Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks officials want to remove non-native trout from some lakes that naturally were fishless in a bid to save a yellow-legged frog. Now a group says trout should be removed from all lakes in the two parks that originally were fishless.
Still unchecked on my national park "to-do" list is a winter visit to Sequoia National Park with snowshoes and XC skis in tow. The folks at Wuksachi Lodge are trying to entice me with winter specials.
Searchers planned to expand their efforts Friday to find a 73-year-old hiker who set out on a day hike to the summit of Mount Whitney in Sequoia National Park.
Ground and air teams were searching Thursday for a missing 73-year-old hiker who failed to return from a day hike to the summit of Mount Whitney in Sequoia National Park.
Not too long ago fisheries experts in the High Sierra realized that if they removed non-native trout from high-elevation lakes, they could boost fragile populations of a small frog that once was widespread throughout the range. Now Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks want to remove trout from slightly more than 80 of the parks' 560 lakes and ponds to give the mountain yellow-legged frog a chance for survival.
The latest chapter in the battle against marijuana farms in national parks led to the temporary closure of Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park while rangers swooped in on a growing operation with an estimated street value of $20 million.
Crumbling infrastructure. Pitiful toilets. Overrun habitat. Those are just some of the things that have Sequoia National Park officials wanting to do some major restoration and rehabilitation work at Crystal Cave. And so they're asking for your thoughts on the proposal.
It's hard to believe summer's almost over. But with the fall lodging deals starting to arrive, you know it must be true. If you've always wanted to visit Sequoia National Park in the fall, this might be the perfect opportunity.
The mountain yellow-legged frog was once one of the most abundant vertebrates in the Sierra Nevada. The flash of its yellow legs could be seen and the echo of its croaking could be heard across the Sierra’s alpine lakes, even those nestled at 12,000 feet that contain watery habitats typically too cold for amphibians. Unfortunately, that empire began to crumble as long ago as 1850 when non-native trout were first transplanted into some of those lakes to increase fishing opportunities.
Even experienced travelers often are surprised to learn that some national park lodges still offer rooms without a private bathroom. In fact, in making a reservation at one of the lodges you might discover there is no choice other than a room that requires use of a community bathroom. While European visitors are not surprised and might even expect rooms without a private bathroom, many U.S. travelers don’t look kindly on the need to use a bathroom that is just down the hallway.
A 19-year-old visitor to Sequoia National Park was killed Monday when he fell about 50 feet from Tokopah Falls, according to the National Park Service.
A two-week operation involving various law enforcement agencies has wiped out 71 marijuana growing operations in Kings Canyon National Park and led to the arrests of more than 80 individuals tied to Mexican drug cartels.
The Park Service co-sponsored this year’s International Congress of Speleology (ICS), which has been going on all week in Kerrville, Texas. Many of the 1,300 participants signed up for field trips that included guided tours of developed and wild caves within NPS units.
Hot summer temperatures reaching into the triple digits and cool, swift-running waters conspired last weekend to claim the lives of two young girls who looked to the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River in Sequoia National Park for momentary relief from the heat, according to park officials.
A young California girl enjoying a hot summer afternoon in Sequoia National Park drowned in the Middle Fork of the Kaweah River near Hospital Rock when the current swept her through some rapids and trapped her under a rock.
Fire restrictions were put into place Friday in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks as officials try to cope with extremely dry conditions across the two parks.
In the early 1900s, some national parks existed, but getting to them was problematic. Then was born the idea to develop a "National Park-to-Park Highway," one that would run through 11 states and connect 13 national parks.
Wouldn't it be great if roadwork could be done during the off-season months, say November through April? Sadly, the weather makes that difficult and so you'll have to tolerate traffic at a snail's pace at times if you head to Sequoia National Park this summer.
How comfortable have we become with national park settings? With the big sweep of granite that frames the Yosemite Valley, with Old Faithful's not-quite-so-faithful demonstrations of steam and hot water, with the fall's colorful deciduous forests of Great Smoky and Shenandoah?
Should search-and-rescue subjects be billed for the cost of their rescue? It's long been a thorny issue, one that organizations that respond to SARs long have opposed.
If you subconsciously want to become a search-and-rescue statistic in the National Park System, your best chance would be in either Grand Canyon National Park, Gateway National Recreation Area, or Yosemite National Park.
Sequoia National Park long has been known for its tall trees and High Sierra backcountry. But more and more of what's under the park's surface is being discovered, necessitating an updating of the park's Cave Management Plan.
If you're nimble and flexible, there are some special lodging deals to be had in Sequoia and Olympic national parks, and some boating deals at Lake Powell National Recreation Area.
The Pacific Crest Trail ranges from Canada to Mexico, running through Washington, Oregon, and California along the way, traversing not one but seven units of the National Park System in the process. While mountain bikers are not supposed to use the trail, recently some have been poaching sections in California.
A massive lands bill, one that would have added nearly 1 million acres of national park lands to the national wilderness system, has failed to gain passage in the U.S. House of Representatives. But it could live to see another vote.
The events of this past week and the advent of a new government cannot help but take our minds back to other times in our history, particularly to 1933. It was in that winter, another troubled time in our national history, that Franklin Roosevelt assumed the presidency. As it does now, the United States in 1933 faced severe and unresolved economic problems.
It might be cold and snowy in some parts of the country, but it's comparatively dry and mild in the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. As a result, if you're heading into a national park in the West this long weekend don't expect premium snow conditions.
A massive lands bill introduced today by Senator Jeff Bingaman would, if passed by Congress and signed by the president, designate hundreds of thousands of acres of official wilderness across the National Park System.
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