Great Basin National Park

Water is a precious thing in the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada, and the decision by Utah's governor not to endorse a plan to send groundwater from the region to Las Vegas is great news for Great Basin National Park.

As summer gives way to fall, and fall to winter, we usually have more time to read, as there's less daylight outside. So what related to the national parks are you reading these days?

Fall is, in many people's eyes, the best season to enjoy the National Park System. Temperatures are moderating, insects are a thing of the past, forests wrap themselves in dazzling colors, and wildlife is easy to see and often vocal. Here are ten great fall destinations in the park system.

The eclipse is past us, as is the transit of Venus, but that doesn't mean astronomy shows in the national parks are over. This week the 3rd Annual Great Basin Astronomy Festival will be celebrated at Great Basin National Park.

Where are the wild things? For those who call a metropolitan area home, and seldom leave its concrete and steel confines, that might be a reasonable question. National Geographic has the answers for you in a two-night series, Untamed Americas, that debuts this Sunday and Monday nights.

If you're out in the parks this week, check to see if the park you're in is offering a viewing of the "Venus transit" that will occur Tuesday afternoon. Units from Arches to Voyageurs national parks will be offering special viewing of the celestial event.

An upcoming solar eclipse may attract more attention, but some parks are also planning for visitors who would like to observe an even more unusual celestial event. The Venus Transit on June 5 will be a literal "last chance in your lifetime" occurrence.

Sunday May 20, 2012 will offer a Celestial Super Bowl—a near-total solar eclipse—and parks in parts of the western U.S. will offer some prime viewing locations. If you want to make travel plans for special eclipse-related activities or purchase equipment for safe viewing, just don't wait too long to do so.

A "bioblitz" is an intensive, short-term effort by trained scientists and citizen volunteers to conduct an inventory of specific types of plants or animals found in a specific area. A recent effort in Great Basin National Park was very productive, but are you ready and willing to help collect hymenoptera?

Need a good dose of starry nights? Plan to be in Great Basin National Park at month's end to take in the park's second annual astronomy festival.

A report out today from the National Parks Conservation Association paints a distressing picture of the health of the National Park System just five years out from the centennial of the National Park Service.

Winter long has been regarded as the slow season for national park visits, and that's a good thing if you prefer to have the parks to yourself. With most travelers confined by school schedules to the summer months, and many convinced winter is a bad time to be outdoors, you can savor the best of the parks from coast to coast in winter. Here are some snapshots of wintry fun in the parks that bear that out.

Less than a month after a conservation group expressed its displeasure with the Obama administration for not providing Endangered Species Act protection to the American pika due to the plight it might face due to climate change, a new study suggests the tiny mammals are more widespread than thought and seem to thrive in a temperature range greater than long thought possible.

During my six-month internship with the Student Conservation Association, I had the opportunity to collect data for a field study on the habitat effects of climate change. Our crew of four searched for pikas while backpacking along the rocky slopes of California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada. We came to understand several traits of the pika that could make this elusive alpine mammal an important ally in the movement to stop climate change.

When rattlesnakes that endanger humans are moved elsewhere, translocation reduces survival rates. Snakes moved long distances fare worst. At Great Basin National Park, wildlife biologists are studying translocated snakes to establish what translocation distance is “far enough.”

Let's see, let's see, where's a good place to gaze at stars in the National Park System? Natural Bridges National Monument? Check. Bryce Canyon National Park? Check. Grand Canyons National Park? Check. Great Basin National Park? Add it to the list.

Solitude. Who doesn’t treasure some from time to time? And some of the greatest draws of national parks is their peacefulness and the ability for you to pass through an entrance gate and escape the pressures of day-to-day life. Where can you find some of the best solitude in the National Park System? Read on for some of the Traveler’s top picks for solitude.

Not even its remote location in eastern Nevada can protect Great Basin National Park from the pressures, demands, and impacts of urban areas. Proposed power plants threaten its air, and growing Las Vegas could impact the park's water resources.

What in the world was Jim Hansen thinking back in the 1990s when, as a U.S. representative from Utah and chair of the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands, he said Great Basin National Park should be removed from the National Park System?

On a clear day, you often can see for miles and miles. But as a report from the National Parks Conservation Association points out, clear days are harder and harder to find in our national parks under the Bush administration's relatively laissez-faire approach to coal-fired power plants.

Great Basin National Park, which boasts the cleanest air of any park in the Lower 48, could lose that distinction if a coal-fired power plant is allowed to go on-line as proposed just 38 miles northwest of the park.