The monthly online launch calendar for Colorado River trips through Grand Canyon National Park is now available on the Park's website at http://www.nps.gov/grca/parkmgmt/crmp07rmm.htm under the "Download the April 2007 Recreational Launch Calendar here" link. River Runners for Wilderness and other groups requested that the calendar, formerly only available to river concessions companies, be viewable by anyone interested in launches and exchanges.
The calendar includes non-commercial, commercial, research, NPS and other administrative trips as well as calendars for Phantom Ranch exchanges, Whitmore exchanges, and Diamond Creek takeout information. Introductory information also posted explains calendar entries and is very valuable in understanding the calendars.
The monthly calendars are anticipated to be posted about one month in advance, as information availability and staff workload allows. May's calendar is projected to be posted in one to two weeks.
Kirstin Heins, Outdoor Recreation Planner at the Park, requested patience from the public, noting that "creating the calendarsis a bit labor intensive but we will make every effort to provide the best possible information." She adds that the information is consolidated from four different sources.
"This will be a great help to self-guided river runners" said Tom Martin, Co-director of River Runners for Wilderness, who among others requested that the calendars be made available to all river runners. "It's great that the Park has now made this effort to foster more communication in the river running community."
Questions and comments can be directed to Kirstin Heins at Kirstin_Heins@nps.gov.