<story><title>Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?</title><url>http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/who-can-save-the-grand-canyon-180954329/?no-ist</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>japhyr</author><text>A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride to the top of Everest.&lt;p&gt;These projects are deeply frustrating because all the developers have to do is get them built once - they can essentially fail as many times as they need to in order to get their project built. If you oppose this kind of project, you have to succeed in your efforts over and over again. If you fail once, the wild nature of the place is lost.&lt;p&gt;We need to preserve wild places, and this is one of them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>danielweber</author><text>In high school, every Monday my geology teacher Mr. Weinle would show slides from a national park he visited.  One of them -- I don&amp;#x27;t remember which -- had an asphalt sidewalk running through it.  He said &amp;quot;I was mad as hell when I saw this.  This is nature!  You should protect it!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Then he switched slides to the next picture he took:  it showed a man with leg braces walking through the park.  He held up his fingers and said &amp;quot;at this point I felt about this tall.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;These parks don&amp;#x27;t just exist in a vacuum.  They exist so that people can enjoy them.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not necessarily endorsing this modification to the Grand Canyon.  There is value in preserving it for the future as is, and there is also value in making it accessible.  It&amp;#x27;s a trade-off.  Some parks -- and I don&amp;#x27;t just mean the flat ones, since the amazing geology generally happens where there is significant vertical distance involved -- should be accessible even to those with special needs.  Maybe enough are already. Maybe not.</text></comment>
<story><title>Who Can Save the Grand Canyon?</title><url>http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/who-can-save-the-grand-canyon-180954329/?no-ist</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>japhyr</author><text>A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride to the top of Everest.&lt;p&gt;These projects are deeply frustrating because all the developers have to do is get them built once - they can essentially fail as many times as they need to in order to get their project built. If you oppose this kind of project, you have to succeed in your efforts over and over again. If you fail once, the wild nature of the place is lost.&lt;p&gt;We need to preserve wild places, and this is one of them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>raldi</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; A gondola ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon would be like a gondola ride to the top of Everest.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yeah! Oh wait, you mean bad.&lt;p&gt;Counterpoint: I once rode a sled down a shiny metal track to get down from the Great Wall of China, instead of walking back down the equivalent of 20 flights of steps. It was great!&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://kiplingandclark.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mutianyu_toboggan_flickr_ianz.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;kiplingandclark.com&amp;#x2F;wp-content&amp;#x2F;uploads&amp;#x2F;2013&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;mutian...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;If they&amp;#x27;d also had a gondola to ride up in, I would&amp;#x27;ve been able to spend that much more time and energy exploring the top. And imagine the impact it would have on the less able-bodied.</text></comment>