GCNP Boundary: The Line

To get started on a review of the GCNP boundary, here is a reproduction of the official map (113 20,021 B Dec 74 DSC) that Public Law 93-620, the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act, referred to in section 3 as comprising the Park from January 3, 1975. Not the first or the last word on the matter, it is only one snapshot.  A quick scan shows that at this scale and with no topography, the line is at times more an indicator than a depiction in accurate detail. Text was used to lessen the line's ambiguities, but is itself not always on target. (A more readable list of the map's texts appears below the map.) So translating the map's line accurately to a line on the ground (or even onto more detailed topographic maps) will require bringing to bear legislative history and myriad previous actions. The line is a sum of its historical parts.

  

Here is a listing of the map texts, starting in the upper right corner and going clockwise, east and south of the river first (my comments in ()):

• Navajo Bridge (most of it off the map)
• MARBLE CANYON EAST 
•             Proposed Boundary on Canyon Rim  
•              Note   Subject to Concurrence 
•              of the Navajo Nation
• NAVAJO
  INDIAN
  RESERVATION
• Little Colorado
• COCONINO PLATEAU (this referred to a tiny addition)
• KAIBAB NATIONAL FOREST (repeated to its upper left)
• HAVASUPAI INDIAN
  RESERVATION (two instances, one above the other)
• Boundary on South Bank   of Colorado River
  (River Mile 164.8 to 273.1)
• HUALAPAI  INDIAN  RESERVATION

Now on the north side, starting up near top:

• cross hatch box  HAVASUPAI USE LANDS
• diagonal box       HAVASUPAI RESERVATION ADDITION
• 273.1 RIVER MILE
• LAKE MEAD NATIONAL RECREATION AREA (added to Park)
• COLORADO RIVER
• Boundary on Canyon Rim
• GRAND CANYON
  NATIONAL MONUMENT (added to Park)
• 164.8 RIVER MILE
• Boundary on Canyon Rim (This is just plain wrong)
• KAIBAB NATIONAL FOREST
• BOUNDARY approx 1/4 mile
    back from canyon rim (refers to where Park meets Reservation)
  GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK
• MARBLE CANYON WEST
  Boundary on Canyon Rim
• MARBLE
  CANYON 
  NATIONAL
  MONUMENT (added to Park)
• VERMILION CLIFFS (slanted)
• GLEN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA (teeny bit added to Park)

So this, frankly inadequate, representation is where we start to parse out and explicate each segment of the boundary line. The task is to discuss each of the parts, bringing to bear everything I have been able to find (or remember) that defines a segment. These posts are not intended to be narrative histories; those will come later. This map being unsatisfactory, my next post will be another, with more information, on which the segments will be better delineated.