"a Bunch of Little Gnats"

By Jamie Murphy

Richard Marks, 50, the superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, stepped aboard a 19-ft. Boston Whaler last month to hear it for himself. Skimming eastward across the azure expanses of Lake Mead, Marks and two park rangers maneuvered their craft into the lower reaches of the Colorado River. Soon the majestic red walls of the Grand Canyon towered overhead. They cut the engine, grounded the boat on a sandbar and waited quietly.

"It wasn't very long before I saw it," said Marks. As a concussive whumping sound crescendoed around them, the helicopter skimmed 100 ft. over the river, then dodged out of sight. Moments later, an airplane appeared, swooped by so its passengers could enjoy a leisurely view of the gorge and soared away. Soon another light plane buzzed above the gorge. In an hour, Marks counted nine different aircraft. "To someone who spends several days hiking into the Grand Canyon and then gets bombarded," he said, "this is a heck of a problem."

Indeed, the National Park Service estimates that there are about 100,000 flights across the 1.2 million-acre Grand Canyon each year, or an average of 274 a day. Since his appointment more than five years ago, Marks has done little to curtail the traffic. Now the climate in Washington appears to be changing. National Park Service Director William Penn Mott announced in an interview last year that he favors excluding "airplanes and helicopters from the canyon itself." Even so, control of flights over -- and into -- the Grand Canyon may fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Administration and therefore not necessarily in Marks' bailiwick. This June the Park Service will release a report assessing the environmental damage of the flights and outlining possible solutions; by September Marks must recommend to Interior Secretary Donald Hodel a plan to resolve the problem. The Secretary's decision is certain to serve as a guide for other national parks, particularly Haleakala and Hawaii Volcanoes national parks in Hawaii, which are contending with increasingly heavy air traffic.

Meanwhile, the din at the Grand Canyon seems to be growing louder. Hikers claim that the thwack-thwack and droning of aircraft echo constantly through the canyon. During a five-hour walk from an overlook known as Hermit's Rest to a station near Cope's Butte, one observer counted 16 helicopters, 36 fixed- wing planes and twelve jets. The constant barrage yielded few moments of uninterrupted serenity and nothing resembling hermitism. "They remind me of a bunch of little gnats, just swarming all around," says Sharon Galbreath, who chairs the Grand Canyon branch of the Sierra Club. Concurs Fred Carrington, a high school physics teacher who led a group of students into the canyon this spring: "You almost feel as if you haven't left civilization."

The 40 small charter companies that fly out of Grand Canyon National Park Airport, Las Vegas and other airports in Arizona, California and Utah argue earnestly that banning aircraft would deprive the elderly, the very young and the handicapped of their only chance to see the Grand Canyon from the inside out. With some 2.5 million visitors each year, the operators maintain, the park would not be serene even if there were no flights. "This is the last place I'd come for peace and quiet," jokes Judy Fogwell of Grand Canyon Helicopters.

Environmentalists counter that the air tours do not cater to invalids but to a wealthy elite (some excursions departing from Grand Canyon Airport cost $125 per adult for a one-hour helicopter ride and $100 a head for a 90-minute flight in a small plane). They also contend that the hordes of visitors seem far less invasive than the hundreds of droning aircraft.

It appears unlikely that the Federal Government will ban the flights outright. And the degree to which they will be regulated remains uncertain. No matter what Hodel decides, however, it is unlikely to please completely either hikers, who seek blissful solitude, or air tourists, who crave a bird's-eye tour of the canyon free of mundane annoyances such as sunburn and blisters.

With reporting by Michael Riley/Hermit''s Rest