Legal dispute mars Grand Canyon views

GRAND CANYON WEST, Ariz. — Think of a Caribbean glass-bottomed boat hung out over the edge of the Grand Canyon and you have the idea behind the Skywalk, a modern, vertigo-inducing moneymaker that draws hundreds of thousands of people annually onto the Hualapai Indians' reservation to stare down beneath their feet at the distant canyon floor.

That the views are spectacular, no one would dispute. But a fierce legal battle has erupted over whether these are million-dollar views or are considerably more valuable than that.

The controversy threatens to slow the parade of tour buses, helicopters and planes that arrive daily and have put the Hualapai (pronounced WALL-uh-pie) reservation on the map.

To improve its gambit to lure more visitors from Las Vegas, the Hualapai teamed up with tour operator David Jin in 2003 to create the Skywalk, which extends 70 feet beyond the canyon rim and provides unmatched views of the floor thousands of feet below.

Success, though, has brought controversy.

Before the Skywalk opened in 2007, 150,000 visitors in a good year would peer over the canyon edge on Hualapai land or raft down the tribe's portion of the Colorado River.

Last year, the number had more than quadrupled, with many of the visitors paying as much as $73 to slip on booties and edge out onto the horseshoe-shaped walkway of glass.

Canyon-side commercialism now abounds on Hualapai land. Helicopter tours begin at $129. At the fully stocked gift shop, arrows cost $20 and full-length Indian headdresses $2,000. A 90-minute horseback ride along the canyon rim costs $75.

Revenues are in the millions of dollars, although exactly how much money is in dispute.

In exchange for the $30 million that Jin, who is Chinese-born and based in Las Vegas, spent to build the Skywalk, he was to get a portion of its profits over 25 years and a cut-rate price for the tourists he brings to the site from all over Asia.

He accuses the Hualapai of shortchanging him and has gone to court — both the tribal court in the tribal capital of Peach Springs, Ariz., and U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

The Hualapai accuse him of not fulfilling his end of the bargain by leaving ancillary parts of the project unfinished.

There was sadness among some Hualapai traditionalists when construction began at the edge of the canyon, which has long carried spiritual significance to those who live there. But that debate is now past, and plans are on the drawing board for even more projects, including a major resort and a clubhouse for a planned canyon-side golf course.

But all those ideas seem like pipe dreams now as the Skywalk project, still not finished, finds itself stalled.

In court documents, Jin says tribal "infighting and irregularities" have complicated his dealings with the Hualapai, who he says have not paid him any profits since 2008. He said the tribal tourism enterprise had gone through six chief executives since signing a deal in 2003.

Hualapai leaders deny the tribe has mishandled the Skywalk money, which they say is going to the betterment of tribal members.

"It's insulting," Waylon Honga, a member of the Tribal Council, said with a scoff. "It's really a low blow."

Jin has gone to tribal court to try to force the Hualapai into arbitration over the sharing of profits, and he sought a temporary restraining order in federal court to prevent the Tribal Council from seizing his share of the Skywalk by using a recently passed eminent-domain ordinance.

Jin failed to win the order, but a federal judge is now overseeing the dispute. Jin has hired Troy Eid, a former U.S. attorney in Colorado, to press his interests. Hualapai leaders have Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney in Arizona, on their side.