The first European American who reached the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon marveled at what was before him: an astounding system of canyons, profound fissures and slender spires that seemingly tottered from their bases.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department has been building, expanding and maintaining catchments since the 1940s, now spending thousands each year to ensure healthy wildlife populations – part of the department’s mission – even in the toughest Arizona conditions.

Attorney General Mark Brnovich found himself defending the decisions he made to challenge various federal laws, challenges that his Democrat foe said Wednesday worked against the interests of average Arizonans.

Americans think of two things when they think of Arizona: U.S. Sen. John McCain and the Grand Canyon, said Gov. Doug Ducey at a memorial service for the late senator Wednesday.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments by the National Mining Association and allied groups that it was illegal for Kenneth Salazar, the Interior Secretary in the Obama administration, to withdraw about 1 million acres around the park to new mining claims for 20 years.

Arizona lawmakers and advocates are condemning proposed fee increases at the Grand Canyon and 16 other parks, a move the National Park Service said is badly needed to fund billions of dollars in backlogged maintenance projects.

Democratic senators criticized a National Park Service plan to impose steep increases in entrance fees at 17 of its most popular parks, including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Zion, calling the proposed rates “arbitrary and unjustifiable.”

Everyone who has experienced the Grand Canyon knows of its power to profoundly change a person, and if we allow IT to be permanently changed by the further degradation that expanded mining would inevitably bring, we simply don’t deserve the endless fruits it bears.

President Barack Obama has decided against creating a national monument covering areas of public land around Grand Canyon National Park, an Arizona congressman said Friday.

Six hunting and fishing groups are pushing for a compromise in the event the Obama administration designates a national monument around Grand Canyon National Park, a heated issue in the Southwest.