When he gazed in 1903 at the multicolored spires of cathedrals and castles in the Grand Canyon, President Theodore Roosevelt said, "Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. Keep it for your children, your children's children and for all who come after you."
Although the conservationist president died just before creation in 1919 of Grand Canyon National Park, he had articulated into national policy his credo: "There is nothing more practical than the preservation of beauty." He was talking about the need to keep out towns, mines, cattle and billboards. He couldn't have imagined a need 75 years later to keep out an overload of the children's children.Nearly 5 million visitors arrived last year to view the multilayered rocks - some as old as 2 billion years - in a 1.2 million-acre park bisected by a canyon a mile deep and 18 miles wide. Small wonder. The poet Carl Sandburg once said, "There goes God with an army of banners."
The number of tourists doubled in the last decade, overwhelming facilities and jamming the scenic roadways. Ninety percent came by car to the south rim. As at Yosemite National Park, another scenic jewel plagued by summer traffic jams, rangers at Grand Canyon are suggesting that the only solution is a reservation system for day visitors until a mass transit system can be installed.
Take a number.