Recent comments

Since Mr. Macdonald is so dead set against privatization of any kind and believes that the federal government is the best steward for the national parks he'd better get used to the jets. They are part and parcel of the same outfit: the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

Heck the Blue Angels may be just what the NPS needs to drum up support and interest in the parks by an increasingly jaded public bored with bears, geysers and Half Dome hikes. I can see it now, the Angels could mount a nationwide tour of the national parks and maybe cap it off with a calendar of this famous flying sqaudron soaring over twelve different parks, one for each month of the year. A January shot over a snow draped Grand Canyon, an April picture over the fog shrouded Smokies and, of course, a July photo of them buzzing Independence Hall. The sales of these calendars could go into a fund that would be split 50-50 between the military and the NPS.

I'm sure that the American public would turn out in droves to see the Blue Angels in our national parks. What better form of synergy in federal stewardship could there be? A win-win for everyone.

It is quite obvious that you were never issued a service number.
And you never served.........You have no voice!!
SOG2 USS Morton DD948

I concur with OB's comments: There is most surely a road up Surprise Cyn. I suspect that the majority of people who claim that there is no road up Surprise Canyon to Panamint City have never been to the area. If anyone has information on any other roads opened for vehicular traffic into Panamint City, which by the way has numerous private resdencies, Please e-mail me the route or provide me with a map showing the alternate route. P.S. I have numerous maps showing the Surprise Canyon Road in existance to this day.
P.S. George you statement strike me as being one of an "elitist mentality". I'm sure your a nice person but are you saying that My dad, by driving up the Surprise Canyon Road (maintained by the County) during the period from 1937 - 1972 was ruining God's wilderness. I cannot belive that there was ever any INTENT on anyone's part when they made the ascent/descent to PC to ruin the wilderness after the severe washout that precipitated this rather insane issue. It should prove to be an interesting event when my wife and I visit PC soon. I don't mind the hike but my wife's wheelchair may need to be motorized and a warn winch attached. So much for equal access. Rebuilding the road could have helped.

npt rocks. keep it up.

The same arguments about race diversity on park staffs have been made about gender. And it is nearly always framed as an issue of unqualified women getting jobs that should have gone to qualified men. Sometimes there was even a suspicion that unqualified women were selected over qualified ones so as to prove the point that women could not do the job. There may be unqualified people of all races and both sexes, and they should not be selected for jobs. But there is still a very strong odor of male superiority and misogyny everywhere and this is a factor in hiring and promotion decisions and reactions.

I once wanted to hire seasonally a young black woman who would have been very good at visitor contact, and in a southern state. But the money for the position went to some ranger function instead. This was the kind of person that should have been encouraged to think about a career. On the other hand, one of the least qualified seasonals I had to hire was a white male veteran with preference points that put him at the top of the hire list. During the summer he even had a run-in with the local police for some infraction.

The Forest Service had to be sued to allow qualified women to be hired and promoted in professional positions. These were women who had the skills, the education, the degrees. So, ultimately the court forced the USFS to a quota system that resulted in more diversity at the time than the Park Service, which had relied on the more successful tokenism strategy. Success was keeping the numbers of women low and ensuring they would stay at the bottom of the ladder.

My own opinion is that the mission of these agencies has been so compromised by outside forces, including global warming, and politics, that the quality of performance has been adversely affected, regardless of diversity issues. It has come to be seen as an impossible job, and one that is not valued by our political bosses who are eager to hand over the land to extraction and motorized use, and privatize the money making parts. Who can have pride in such a situation, or feel their work is valued, or feel that the lands can be successfully protected? They can't even be sure they will have careers at this point. So what kind of people will that scenario attract?

Kurt,

As far as I'm concerned, you and Jeremy are doing a terrific job. This webzine pulls off a unique yet wonderful balance between visiting the controversies surrounding managing parks and visiting the beauty and "wonders" (pythons in the Everglades!) of said parks.

As you know, even the best newspapers in the world make mistakes.

Keep up the good work!

Robert, I agree with you 100%.I grew up on the east coast in Melbourne,and saw Florida as it really was,"beautiful".Too much population now,and it is out of control.Too bad...

Excellent points Frank. I used to do an evening program about the fact that the NPS was probably the greatest scenic road building organization in world history. A short list of famous pavement ribbons brought to you by NPS planners: the Zion-Mt. Carmel Hwy., Going to the Sun Road, Blue Ridge Parkway, Natchez Trace, George Washington Parkway, Tioga Road, and the Rockefeller Parkway. Then there are the elaborately engineered roads without famous names that penetrate the wilderness of Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Canyonlands, Crater Lake, Colorado N.M., Great Smoky Mountains, Capitol Reef, Lassen Volcanic and Death Valley just to name a few. If there is DEFINITE legacy of the NPS it is scenic highway construction.

Even highly visited national parks have undervisited, and sometimes surprisingly accessible, components. We live an hour +/- from Rocky National Park, and last Saturday, four us hiked the Cow Creek Trail. It is on the east (i.e., metro Denver-Boulder-Fort Collins) side of the park, and temperatures in these Front Range cities were flirting with triple digits. The wildflowers are at their peak in mid- to late July. The trail is roughtly three miles one-way with a cooling waterfall at the end, the elevation gain a relatively modest thousand feet AND there is no entrance station at this trailhead -- meaning access is free. Even as shuttle buses are used to ferry people to the popular Bear Lake parking area, people wishing to climb 14,255-foot Longs Peak arrive before dawn to secure a parking space and cars snake nose-to-tail over Trail Ridge Road, we saw fewer than 30 people -- including one party of two and one party of three backpackers.

Kurt,
Thank you for covering the issues you mentioned (OHVs, snowmobiles, etc.). My comment was based on the articles on currently on the front page, and for that snapshot in time there didn't seem to be more than one or two articles with a primary focus on preservation. I'm not saying you're not doing a good job; I was just wondering: 1) Why there haven't been more articles on preservation (I appreciate the latest); and 2) Why do the readers of this blog get more outraged at parties in prisons and shipyards and a perceived lack of diversity in park visitation than environmental degradation (as evidenced by the number of reads/comments)? Is it because fighting booze and dancers in parks is somehow sexier than fighting to preserve wildness and natural settings?

Haunted Hiker,
Your comment is addressed to me, but I'd like to point out that I didn't make the "sophomoric" statement that "corporate parties totally out of character with the mission the Park Service".

That is your opinion. My opinion is that it has failed miserably in leaving places unimpaired. There are countless examples in NPS (mis)management history where leaders could (should, in my opinion) have chosen to leave areas unimpaired, but instead they chose to provide for the enjoyment of people (those too lazy or too busy to walk). The Kolob Canyon Road in ZION, which obliterated the wilderness character of that part of the park, is an excellent example. Here's a big impairment: fire suppression; things are so out of whack, it'll take decades, maybe centuries, to return fire-dependent ecosystems to a more natural state. Thanks to NPS (mis)management, many predators were hunted to extinction, and extinction, to me, is a HUGE impairment. Sewage and gas spills at Crater Lake? Check. Introducing fish to Crater Lake? Check.

Stephen Mather said, "The primary duty of the National Park Service is to protect the national parks…and keep them as nearly in their natural state as this can be done in view of the fact that access to them must be provided in order that they may be used and enjoyed." Mather recognized that it is important to allow appropriate access to the parks, but it is of utmost importance to protect them. (THE PRIMARY MISSION IS TO LEAVE PARKS UNIMPAIRED.)

And what is appropriate access? In the early 20th century, the official stance of the DOI was that no automobiles would be allowed in the national parks. Early Yellowstone superintendents argued that allowing cars into the park would be "criminal". But the NPS built thousands of miles of roads and thousands of buildings, and in the process the natural sound scape, air quality, and wild character were permanently impaired.

So, yeah, given my experience, my bias, I think the NPS failed to leave parks unimpaired. I understand that many see roads, cars, buildings as "improvements", not impairments. But to me, someone who would like to experience Crater Lake in silence as it was experienced 100 years ago, these are impairments.

And before people go off saying I want to lock up the parks and prevent access, that's not what I'm advocating. There any many forms of access, and easy access by car should not be so pervasive and extensive.

Sorry for going off topic.

Kudo's to Earth Justice, a job well done! These stalwarts for the National Parks deserve are high praise and hardy thanks.

Frank,

I be quite cynical concerning the way the NPS is managing parks, but the NPS has NOT "failed miserably" as you suggest.

Let's provide the entire sentence of The Organic Act which establishes the "mission" of the NPS: "The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purposes of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

This Act was signed in 1916. WE are the future generation, and we, by the millions, enjoy our parks which are well protected, despite the myriad of use and developement controversies we are discussing here.

Let's pull out a few verbs...PROMOTE, REGULATE, CONSERVE, PROVIDE FOR THE ENJOYMENT, LEAVE UNIMPAIRED...the mission paradox implied by these verbs is now a cliche. And certainly the NPS fails in little and sometimes not so little ways every day, but the NPS has not "failed miserably" at its mission. And when it does fail, those mistakes are made in the "provide for the enjoyment" arena as much as they are made in the "to conserve and leave unimpaired" arena.

To say that these parties and such are "totally out of character" with the NPS mission is sophomoric thinking. Alas, if only these decisions were that simple.