It’s not often – more like never – that we get a press release touting a road as "infamous" but that’s what happened this week. The Hualapai Tribe has announced that paving is complete on 13-mile Diamond Bar Road, sole access to the Skywalk and to the scenic vistas of Guano Point. Begun in 2009, the road has taken 12 years to finish and five to pave, at a total cost of $35 million. Alluding to financial difficulties that required a decade of scrimping and saving federal funds, Hualapai Chairwoman Sherry J. Counts said, "Our tourists will have a smooth, scenic drive to this magnificent destination, and we anticipate a considerable increase in visitors to this entire region as a result."
Indeed, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, during its unpaved, washboard-road days, "Tour operators had complained of broken windows, flat tires, missing hubcaps and dust." Moaned Bessy Lee, marketing director of junket company CHD Inc., "It was painful, awful, tortuous. It totally [destroyed] the underbody of your coaches, and your vehicle and tires, and everything else. Now that the road is paved, it’s an absolute joy." It’s also projected to cut round-trip travel time – via the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Bridge bypass – by two hours.
The August 12 formal opening of the road is such a big deal that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer will be present, along with Counts, and representatives of the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs and Grand Canyon Resort Corp. The road, built to federal highway standards, will be blessed by the Hualapai Bird Dancers.
Other than sheer cost, the biggest obstacle to a smooth road was repeated litigation with local dude rancher Nigel Turner. It was thought that a $750,000 settlement with Turner in 2007 would pacify him, but he subsequently revived the dispute, "saying an easement he granted to the federal government to allow public access on his property off Diamond Bar Road had expired, construction was harming his guests, and amenities agreed upon in the settlement weren’t being carried out," according to the R-J.
Turner even went so far as to barricade the road, having previously demanded toll payments at gunpoint from tourists, initially $20 a head (later reduced to $5 a car). In 2013, a federal judge upheld the 2007 settlement but ordered the Uncle Sam and Turner to work together ""in good faith" to fulfill its terms, which included cattle guards, underpasses, and fencing. The Hualapai were to finish the new road and the original Diamond Bar would revert to Turner’s control.
Grand Canyon Skywalk is still far from finished. It’s not hooked up to the power grid or sewage lines. Water has to be driven in and electricity comes from a generator. The visitor center at the Skywalk remains unfinished. However, the completion of the road has to be regarded as an enormous milestone in the history of this controversial and trouble-plagued project.
