AZ: NPS Highways for Canyon de Chelly

[mjcordone]

Canyon de Chelly National Monument has two roads in TM, North Rim Drive and South Rim Drive. I specifically have an issue with the North Rim Drive, since it is shown on TM as going far beyond the National Monument to a place that few people would consider to be the NPS road. I propose that this be fixed so that it is similar to the South Rim Drive, which ends at the furthest east viewpoint in the park. This would mean that the North Rim Drive would only be from Chinle to the Mummy Cave Overlook Road, the furthest area of the park on North Rim Drive. Mummy Cave Road is just east of the CR525 node. Anything beyond that is of no interest to visitors to the park since it is basically just another Navajo Route.

Here is the NPS website for Canyon de Chelly maps. In the top-left corner of the map window, switch it to "Brochure Map" and it shows what I am talking about: www.nps.gov/cach/planyourvisit/maps.htm

[Duke87]

For this sort of question I refer to GIS: https://azgeo-open-data-agic.hub.arcgis.com/datasets/azgeo::ownershipandmaintenance/explore?location=36.312368%2C-109.276431%2C12.86

According to this the entirety of what is mapped as North Rim Drive is owned and maintained by BIA, not NPS. Therefore this route should be deleted completely.

The majority of what's mapped South Rim Drive is also BIA, but NPS maintains the road from the turnoff to Spider Rock Overlook. With that not connecting to any other mapped routes, however... I'm inclined to completely remove this too.


Leaving this open for discussion before I do anything, though.

[mjcordone]

I think that since the South Rim Dr is maintained by the NPS it should remain, since it does in fact connect to US 191 at its west end.

[Duke87]

I think that since the South Rim Dr is maintained by the NPS it should remain, since it does in fact connect to US 191 at its west end.

Well, see but what's maintained by NPS is this, which... isn't actually part of South Rim Drive, it's "Spider Rock Overlook Access Road". South Rim Drive proper is entirely maintained by BIA. The NPS-maintained roadway doesn't connect to US 191.

Anyway it's been over a week and no further commentary has been received, so proceeding with deletion.