Fort Laramie National Historic Site in eastern Wyoming is a rare, overlooked outpost in the National Park System. It's not the only 19th century fort in the system, but it is richly steeped in Western history, from the fur trappers and the cavalry to the Oregon Trail and the Pony Express. During a recent visit, Kurt Repanshek and Fort Laramie Ranger Clayton Hanson walked the grounds. In this week's episode, the first of two episodes, they started at the approximate site of original Fort William and headed over to the sutler's store.
:02 National Parks Traveler introduction
:12 Episode introduction with Kurt Repanshek
:48 Red Clay - Grant Geissman - The Sounds of the Grand Canyon
:56 Grand Teton National Park Foundation
1:27 Interior Federal Credit Union
2:05 Washington’s National Park Fund
2:42 Friends of Acadia
3:15 Kurt Repanshek explores Fort Laramie National Historic Site with Park Guide Clayton Hanson
13:50 Oh Susanna - Grant Geissman - The Sounds of the Grand Canyon
24:35 Shenandoah - Randy Petersen - The Sounds of Shenandoah
24:50 National Parks Traveler
25:02 Western National Parks Association
25:25 Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation
25:47 North Cascades Institute
26:06 Potrero Group
26:37 Kurt's exploration of Fort Laramie with Clayton Hanson continues
36:35 The Horsemen - Randy Petersen - The Spirit of South Dakota
36:53 Episode Closing
37:15 Orange Tree Productions
37:49 Splitbeard Productions
38:01 National Parks Traveler footer
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Have you ever closely inspected the landscape when you’re touring the National Park System, particularly in the West? You never know what you might find.
Back in 2010 a 7-year-old attending a Junior Ranger program at Badlands National Park spied a partially exposed fossil that turned out to be the skull of a 32-million-year-old saber-toothed cat.
If you’ve ever visited Petrified Forest National Park you’ve no doubt marveled over the colorful fossilized tree trunks. There are also fossilized trees on the northern range of Yellowstone National Park, but nowhere near as colorful.
Wolverines, the largest land-dwelling members of the weasel family, once roamed across the northern tier of the United States, and as far south as New Mexico in the Rockies and southern California in the Sierra Nevada range. But after more than a century of trapping and habitat loss, wolverines in the lower 48 today exist only as small, fragmented populations in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, and northeast Oregon.
Spur a discussion about traveling to a national park for a vacation and odds are that it will revolve around getting out into nature, looking for wildlife, perhaps honing your photography skills, or marveling at incredible vistas.
Will the discussion include destinations that portray aspects of the country’s history, or cultural melting pot?
Tens of millions of people in the United States will be able to witness a Total Solar Eclipse on Monday as the rare astronomical event cuts a path from Texas to Maine, up to 122 miles wide in some spots. This is a great opportunity to see the exact moment when the moon fully blocks the sun, creating a blazing corona visible to those observing from the center line of totality.
With March madness down to the Sweet 16, and Opening Day of Major League Baseball having arrived, we’re going to take a break this week and dive into our podcast archives for this week’s show.
This is Kurt Repanshek, your host at the National Parks Traveler. My NCAA bracket was busted the very first day, and while the Yankees won their opening day game against the Houston Astros, I don’t think they’ll go undefeated this year.
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The Essential RVing Guide
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.
This app is packed with RVing specific details on more than 250 campgrounds in more than 70 parks.
You'll also find stories about RVing in the parks, some tips if you've just recently turned into an RVer, and some planning suggestions. A bonus that wasn't in the previous eBook or PDF versions of this guide are feeds of Traveler content: you'll find our latest stories as well as our most recent podcasts just a click away.
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.
Comments
As a former ranger of Fort Laramie National Historic Site, i would say that this is an enjoyable walking tour of an incredible resource save for one thing: the facts. Knowing the facts of your site and knowing them as well as you know your own name is IMPORTANT when interpreting a historic site. The thing to remember is that people believe what we tell them. Our desire is to hopefully represent to them the truth as well as we know it. It takes years of study to accomplish that goal, digesting the material written by "the greats" of Fort Laramie history. Individuals such as Robert Utley, Paul Hedren, Douglas McChristian, Jerome Green, John McDermott, Patricia Stallard and others are ESSENTIAL to the understanding of life at Fort Laramie, "The Queen of the Northern Plains". This tour is a good place to START. Keep after it young interpreter!