National Parks Traveler

Exploring national parks by water is a great way to get away from the crowds and out into the scenery. If you'd like to hone your skills for this type of adventure, rangers at Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Wyoming and Montana will be offering a guided kayaking program this summer.

Bears have a sweet tooth, too. And that's why the Gregory Bald area at Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been temporarily closed to humans. The reason is the cherry crop that has attracted black bears looking for a tasty meal.

Water provides the energy needed to drive the machinery at Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site, but without waterwheels to capture that energy, well, all that energy would be lost. To keep things running, the park site currently is working on building five new waterwheels by hand. What's missing, though, are some good trees. Large white oak trees, specifically, that can be fashioned into shafts for the waterwheels.

Aztec has nothing to do with the Aztecs of Mexico and Central America. But it does have everything to do with Ancestral Puebloans. It may be one of many places people from Chaco moved to when Chaco was abandoned. Occupation here began in about the late 1000's and flourished until around 1130. By the late 1200's, this settlement was abandoned as so many others had been. As is the case elsewhere, no one knows why.