National Parks Traveler

Almost a decade after a ranger who couldn't believe a billionaire had been given the OK to cut down trees in a scenic easement along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park landed in administrative purgatory, his case has been settled.

Seventy-five years ago, in June, 1938, Congress passed and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the bill creating Olympic National Park. With this act Americans embarked on something new in land conservation: creating a wilderness preserve large enough to protect intact old-growth forest communities and the hosts of forest-dependent wildlife they contained.

How much is the closure of the National Park System costing the country in daily economic stimulus? According to figures calculated by Climate Progress, right around $76 million.

The following ode making the rounds has its origin in canyon country, which makes sense, for that was Ed Abbey's favorite country. Hopefully, in the very, very near future, it will just be a literary part of the government shutdown's history.

As the partial shutdown of the federal government moved past its third day, the National Park System remained closed, but news surrounding the parks didn't end. A glance around the system shows hard times for lodging concessions, a particularly outspoken congressman, and ongoing energy production in some parks.

Google Maps has become a useful electronic option to paper maps for many people, and one feature of that site—"Street View"—allows users to see a ground-level, 360 degree photographic view of many locations around the world. Now that service is adding parts of some national parks, including the Grand Canyon and even one rather surprising location that lies beneath the ground.

A portrait of officers' quarters at Fort Hancock in Gateway National Recreation Area came away with top honors in this year's National Historic Landmark Photo Contest.

A California congressman is pushing legislation that would turn aside federal environmental laws to allow for the salvage of timber burned by the Rim Fire in Yosemite National Park and the adjacent Stanislaus National Forest.

Eighty years is a long time to operate a business in the same location, and when your lease isn't renewed, well, it can knock you off your feet. That must have been the feeling at the Acadia Corp. when informed they lost their contract at Acadia National Park.

The Albright Visitor Center in Yellowstone National Park is housed in one of the old buildings built when the military occupied the park in the very early 1900s. As such, engineers didn't think much about earthquakes.