summer 07 / 20:2 - Grand Canyon River Guides

The Campsite Atlas Project:
Mapping the Human Habitat of Yesterday, Today and
Tomorrow along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon
Baseline inventories provide the foundation for
long-term monitoring programs and research
studies. Campsite inventories along the Colorado
River—the area that Grand Canyon Monitoring and
Research Center (gcmrc) scientists refer to as the
Colorado River ecosystem (cre)—were first conducted
in 1973 (Weeden and others, 1975) and were repeated
in 1984 (Brian and Thomas, 1984). The last comprehensive
campsite inventory was completed fifteen years
ago in 1991 (Kearsley and Warren, 1993). The 1991
inventory showed a significant decline in number and
size of campsites compared with previous inventories
(Kaplinski and others, 2003). Since that time, many of
the camps identified during the 1991 survey have fallen
into disuse or disappeared entirely because of sandbar
changes and vegetation encroachment, while some new
ones have emerged. A new inventory is needed to evaluate
changes in the cre during the past two decades, to
document the current number, size, and distribution of
campsites throughout the cre, and to provide an up-todate
baseline inventory for designing future studies.
In fall 2006, gcmrc staff and nps recreation staff
began the process of updating the cre campsite inventory
with the eventual aim of developing an electronic,
gis-based atlas of all previously used and currently available
campsites in the cre. In addition to documenting
the spatial extent of areas that nps would like to manage
as campsites in the future, the atlas will eventually
include a wide array of information on campsite characteristics
and attributes that are known to be important
to visitors and commercial guides (e.g., physical size,
estimated size of group that can be reasonably accommodated,
amount of open sand versus vegetation, availability
of shade, mooring attributes, etc.).
The atlas database will serve as both a current baseline
and a historical repository of information related to
individual camps. It will define the population of campsites
from which samples can be drawn to characterize
system-wide changes, and it will serve as a basis for evaluating
recreation impacts on other cre resources of
concern such as archaeological sites. This atlas will also
serve as the central repository for all campsite data
collected during future inventory and monitoring
projects, and will include links to Adopt-a-Beach
photos, the sand bar survey data collected by Northern
Arizona University geologists (Hazel and others, 1999,
2006; Kaplinksi and others, 2005), and related projects.
This project is being undertaken by gcmrc in close
cooperation with the recreation planning staff from
Grand Canyon National Park. In addition to meeting
needs of the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management
Program, data from this project will be helpful to the
National Park Service as they develop implementation
plans and resource monitoring projects tied to the
Colorado River Management Plan. Because the nps has
immediate need for some campsite data, we are focusing
initially on documenting the 200 plus most commonly
used camps, but in the next phase, we will be documenting
the less frequently used sites, as well as former
sites that are no longer campable.
So what does this mean for the river guide community
Why should you care
In the near future:
• We may be requesting some of you (particularly those
with silver hair) to help us identify camps that once
were but are no longer used.
• As we ground truth the atlas data, you may be
approached on occasion by someone asking to walk
around the area where you are already happily
encamped. We just wanted to let you know what we
are up to in advance, and let you know that you
always have the option to “just say no”.
In the far future (but hopefully not much beyond
the end of 2008):
• We plan to make the atlas available to the public
through the gcmrc website. We will let you know of
its availability through the Boatman’s Quarterly Review
and other outlets.
In the meantime, if you have photos or other types of
data that are specific to particular camps that you think
would be valuable to add to the atlas, please let us know.
If you have questions, comments or would like additional
information about this project, please feel free to
contact me at the following address, or contact Linda
Jalbert, Outdoor Recreation Planner and Wilderness
Coordinator, at Grand Canyon National Park. Thank
you for your interest!
Helen Fairley
Helen Fairley, Sociocultural Program Manager
Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center
page 14
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