The Upside Down Mountain: A Legal, Political, and Personal History of Grand Canyon National Park

Sarah Krakoff is the Moses Lasky Professor at the University of Colorado Law School, where she teaches and writes in the areas of American Indian law, Natural Resources law, and Environmental Justice. She also works in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, where she serves as Deputy Solicitor General on federal and interstate water matters and environmental litigation

Lecture Description:

America’s most iconic national park is known to Paiute people as the “Mountain Lying Down,” or the “Upside Down Mountain.” To most visitors, the Grand Canyon’s stunning rock layers appear to be the most natural and wild place in the lower forty-eight states. But the history of Grand Canyon National Park has a darker side, involving the dispossession of indigenous peoples, trade-offs that despoiled places outside of the Park, and other tales of hubris and misdeeds. Grand Canyon, in other words, is a deeply human place, constructed by laws and policies and imbued with everything—beautiful, terrible, and indifferent—that humans have to offer.

Professor Krakoff is the Phi Beta Kappa 2026-2027 Carl F. Cranor Visiting Scholar.