Recent comments

Public lands are frequently used for commercial activities but they are generally limited to those that contribute to management objectives for an area. I don't work for NPS and am not up to date on their commercial activity permit policy and process, but I'm having a tough time figuring out how lining Scions up and down Alcatraz Island furthers management objectives.

Joseph:
Jus' to let ya know, TAXES were originally set up by our founders to be paid towards one thing and one thing ONLY...DEFENSE of this great nation. So don't complain....
Granma

Hey - if you guys did such a great job apart, imagine what NPT will be like! Keep up the great work! The new look and feel is wonderful.

The days of government management should be drawing to a close. The continuing faith that is placed in this oversized and self-perpetuating bureaucracy with its legendary mismanagment is truly astounding! Can any of you out there name even ONE efficient federal government agency? One that is free of self-promotion, careerism and image mongering? Yeah, that's what I figured.

I say it is time to begin a dialogue about deconstructing this silly mess of vertically structured incompetence and get "the crown jewels" placed in the hands of private or semi-private organizations that care about each individual park and want to do their utmost to preserve and protect them on a place by place basis. A good first step would be to have a non-partisan commission set up to look at getting rid of the "park barrel parks" that are in existence due to political malfeasance, much like what was done for military base closures in the 1990's. Do we really need a Women's Rights NPS unit? Or a park that honors "America's copper smelting heritage" in the upper peninsula of Michigan? How about Steamtown in Pennsylvania? Are these places worth the millions that are appropriated away from Yosemite and the Everglades every year to fund their upkeep?

Once these units are properly done away with we can then concentrate on how best to divest the crown jewels from the political theater of the absurd that is the U.S. Dept. of the Interior and put them into the hands of more competent and area specific caretakers who will be dedicated to their particular park area and not to some nebulous and sappy "national park ideal". Freeman Tilden is dead. So are his half-baked and mostly silly ideas. Let's move into the 21st century with a viable plan for preservation, not a continuing template for unaccoutable careerists who move from park to park to further a job ladder climb rather than a dedication to particular places that they hold near and dear to their hearts.

It's time to deconstruct! The 100th anniversary of the NPS should be about the end of the line, not more meaningless blather about a laughable "Centennial Intiative" followed by an endless string of more meaningless intiatives and yet more inane acronyms with a new museum in Washington, DC to "honor" the contributions made by the NPS in the distant past. No folks it's time to put this whole broken system out to pasture and start anew. That is the only way we will save the parks from their biggest threat: the NPS!

Congratulations! The new interface looks great, and I'm eagerly anticipating the results of your collaboration. Both NP Traveler and Park Remark have proven their worth many times over, and this new vision should be even more valuable for those of us who love the parks.

Ranger Bob

Home Page: http://www.bobmackreth.com

Blog: http://retreadranger.blogspot.com/

Congratulations. It's great to see the two of you partner. I'm about to launch RSS feeds for the sections of the Yellowstone Newspaper (actually, they're already up, but I haven't published them yet as I see if there are any kinks). That can hardly cover the full range of stuff for all the parks, but it does a pretty good job for Yellowstone and Grand Teton. I hope you and your readers will find them useful and will let everyone know when they are live (probably July 1, though it could be a day or two sooner).

National Parks Traveler has been an amazing source for new information and fresh commentary. When I compile the aforementioned newspaper, it's always, always, always a stop along my way.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World

That Chattahoocchee article was important. So was the one I posted the day before from SW Oregon on the Wild Wilderness blog --- and so is the discussion folks were having about Kachess Lake Campground in WA state. The three are all related and together they point to the future.

While people are focusing on FLREA and the affect of recreation fees per se, the truly important action is with Granger-Thye and defacto privatization.

In order to make privatization work, the public had to be denied the opportunity to recreate elsewhere on the forests and to do so for free. If forest visitors had opportunities available to recreation for free, then privatized recreation could not compete. Lynn Scarlett's Reason think-tank has made that point repeatedly.

The recreation industry doesn't get a penny from entrance fees charged under FLREA --- not one red cent. The recreation industry did not give us pay-to-play in order to enrich the agencies. The recreation industry did not give us FLREA in for its "Standard Amenity Fees". Whatever money the industry will make directly from FLREA will be derived through the provision of special, commercial, services for which "Expanded Amenity Fees" are charged.

In contrast to FLREA --- the recreation industry gets to keep 85 cents on the dollar charged under Granger Thye.

For the National Forests, the future is the privatization of access and the retention of fees under the authority of Granger Thye

Mustang Sally (aka acid tongue momma) my tribe always considers and recognizes the bear as a sacred animal regardless who was here first...what difference does it make to you...you seem so anti nature! Why!!

1.) In the Teton case.. responsibility lies with the NPS. It is entirely thier fault as was the 2 - 1967 Glacier deaths (well documented in the “Night of the Grizzlies, by Jack Olsen”. Jackson Lake Lodge is not a wilderness area where man should know that he is in harms way, and using his wilderness savy. This is an area that the NPS has encouraged all walks of life to visit by providing/allowing the paved roads and the cushy living quarters. It is not a wilderness environment. The Grizzly is a wilderness element and should not be a part of this environment. The lodge should be moved.. the area restored to wilderness, or the grizzly and the elk kill should be moved to wilderness. The NPS/Wyoming Game and Fish? has allowed the encrouchment of the gizzlies habitat into non-wilderness areas… visitor areas, knowing placing naive tourists in harms way. This is criminal. Typical… as in the case of the Glacier 1967 deaths.. the NPS uses 20/20 hindsite to correct it’s mismanagemnt of bears. This shows how little the NPS values human life. A garbage dump near a mountain cabin in Glacier in 1967 is no different than an elk kill site near Jackson Lodge in Grand Teton. Action should be taken… not against the bear, but against the NPS and thier continued inability to manage the people and bear interface.... 3 grizzly cubs now know it is ok to chow down on tourists.
2.) In the Yellowstone photographer's mauling last month.. the fault lies with the maulee... he invaded the bears turf and invaded thier safe sapce.. This was the second time this guy has been mauled... some people just don't get it... but is was his choice.

Sally,

I get this feeling that you've never read "How to Win Friends and Influence People"....

Kurt

You tree-huggers are pathetic..."too much damage" maybe we oughta just put a FENCE around it and keep everybody out.... The storm did one helluva lot of DAMAGE too, including dumping a LOT of SILT in the river too...who ya gonna blame, God??
Crissakes, ya have to keep the infrastructure if people are gonna have a chance to enjoy the park, otherwise let's just sell it off to the highest bidder and develop it.
BRAVO!!! to Supt. Uberagua for his efforts to allow the American people to enjoy THEIR park...it DOESN'T just belong to a minority of envirowhackos who don't include Homo sapiens as part of the park ecology!
If you were my grandson, I'd SLAP some common sense into yer head!

Granma

At the grand canyon, they have signs warning people about the dangers of not having enough water with strapping athletic people who got into trouble and had to be rescued; likewise I think it would be effective if the zion rangers would put up some pictures of good hikers who got into trouble on the trail and posted it up there. Tragedies could be prevented a little more, hopefully.