On July 14, a subcommittee of the Navajo Nation Council voted 14-2 to reject Grand Canyon Escalade, a proposed billion-dollar entertainment complex on Navajo Nation land that would include hotels, restaurants, shops, and a cultural center on the canyon rim. More controversial still is a 1.4-mile-long tramway that would shuttle up to 10,000 visitors a day to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, where an elevated walkway, amphitheater, and gift shop would be built atop an Ancestral Puebloan burial ground. The confluence is held sacred by the Navajos, Hopis, Zunis, and other native peoples of the Grand Canyon region. 

“After six long years, the developer still doesn't have the votes on the council to support Escalade,” said Roger Clark, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Grand Canyon Trust. “The project's sponsor on the council took Escalade off the agenda after Friday's vote, which means it can't come up for a vote again before the council's fall meeting in October. The developer is struggling for support, yet it continues to angle for a way to get this boondoggle passed. 

In 2015, the Sierra Club joined the Grand Canyon Trust, representatives from the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Hualapai tribes, the tribal Save the Confluence coalition, American Rivers, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and others in a river trip to the confluence, which at present can be reached only via the river or a 13-mile trail that descends 4,600 feet from the canyon rim. The result of the 2015 river trip, dubbed “Gathering Down the River” by participants, was the formation of the Grand Canyon Cultural Conservation Alliance, devoted to preventing Escalade from being built. 

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