Podcasts created for National Parks Traveler

What's the difference between a Hawaiian volcano and, for instance, Mount St. Helens? Watch this video from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and you'll learn.

For six months in 2010 Andrew Skurka went on the adventure of a lifetime. By foot, ski, and raft the adventurer circumnavigated Alaska, a journey of 4,678.8 miles that tested him physically and mentally. Listen to this podcast as he shares insights to that trek.

Against the backdrop of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, there’s a biological wonder under way at Padre Island National Seashore where the Texas coastline meets the Gulf of Mexico. Where 15 years ago biologists might have seen only a handful of Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles nest on the national seashore’s beaches, this spring there have been at least 69 nests laid by the turtles, which are the most endangered sea turtles in the world.

Do our national parks need to be better promoted? Should the National Park Service be placing advertisements in major media outlets, on Internet sites, and buying TV commercials?

Among fishes, perhaps none are watched as closely as the Devils Hole Pupfish, which live on the very brink of extinction in a tiny warm spring that is part of Death Valley National Park. Via two video cameras -- one above the water's surface, the other underwater -- researchers keep tabs on the fish. And that's how they captured the effects of a recent earthquake on the small pool of water.

Fifteen years ago, back in 1995, a dream of seeing wolves running wild in Yellowstone National Park came to life, as the first of a handful or two of Canadian wolves were set free into the park. It was the culmination of a long-fought effort to see Yellowstone's ecosystem become whole once again with its complete prey and predator base. Doug Smith, who leads the park's Wolf Project, recently discussed the health of the program and what researchers have learned.