Gilmore Parsons

Imagine riding a tramway from the rim of the Grand Canyon down to the canyon floor at the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers along the East Rim. Once your gondola docked, a 1,400-foot river walk would guide you to the Confluence Restaurant or to an amphitheater in the other direction. After dining and perhaps taking in a show from the amphitheater’s terraced grass, you could ride the trolley back to lodging, shopping and cultural attractions nestled around a 1,200-space parking lot.

That’s the dream of the Navajo nation‘s top leader and executives at the Phoenix-based development group Confluence Partners, who signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year on the so-called “Grand Canyon Escalade.”

It’s not the first time that an outside company has worked with a Native American tribe to develop prime Grand Canyon real estate into a tourist hub. It’s not the first time a tramway has been the goal, either, although previous proposals came to nought.

If it were to go forward — and many have profound doubts, given the legal challenges it would face — the project would be the first major development on the East Rim of the Grand Canyon, a remote area that borders the western edge of Navajo Nation.

Proponents bill the venture as a job-generating undertaking that could bring much-needed tourist dollars to a long-neglected 1.5-million acre area of Navajo Nation known as the Bennett Freeze. Critics say it would pose risks to a unique environment, intrude on sites sacred to various tribes and end up delivering more profits to outside investors than to locals in need.



Beyond those objections, Roger Clark, project manager for the Grand Canyon Trust, a conservation organization based in Flagstaff, Ariz., emphasized the remoteness of the site, which lacks connections to water utilities or suitable roads.

Yet on Feb. 17, the president of the Navajo Nation, Ben Shelly, and Confluence Partners signed a memorandum of understanding under which the Navajo Nation agreed to provide all off-site infrastructure, including power, water, sewer, gas, roads, and telecommunications. Escalade LLC, a limited liability company managed by Confluence, would cover all on-site development.

“This has been a pipe dream for a long time,” Mr. Clark said. He noted that Lamar Whitmer, a founding partner of the Confluence project, was also involved in developing a tourist center with a transparent walkway on the Hualapai Indian reservation that juts out over the rim of the Canyon at a place called Grand Canyon West.

“The main source of getting visitors to this remote location, which has no electricity, water or paved road, is by helicopter from Las Vegas,” he said drily, referring to the Hualapai attraction.

Contacted by phone, Mr. Whitmer broke off the conversation once he realized that Mr. Shelly, the Navajo president, had not authorized an interview, a requirement under the memorandum of understanding.

Before hanging up, he acknowledged that the plan had its detractors. “Everybody has their own beliefs and value system,” he said. “I enjoy listening to the folks explain their thoughts on it. And I respect their beliefs. Doesn’t mean I agree with them.”

While the memorandum may be a force to reckon with when it comes to interviews, it far from guarantees success for the Escalade project. First, there’s the issue of the local Navajo chapters, specifically the Bodaway/Gap Chapter, which has jurisdiction along the 61-mile stretch of canyon along the East Rim and opposes the project.

This month the chapter proposed a resolution calling on Mr. Shelly to cease developing plans for the Grand Canyon Escalade. The resolution says the project would strikingly alter the landscape and affect land users, requiring great quantities of water in a time of drought and the construction of one or more paved roads at enormous expense in a struggling economy.

Then there’s the National Park Service, which claims jurisdiction over some of the land in a dispute with the Navajo. Rules governing development between the canyon rim and floor have been an ongoing issue since the 1975 Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act failed to resolve official boundaries.

“Based on what’s been proposed, it could not take place in the park because of restrictions on items such as wilderness, sacred lands and parkland development in general,” said Martha Hahn, the chief of science and resource management at Grand Canyon National Park. “First of all, it would extend into the park boundary to an area that has the endangered humpback chub, which we are managing rather intensely in terms of its survival.”

The Hopi also have strong concerns about the development. They say it could interfere with the Hopi Salt Trail, which leads to the Colorado River and their Sipapuni, or place of emergence, a sacred site.

Those living on the western edge of the Navajo Nation are not opposed to all development but are eager to preserve cultural and sacred sites.

Recently a group known as Save The Confluence posted an open letter to Mr. Shelly at its Web site voicing concern over whether appropriate archaeological and cultural surveys would be conducted at the proposed site. It argued that further investigation of the site’s religious significance and remains was needed before development plans can proceed.

Beyond the local Navajo chapters, the greater Navajo government, including agencies overseeing game and fish, pollution, water and archaeology, would have to sign off on the project.

The history of relations between the park service and tribes along the Grand Canyon is fraught. Often tribes were pushed out to make way for the creation of parks or were relegated to much smaller plots of land. And while some developments along the canyon benefit tribes by giving them commercial opportunities to sell goods or present dances or other artistic endeavors, much of the money tends to go to outside purveyors.

Mr. Clark attributes this is in large part to the Park Service’s control over commercial activity in the area.

The Grand Canyon Escalade project cites this strained relationship in its brochure, saying that the park service has afforded scant financial opportunities for tribes, “which arguably is true,” Mr Clark said. It argues that it’s time for the Navajo Nation to start capitalizing on tourist opportunities.