Idyllic impressions of the Grand Canyon—tall walls with an emerald ribbon cutting through its underbelly—got slapped with a dose of ugly last week, when the U.S. Department of Interior released a vilifying report on sexual harassment among river guides employed by the National Park Service (NPS).

The NPS investigated allegations from 13 current and former employees who had worked in the Grand Canyon National Park’s (GRCA) River District. And the paper points the spotlight on a long history of sexual misconduct and a “laissez faire” attitude of “what happens on the river, stays on the river.”

That booze-fueled party culture, according to the report, has been the catalyst for a number of listed offenses ranging from inappropriate touching and objectification of women to threats by an intoxicated axe-wielding guide and an alleged rape that went unreported. The investigation focused specifically on guides in the Grand Canyon River District employed by the NPS. But a follow-up article in Men’s Journal delves into the story of Bridget Crocker, a second-generation guide who spent 17 years on the river. Crocker notes that sexual harassment incidents, as in other workplaces, are happening within private tour companies as well.

“The first time I read the report through, I cried, because it’s all true,” Crocker says in the story. “I’m not surprised by the allegations,” she adds, “only that it took this long for them to surface.”

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Tom Bie
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Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Category: Daily Drake
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Author: Tom Bie

Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

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