You are here

Home » National Parks Traveler

UPDATE | Estes Park, Colorado, Mayor Asks Interior To Close Rocky Mountain National Park

Hours after the mayor of the biggest gateway town to Rocky Mountain National Park on Friday wrote Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to ask him to close the park to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from sweeping over his town, the park closed to the public.
PDF icon letter_to_secretary_of_interior_re-covid-19_and_rmnp_2020-03-20.pdf

UPDATE 5 | Around The Parks: Coping With Coronavirus, March 20

Closings streamed in from across the National Park System on Friday, ranging from campgrounds and river trips to all of Yosemite National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park and most of Everglades and Biscayne national parks being shuttered as efforts ramped up to halt the spread of coronavirus in the park system.

Public Lands Alliance Hands Out Its Partnership Awards

During its recent annual conference the Public Lands Alliance announced the recipients of its 2020 Partnership Awards that celebrate the best in public lands partnerships. These awards honor individuals, organizations, publications, products, programs and services that embody leading edge achievements in the preservation of public lands and the enrichment the visitor experience.

UPDATE 2 | National Park Concessionaires Seeking Federal Help In Dealing With Tourism Falloff

Concessionaires who run lodges, restaurants, inns, climbing expeditions, river trips, and other recreational operations in national parks have asked the White House to provide financial assistance to deal with the falloff in tourism to the National Park System due to the coronavirus pandemic. Their requests range from a waiver of franchise fees paid to the parks to a two-year extension of current contracts.

Erosion: Essays Of Undoing

National park enthusiasts will likely be familiar with the writing of Terry Tempest Williams. Her previous book The Hour of Land told national park stories as only she, in her lyrical, insightful, and emotional way, can tell them. Erosion is not explicitly about national parks, though some of the essays lament what has happened to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monuments. She has already addressed the challenges of many other parks in that earlier work. The 32 pieces in this book, most of them essays, address a “world being torn to pieces,” being eroded, a condition that brings Williams, at times, to heartbreak.