Written sometime in 2005
John lay back into the chair, feeling its contours mold to him. His mouth glowed with the flavor of garlic permeating from the cold pizza he had just eaten. He said “Computer” and listened to the machine, encased in a compartment below his buttocks, boot up. He picked up the data gloves and lenses, slipping them on.
The menu glowed in front of him. He thought for a moment, and whispered “Secrets.” A polished ebony hourglass in a brass stand rolled over in front of him and sand began trickling through the neck. Some things never change, he thought to himself.
The system was combing through the archives. The net had become so large that only titles were searched now, but still the system had to sort through millions of hits, rummaging through the electronic flotsam and jetsam of the ages. Moments later, an ivory scroll materialized. He moved a small calendar image, spinning back the years.
“I’ve got a Secret” the title read. No big news, they were all secrets here. He touched the line of text, and a frail woman, blond and bruised, emerged in front of him, vaguely familiar. “We married when we were both children. At first he seemed so nice, so gentle. But then the drinking began, and . . .”
John pressed “Stop,” forcing back a surge of anger at the slime who would beat this wan image. Sad, but true, and repeated all too often. He could not listen further, and turned back to the scroll.
“Secrets of the Extraterrestrials.” Secrets no longer. Since they had announced their presence in the ruins of Chile during the Great South American War, proclaiming sovereignty and threatening to vaporize any who would dream of continuing combat, their features, technology, and reproductive habits had been described in graphic detail in all of the tabloids. He scanned on.
“Lost Secrets of the Grand Canyon.” He stopped, and looked at the date of the post. Ancient, probably a flat page from the early days of the web. It was an “eternal web site,” endowed for all eternity to be available to future generations, an electronic form of posterity. And the “Secrets” page was a “PP” – Posthumous Post. Someone didn’t want to let this one out of the bag until they were six feet below the repercussions!
He punched it up. The fellow had worked at Grand Canyon one year, while a youngster. Nice work, if you could arrange it. He had been a graduate student, hired for a song to study the impacts of aircraft over Grand Canyon. His mission – to ask a zillion back country hikers what they thought of the aerial carnival overhead. Some didn’t mind, but others were outraged. He surveyed a lot of them, and sent questionnaires to a great many more.
When his year was up, he had entered thousands of responses into an old IBM PC 8088. John chuckled at the thought of the vintage processor – he had seen one at the Smithsonian web site. The fellow had prepared a report – hundreds of pages, charts, graphs, maps, tables, everything. Everything you would ever want to know about aircraft over the Canyon; talk about a political hot potato, and then…
He had handed the report and a box of floppy disks (5.25 inch relics, no doubt) off to the Park Service and left with the words “Send me a copy when you get it printed.”
“OK, we will.” was the response. He had jumped into his Ford and pulled away from the rim, brushing off tears at the last overlook, he’d loved the place so.
He waited. The Park Service had seen that he knew a little about computers, and had given him a job in Phoenix. A cushy Federal job, with travel, excitement, opportunity . . . he had never looked back at graduate school.
And he waited for the report that never arrived. He was sent a copy of a letter from some other researcher, a Ph.D. – “no Chi Square statistics! How are these numbers supposed to be valid without a Chi Square?” The young man had pointed out in the report that the results were no random sample, just a large block of back country permits, boxes and boxes from the ranger’s office, faded and difficult to read but none-the-less used to contact thousands of hikers. The rangers didn’t want him shuffling them up with a sample. But what those people thought still mattered, Chi Square or no! The fact that this Ph.D. had wanted to do the study (redo it) himself might not have mattered much, but…
When the young man was visiting the Park Service regional office one day, he read that a team trying to follow up research on this topic had not been able to locate the report! “It seems to be one of the most thorough and well-documented studies, but all we were able to locate was the Executive Summary.” He had been censored. Now not even a “Freedom of Information Act” request would bring his work to light. Banished!
But his copy of the report languished in a box in the garage, collecting dust, silverfish, and decades. Then, years after its completion, he had pulled it out and scanned it into the computer! Created a huge computer file, with tables, graphs, charts, all the gory details. And he had dumped it on the net – or at least had it uploaded by his executor.
The lost secrets no more. John smiled, and pulled up another menu. Soon he was leaning back, whistling softly as he watched the sparse vegetation of the Kaibab plateau flash by, feeling the Arizona sun warm his small Cessna, controls neatly digitized in space before his eyes, as he headed toward the canyon rim.
Should he switch to an F-16?
Afterword
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Park Service finally resolved many of these concerns with the air tour industry in 2016.
Here is a Chronology from the National Park Service on the issue of aircraft management at Grand Canyon National Park. It was last updated in 2015.
Significantly, for June 1988 it reads:
FAA publishes SFAR 50-2 (53 Federal Register 20264) to revise flight procedures in Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) airspace
· extended the Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA)
· prohibits flights below a certain altitude (14,499 ft MSL) – [For reference, South Rim 7,000 feet (2,100 m), North Rim 8,000 feet (2,400 m)]
· establishes four flight-free zones
· sets special routes for commercial sightseeing operators
· requires certain terrain avoidance and communications requirements
Here is a map showing some of the changes that were ultimately implemented in 2016. Two corridors were established to the east and west of South Rim Village to provide routes for helicopters.
For pilots and those interested in ALL of the details, this document from June, 2016 has 150 pages of the changes that were eventually developed. It includes some “curfews,” 6 P.M. to 8 A.M. in summer, and 5 P.M. to 9 A.M. in winter. It encourages QT – Quiet Technology. Tour Operators are allocated a limited number of flights. Pilots had to receive special training to fly air tours. Steps were taken to promote air safety and reduce accidents. All of this was finally codified 33 years after I stalked the Canyon with my clipboards.
To learn more about this issue, please visit some of these “Friends of the Park.”
The National Park Service personnel office is the stickley thicket the likes of which Br’er Rabbit never knew. Many folks are willing to work for free, and become volunteers in the park (VIPs) simply for the pine-scented perquisites. PhDs have been known to beg to be Fee Collectors. Seasonal employees will migrate all around the country simply to connect with the next “temporary, not to exceed” appointment. That was all I was ever offered in the National Park Service, although I did eventually move up in grade and got a start within the Federal Service.
In order to get a permanent position I went to work for the Defense Contract Audit Agency. They didn’t manage parks; they worked in tall buildings or in factory alcoves, but they offered me a permanent position. My career spun on from there. I do wish the Park Service had offered me a better opportunity.
For the record, I am extremely proud to have been part of the National Park Service team. They are professionals dedicated to preserving the crown jewels of our natural, cultural, and historic heritage.
The National Park Service was opportunistic when they hired me at the lowest possible wage level. I was opportunistic in that I was willing to work, especially in that Park, for next to nothing. In fact I would occasionally turn to my coworkers and say “I would do this job for FREE!” They would turn to me and say “Shhhhhhh!!!”
Was I upset that my study was lost? Hell, yeah. Somebody grabbed the bacon and left the potatoes and gravy. Was I shocked? Not really. John had left before I did, and was not around to protect it through the final phase. Once I handed it over, I was out of there, on to other opportunities. Was it right that the Executive Summary was the only surviving portion of my work? To be honest, the main report sliced and diced the information many different ways, looking at river runners vs. Phantom Ranch campers vs. “true” backcountry hikers at several locations. Did anybody need that much detail? Well, if they want it, I still have my copy. I sorted out the silverfish.
Mi Mayan Hamaca 