National Parks Traveler

In one of the "Iron man," or perhaps "Iron dog," events of sled-dog racing, the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest race is under way, with 24 teams mushing from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon. The trail follows historic Gold Rush and Mail Delivery routes from the turn of the 20th Century, and passes through part of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.

It promised to be the biggest event in Western North Carolina in 67 years – bigger certainly than when Eric Rudolph was caught dumpster diving in Murphy. The North Shore Road controversy in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was over. Swain County was going to get its $52 million over 10 years -- an amount calculated as the present value of the road that was flooded in 1943 to create Fontana Lake and Fontana Dam.

The Wilderness Act was enacted in 1964. After nearly a half-century, the wilderness edifice of the national park system is only half complete. Ten years ago, Wes Henry, the NPS Wilderness Coordinator, directed that a report document the unfinished wilderness agenda of the parks. Some progress has since been made. The year ahead may be a good year. Much remains to be done.

A number of NPS areas reported increases in visitation during 2009, but what was the outlook going into last year? Now that the actual results are coming in, let's see how the crystal balls fared.