Adventure Travel

Tag: National Parks

122 groups call on Congress to oppose weakening national park protections

Miranda Green, The Hill:

In conjunction with national park week, 122 groups sent a letter to Congress Tuesday urging members to oppose any legislation that might weaken protections of national parks and monuments.

The letter — signed by various groups representing the LGBTQ community, women, disabled Americans, African-Americans and others — calls the shrinking of national monuments an attack on the Antiquities Act.

“Any attack on our public lands, monuments, oceans, and waters is an attack on our communities, our history, our contributions to this great nation, and our culture; and it robs the next generation of a chance to learn from these shared treasures,” reads the letter. “It has often been said that our nation’s public lands system is one of our best ideas; we must now come together to protect these special places.”

The letter comes months after President Trump signed off on shrinking the borders of two national monuments in Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante that were designated under an Obama administration executive order. The current administration has said it is reconsidering the boundaries of other national and marine monuments.

US National Parks for free this Saturday

To celebrate the start of National Park Week, the National Park Service is dropping entrance fees on Saturday at the sites that typically charge.

The theme for this year’s National Park Week is “Park Stars.”

 

Google Street View Releases Seven More Maps of Canadian National Parks

Jackie Dunham, CTVNews.ca:

In anticipation of Earth Day on Sunday, Google Street View added seven new parks to its catalogue of digitally mapped parks on Thursday to bring the total number to 167, or approximately 75 per cent of Parks Canada spaces. The latest additions include Nááts’ihch’oh National Park Reserve, Terra Nova National Park, the Lake Louise area in Banff National Park, Glacier National Park, Mount Revelstoke National Park, West Coast Trail in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, and Nahanni National Park Reserve.

This is a list of Parks Canada destinations currently available via Google Street View.

Ryan Zinke and the Interior Department to back off of dramatic National Parks fee hikes due to massive public outcry

Darryl Fears, Washington Post:

Interior Department officials are backing away from a plan to dramatically increase entrance fees at the most popular national parks after receiving more than 100,000 public comments from Americans nearly unanimously opposed to the idea.

In October, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke proposed to increase peak-season entrance fees at 17 parks from $25 to $70 — the largest hike since World War II. Joshua Tree National Park in California, where the peak season starts in January, would have been the first to charge the higher rate, followed by a dozen other parks where visitation peaks in May and June. The cost of riding a motorcycle into the parks would have risen to $50, and walking or biking in would have cost $30.

But as temperatures climb and parks prepare for another season of potentially record-breaking visitation, Interior and National Park Service officials are rethinking the plan based on public comments that inundated the NPS website over an abbreviated 30-day period.

The Wonder of the Night Sky in the US National Parks

National Park Foundation:

Depending on where you live in the world, viewing the night sky in its natural, unhindered state can be a rarity. Due to light pollution, fewer than 500 stars are viewable in urban settings, compared to the 15,000 stars apparent in some of the darkest skies.

National parks provide some of the darkest and clearest night skies across the country. And that’s why the National Park Foundation supports programs that help connect visitors with night sky viewing opportunities in some of these special places.

A grant from the National Park Foundation funded the startup of Mammoth Cave After Dark, a program aimed at showing visitors the night sky at Mammoth Cave National Park. Visitors who participated in Mammoth Cave After Dark enjoyed a guided hike, guided cave tour, dinner, and stargazing.

Road Trip: Canada’s 10 most visited National Parks

Canada’s national parks and historic sites hosted a staggering 24.7 million visitors last year. Not bad for a country with a population of only 36 million people. Which of it’s 39 national parks are the most popular? Here are the top ten:

  1. Banff National Park in Alberta – 4,059,503 visitors
  2. Jasper National Park in Alberta – 2,345,130 visitors
  3. Saguenay–St. Lawrence Marine Park in Quebec – 1,143,276 visitors
  4. Pacific Rim National Park in British Columbia – 1,056,801 visitors
  5. Mount Revelstoke National Park in British Columbia – 795,749 visitors
  6. Yoho National Park in British Columbia – 688,157 visitors
  7. Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta – 536,865 visitors
  8. Prince Edward Island National Park – 530,247 visitors
  9. Kootenay National Park in British Columbia – 521,286 visitors
  10. Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba – 355,523 visitors

Chile creates five national parks in historic act of conservation

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins donated 1 million acres of private land as part of a 10 million acre addition to Chile’s national park system. This will add five new parks and expand three more and safeguard Patagonia’s wilderness, provide a boon to economic development in southern Chile, and continue to welcome Chileans and international tourists alike.

This conservation effort has been in the making for more than 25 years.

Jonathan Franklin, The Guardian

Chile has created five sprawling national parks to preserve vast tracts of Patagonia – the culmination of more than two decades of land acquisition by the US philanthropists Doug Tompkins and Kristine McDivitt Tompkins and the largest donation of private land to government in South America.

The five parks, spanning 10.3m acres, were signed into law on Monday by Chile’s president Michelle Bachelet, launching a new 17-park route that stretches down the southern spine of Chile to Cape Horn.

McDivitt Tompkins, the former chief executive of the outdoors company Patagonia, handed over 1m acres to help create the new parks. The Chilean government provided the rest in federally controlled land.