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When the north rim lodge recently burned down at the Grand Canyon my reaction was "how could they not deploy resources fast enough to save it?," followed by "wh
by harmmonica 1y ago
When the north rim lodge recently burned down at the Grand Canyon my reaction was "how could they not deploy resources fast enough to save it?," followed by "who stands to gain from it burning down?" So I learn Aramark is/was the manager of the lodge. Fast forward a year and you'll hear about a joint venture between Aramark, someone high up in the current administration, and (as an example) Aman announcing Aman North Rim.
That's obviously conspiracy-level thinking and totally untrue, but given the attempt to sell public lands in the BBB, and the material staffing cuts at the park service (and more broadly), it's really easy to believe that these types of efforts will lead to cordoning off these spaces for private profit ("Yosemite's hundreds of thousands of acres, we're only taking away 20 for the hotel, no biggie!"). Gotta remain vigilant or I think that's where all of this ends up.
Note that the prices for the lodge at the north rim were pretty expensive already so not saying that hasn't already somewhat been the case, but it's not (or was not) physically off limits to the public or only reserved for the richest of the rich and that's where I fear this is headed.