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Bear Mauls Woman in Gates of the Arctic National Park

Aug 31st - 16:46pm | HIker JIm

I completely agree with the NPS, NFS, and others who stress LNT principles in the back country. I was not aware of them modifying food safety recommendations when in bear country. I spoke with a couple of friends who go hunting each fall in Alaska and they both said that when they are at their base camp set up they do their best to triangulate sleeping, eating and storing sites.

Aug 30th - 14:14pm | Anonymous

Did someone read a different article than I did? Did anyone read about the victim badmouthing "big oil"? I have had many non-threatening encounters with Grizzlies where I live in Alaska, but do respect their wildness.

Aug 30th - 11:14am | Ted Clayton

Hiker, I do not have direct experience with Gate of the Arctic Nat'l Park, but within the last couple years I did see an announcement & report out of the Park that may apply to the questions you raise.

Aug 29th - 23:26pm | Anonymous

Alyeska flew her out...bet she won't ever bad-mouth "big oil" again.

Aug 29th - 14:18pm | Hiker

Very lucky lady to have survived a mauling and I wish her the best in her recovery. Having backpacked in Yellowstone and Glacier NP's several times I am puzzled about the "food Tent" being in the same close area as their sleeping tents. Is this common in Alaska or at long term camps to establish the food prep and storage tent in the same camp as sleeping tents?

Is Technology Compatible With The National Park Wilderness Experience?

Aug 31st - 15:10pm | Ted Clayton

Anti-technology sentiment is a game-token that will prove to be 'off the board'. It isn't in play, never was, and those who devise a plan that relies upon using it will lose points. Technology & humanity are two sides of the same coin. They are one entity. There is no daylight.

Aug 31st - 12:39pm | Lone Hiker

Aron Ralston; (n) 1) a foolish child; 2) an accident waiting to happen.

Glacier National Park Officials Plan to Scale Down Search for Missing Hiker

Aug 31st - 12:31pm | JG

I'm praying for your safe return Yi-Jien Hwa.

Paying To Understand U.S. History in the National Park System

Aug 31st - 03:12am | Lone Hiker

And this is an exemplary point of why the entire NPS system should be removed from federal "management".

Aug 30th - 22:59pm | Kath

You pay to ride the buses in Denali, which is the only way to access the park after the 15 mile mark. You pay to access the Channel Islands by boat, or Kenai Fjords by boat, again the only access to most parts of the park. You pay for the tours at Mesa Verde to see most of the cliff dwellings, no tour, no access. We can't pretend that this Gettysburg thing is something new.

Aug 30th - 18:25pm | Kurt Repanshek

Point made, Barky. But don't you run the risk of alienating more potential park advocates by constantly raising the fees to this truly American attraction? The parks I don't think should be equated with a commercial business (and that's what seems to be happening at Gettysburg and elsewhere in the system). Once that's done, they head down the elitist highway.

Aug 30th - 17:37pm | Barky

Generically, I am actually in favor of fees at National Parks. Nothing in life is truly free. Someone has to pay. It's either us, the national park enthusiasts and occasional tourists, who pay through fees, or it's the generic taxpayers.

Aug 30th - 16:48pm | Ted Clayton

Bob Janiskee, I greatly respect your academic credentials, and your literary contributions. It is not the object to gratuitously demean Gettysburg's facilities, but the term I used to describe does clarify effectively that they function indistinguishably from, and rely upon the same transactional premises as any cheap and private tourist-trap.

Aug 30th - 16:26pm | Bob Janiskee

Gettysburg's new museum and visitor center may be a lot of things, but "roadside tourist trap" is certainly not one of them.

Aug 30th - 16:10pm | Ted Clayton

It's darn tricky & risky to invest money in a tourist-facility, without losing your shirt. Even if you know what you're doing, and are good at it.

Black Bear Attacks Child at Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Aug 30th - 10:52am | grassfox

Ummm, the bear was in people territory. Bears are not landowners.

Presidential Politics and the National Parks

Aug 30th - 10:38am | Ted Clayton

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, now also the Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican Party, is opposed by organizations like the League of Conservation Voters and spokes-figures like Gene Karpinski primarily because she (in order of importance):

Aug 30th - 07:09am | Bob Janiskee

Christy, I'm afraid that you're barking up the wrong tree here. There is no evidence that proximity to national parks breeds park advocacy.

Aug 29th - 23:34pm | Christy

If anyone even THINKS that Obama/Biden (with only 1 national park between them in their home states) will be better for our parks than McCain(19 park units)/Palin(17 park units) they need to have their heads examined! McCain and Palin will be the best ticket to ensure our parks are fully funded!

First Piping Plovers, Now Sea Turtles Descend on Cape Hatteras National Seashore

Aug 29th - 22:24pm | Anonymous

And you would be in error. Check the references at the end of the recovery plans......

Aug 29th - 21:21pm | Wheat

Corrected willingly. It should say non peer reviewed science based management policies at work. Wheat

Aug 29th - 18:32pm | Anonymous

There's no such animal as "peer-reviewed" management. You can have peer-reviewed science upon which management decisions are made, which does exist. I'm not sure what good it would do for managers at the Tetons, or Yellowstone to review the management policies at Hatteras anyway.

Aug 29th - 14:26pm | Wheat

I reckon it’s a lively debate when just about everybody disagrees with everybody else. And that tends to make picking a starting point a bit difficult when crafting a reply.

Video: Birds and Bike Paths in Grand Teton National Park

Aug 29th - 20:08pm | Rick Smith

Kurt-- I drove through Grand Teton on the way to Yellowstone this summer. I was absolutely appalled by the amount of ground disturbance that was being caused by the construction of this bike trail. I cannot believe that NPCA was the principal supporter of this project since it is an organization that is supposed to protect parks, not develop them. I don't get it. Rick Smith

Park Police Arrest Men Who Brought a Loaded Submachine Gun to a Playground in National Capital Parks-East

Aug 29th - 11:43am | jsmacdonald

As a follow up on crime statistics, I was just checking them out for this year. A quick glance of the numbers shows that more homicides have happened in Police District 7, which is Anacostia, than any of the other districts. Property crimes are higher in some of the other police districts. Even if crime rates were lower, my point would have been the same.

Aug 29th - 10:55am | jsmacdonald

Shaw is gentrified (my friends in Proposition One - the anti-nuclear vigil at Lafayette Park in front of the White House - can tell you that by the rapid increase in property taxes that they can't afford to pay) and the Benning Road / East Capitol Street area isn't far behind.

Aug 29th - 10:01am | Lone Hiker

Actually, in the purist sense, laws are what we "civilized" people use to delineate between law-abiding citizens and the criminal element. To repeatedly utilize the rhetoric, as has been stated in SO many previous threads that laws only apply to those who follow them is ludicrous, and a prime example of flawed logic.

Aug 29th - 09:57am | Ted Clayton

MRC said:

Aug 29th - 09:26am | Ted Clayton

Jim Macdonald asserts: "The issue is Anacostia, poverty, racism ..." The topic of this post, titled "Park Police Arrest Men Who Brought a Loaded Submachine Gun to a Playground in National Capital Parks-East" is unusually tightly-focused, and it is a guns-issue topic, to an unusually emphatic degree.

Aug 29th - 05:48am | Anonymous

Eloquent and spot on. I am interested in solutions. Any ideas?

Aug 29th - 02:26am | jsmacdonald

I'm not talking about Piscataways except in an ironic sense. The issue is Anacostia, poverty, racism, a place that has been left behind, and the world that has grown up around this depressed place. It's only irony that allows this to be called a national park at all, although there's something green about it in the stench of the air.

Aug 29th - 00:17am | MRC

Is there any reason why the city parks of D.C. are in the jurisdaiction of the NPS and their Park Police? Give them to the City then there is one police force, who knows the parks as part of the neighborhoods. Not two with experience in the either the parks or the residential areas. This split jurisdiction seems to me as a nightmare from the point of law enforcement.

Aug 29th - 00:12am | Ted Clayton

Jim, I do have a strong interest in Native American themes, and have become a much more assertive advocate on their behalf as the 'victors version' of history has worn thin for me. I may well look into the native context that you bring up.

Aug 28th - 23:23pm | jsmacdonald

The park is in the poorest part of the District of Columbia; the Park Service has its local jail in that area as well. It's a very sad and filthy place - you can't go there without recognizing that racial divisions are alive and well in our country.

Aug 28th - 19:08pm | Dave O

And here I thought it was illegal to have firearms in a national park! Wait..it is against the law. Plus those fully automatic weapons were not legal to possess anywhere. Silly me. Laws only apply to people that follow the law. As this article has stated, the criminals already have the weapons in our parks and the rest of us are left unprotected.

Aug 28th - 15:58pm | Ted Clayton

Strange alright ... 'course, had they been in a homicidal frame of mind, they had more than enough firepower to overwhelm the two officers - and escape. They were up to something irregular ... but maybe not a shooting-spree. Hope we get more info on the case.

Aug 28th - 14:52pm | Anonymous

Hail to the NRA! Seig Heil! The Republicans gotta love this guy. Good job, America!

Grammar Vigilantes Busted in Grand Canyon National Park, Barred from Park System

Aug 29th - 00:05am | Lone Hiker

I believe the simplistic answer to the protection of historic signage is simply, and feel free to correct (or feel indignant by the usage of) the colloquial grammar: The system ain't got no money for such altruistic pursuits.

Aug 28th - 21:01pm | Ted Clayton

Omar asks:

Aug 28th - 19:09pm | Omar Quadivich

If these signs and other signs around the National Parks are felt to be "Historic" (designated), then why does the NPS not Protect them from Vandalism, ie. plexiglass enclosures. Are the fines that are collected for vandalism going to be used to protect similar historic signs in the future?

Aug 28th - 16:28pm | Ted Clayton

My great-grandparents homesteaded in New Mexico, and Grandpa was raised in the classic "Three Sisters" agricultural + ranching milieu. Through him, all his kids have continued to refer to sorghum as sogrum, and are always non-plussed when somebody (who doesn't know not to..) asks, "You mean sorghum?"

Hidden Hall of Records at Mount Rushmore

Aug 28th - 22:37pm | wow gold

I'm certain that the new movie, National Treasure, will stir up renewed interest in the hall and its creator.

**** Viewing National Parks Traveler on Firefox 3.0****

Aug 28th - 18:49pm | Kurt Repanshek

Yeah, but that module usually only contains the five most recent posts. On good days there might be five or six kicked out, and if you rise too late or miss a day, well, you'll miss the juice;-) And don't forget the featured post.

Aug 28th - 18:42pm | Kirby Adams

You've made the juice too accessible by the backdoor! I usually follow a link directly to an article from my Yahoo module. While that article is up, the Visitor Center and Recent Comments appear on the right. That's all I need. Now, if you hide those frames, I'll be forced to go to the front page, which would make me angry....and you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. ;-)

Aug 28th - 18:00pm | Kurt Repanshek

Kirby, you don't go to the front page?!?$#?!!! That's where all the juice is! Ted, Bill's paying me to thwart FF. Anon, yeah, we saw the problem with Safari, too. Not sure what became of that. Beamis, flattery will get you nowhere. But remember the sentiment once we get the non-profit;-)

Aug 28th - 15:44pm | Anonymous

It was sometimes like that with 2.0 on a Mac as well, and with Safari.

Aug 28th - 15:41pm | Ted Clayton

Now that's what I like to see: A good [s]excuse[/s] reason not to upgrade! ;-)

Aug 28th - 15:40pm | Kirby Adams

I'm guessing it's this: On the front page, under the Photo of the Week, there is a Latest News headline. It's all blank space under that until the bottom where the latest news actually shows up. Not really a big deal. I never go to the front page, so I didn't notice until now. -Kirby.....Lansing, MI

Aug 28th - 14:49pm | Chas

I'm viewing this with Firefox 3 and don't see a problem. Can you post a screenshot showing the difference?

Flooding Nurtures Life in Congaree National Park

Aug 28th - 15:58pm | Kirby Adams

I might add that the Harry Hampton Visitor Center is among the best in the NPS. Everything from it's setting (almost invisible from 100 feet away!) to the educational dioramas and mounts to the most energetic rangers I've ever met made that VC a memorable one for me. Badlands may have just eclipsed it as my favorite VC, but I love the Harry Hampton.

The Essential RVing Guide

The Essential RVing Guide to the National Parks

The National Parks RVing Guide, aka the Essential RVing Guide To The National Parks, is the definitive guide for RVers seeking information on campgrounds in the National Park System where they can park their rigs. It's available for free for both iPhones and Android models.

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So whether you have an iPhone or an Android, download this app and start exploring the campgrounds in the National Park System where you can park your rig.