of a funeral. An hour later was at at er re-Te- pass. "Chaos. A rough, unordered mass of things" Publius Ovidus Naso Welcome to Grand Canyon National Park. Three days later and a world away, I traveled south on U.S. Highway 163, sandwiched between a caravan of motorhomes, trailers, and Japanese sports cars (all Japanese cars now look like sports cars). All I could do was hunker down with Nat again, and suck In the carbon monoxide, and hope that the fumes made me hallucinate. My trip to the South Rim was not a purely masochistic endeavor; afterall, chaos at the Grand Canyon has been legendary for years. I'd planned the trip to visit my old friends, Mike & Valerie Meyer. Both work for the National Park Service - Mike Is a law enforcement ranger, Valerie ia the park librarian. "OPS" Ranger Operations at South Rim and found my beleaguered friend Meyer, looking drawn and tired. "Mike, my dear friend," I said sympathetically, "are you on medication?" "Of course not," he snapped and looked around quickly. (You never know when one of those government drug testers is lurking In the shadows with a clipboard and a urine bottle.) "Well, you should be," I replied. "It's nuts out there." On this particular day, August 8, 1991, almost 25,000 visitors lined the South Rim; according to Meyer, about 40 of those visitors don't speak English. Ail hotels and motels Inside the park were full, or as we used to aay at Arches, really full. The campgrounds were really full, too. South of the main park entrance at Tusayan, all accommodations were overloaded as well. From Mather Point to the El Tovar Hotel to the Bright Angel Lodge, humans of all shapes and sizes took pictures and licked Ice cream cones and fed the squirrels and screamed at their kids. Less than 50 yards from the Canyon's edge, a backhoe dug a trench for a new sewer line. I could not help but remember the words of President Theodore Roosevelt when he visited the South Rim for the first time In 1903: "I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loveliness and beauty of the Canyon. Leave It as it is. You cannot improve on It, The ages have been at work on It, and man can only mar it. What you can do Is to It keep for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you..." They Just don't make Republicans like that anymore. Well, we saved It for his children's children, but I don't think this Is what TR had In mind. "Come on," said Mike. "Let's go take a look. Mike Meyer Is In the law enforcement division and Is called "Ranger" by the tourists. But In reality, Meyer Is a cop and he freely admits It. The problems at the South Rim are no different than any other cfty of 30 or 40,000 people - with one exception: This population changes faces almost everyday. The South Rim Rangers deal with murder, rape, armed robbery & theft, but toda- ym muc a re,ds his way through the cars In front of ? the visitor center, dealing with too many tourists and a situation that Is completely out of control." The mayhem and disorder have been complicated by the feet that the park's h ranflr to quil l,,ulnfl PWnfl tickets. It seems some tourlsta .hlrt down tr,,flc w not ln minds, Justification for the citation. (Later, after observing the situation the first-han- d, |
