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07/30/2008 - 9:35amTelegraph Fire Closing in On Yosemite National ParkThe [url=http://www.fire.ca.gov/index_incidents_telegraph.php]Telegraph Fire[/url] started on Friday afternoon. By about 6pm on Saturday, the smoke was pouring over the Sierra Crest into the Hoover Wilderness, 50 trail-miles northeast of Tuolumne Meadows. It looked like a storm coming in, except for the orange sunlight. By 10pm, I was awakened in my backcountry ...
03/19/2008 - 12:06pmStudies Show Bear Spray More Effective Than Guns Against GrizzliesFred Miller wrote:[quote]This issue isn't about bears. It's about rights[/quote] I guess I misread Kurt's title of this article: [i]Studies Show Bear Spray More Effective Than Guns Against Grizzlies[/i] I suggest that you're failing to examine the issue of your rights more deeply. A gun, narrowly defined as a device ...
03/17/2008 - 5:53pmCrews Remove Garbage From Marijuana Farms in Sequoia National ParkSomeone wrote:[quote]Ah, what the liberalism of the 60's has wrought....[/quote] It's interesting where the Park Service is putting the blame. Here's a bit of [url=http://www.wildebeat.net/scripts/E019.html]the transcript[/url] of my interview with Alexandra Picavet, the media relations officer for [url=http://www.nps.gov/seki/]Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks[/url]:[quote]There's always been a small problem in many national parks ...
03/17/2008 - 11:37amCrews Remove Garbage From Marijuana Farms in Sequoia National ParkThis article doesn't mention one of the most interesting aspects of this sad, ongoing story: The non-profit volunteer groups that provided most of the on-the-ground labor to clean up these sites. One of the most active of these groups is the [url=http://www.trailcrew.org/]High Sierra Volunteer Trail Crew[/url]. These volunteer groups are ...
03/11/2008 - 2:55pmBear-Proof Food Canisters Mandatory for Most Backcountry Travel in Grand Teton National ParkI typically fit 8 days of food, at about 3,000 calories per day, into [url=http://www.wild-ideas.net/b_weekender.html]mine[/url]. It all depends on what you choose to take. There's some advice here: http://www.sierrawildbear.gov/foodstorage/packingabearcanister.htm And there are [url=http://www.wild-ideas.net/b_expedition.html]larger canisters[/url] that are still lighter than the standard park-issued models. __________ The WildeBeat "The audio journal about ...
03/11/2008 - 8:49amBear-Proof Food Canisters Mandatory for Most Backcountry Travel in Grand Teton National ParkIn the Sierra Nevada, they started out loaning them for free. Now you either have to rent them, or bring your own. For standards and requirements in the Sierra Nevada, check out: http://www.sierrawildbear.gov/ __________ The WildeBeat "The audio journal about getting into the wilderness" 10-minute weekly documentaries to help you ...
03/10/2008 - 3:59pmBear-Proof Food Canisters Mandatory for Most Backcountry Travel in Grand Teton National ParkBear-resistant food canisters are also required in most of Sequoia/Kings-Canyon National Park as well. In addition, large areas of wilderness on Forest Service land in the Sierra Nevada also require you to use such canisters. We explored the history and effectiveness of bear cans in a two-part edition of the ...
02/15/2008 - 9:19amNational Park Visitation Debate -- Here We Go AgainErik wrote:[quote] wonder if they attempted taking the demographic changes the US has experienced into account in their models.[/quote] By demographic changes, do you mean the decline of caucasians as majority, or something else? Somewhere I have a link to the work of an entire team of sociologists the NPS ...
02/12/2008 - 3:39pmNational Park Visitation Debate -- Here We Go AgainFrom my own perspective, I think two data points on backcountry and wilderness use might be more telling than over-all park visitation statistics. (Note: These are not "official" numbers. They were given to me by anonymous staff of these entities without official vetting by their media relations office.) The first ...
02/06/2008 - 6:44pmVenturing Into the Backcountry of the National Park SystemIf you ever want to plan that Kings Canyon trip, let me know. I'll find a club or a non-profit to take you there who'll be just as qualified as a commercial guide service, minus the luxury fee. (Who knows, I might even be the leader.) If you enter Sequoia/Kings ...
01/22/2008 - 6:46pmAssociation of National Park Rangers Opposes Change in Park Gun RegulationsAs a long-time professional in the "media biz" I can say that press accounts of backcountry violence are about exceptional, unusual, extraordinary events. In other words, they're weird, that's why they're news. Literally, the likelihood of these kinds of mishaps happening to any one of us is in the one-in-many-millions ...
12/19/2007 - 5:16pmSenators Pushing To Allow Concealed Weapons in National ParksPerhaps this will cause a boom in the bullet-proof tent industry. I've spent approaching 500 nights out in wilderness areas throughout the 48 states and a few places in southern Canada. I've never been in a survival situation where a deadly weapon would have been an effective solution to the ...
11/26/2007 - 7:40amReview: Wild Soundscapes, Discovering the Voice of the Natural WorldThe recording and processing end of the audio technology certainly has changed rapidly. But what hasn't changed nearly as fast are microphones, and those are the most important tools. Just as lenses didn't make much if any technological change between film and digital cameras, microphones have made little if any ...
11/21/2007 - 3:56pmDoes Hiking Yosemite National Park's Half Dome Still Present a Wilderness Experience?On November 21st, 2007, Random Walker wrote:[quote]How about removing the cable system entirely then.[/quote] There are certainly wilderness advocates who are in favor of this proposal. Unfortunately, the cables are considered a historical monument, and thus are also to be protected by the park. This is a case where the ...
11/20/2007 - 11:32amDoes Hiking Yosemite National Park's Half Dome Still Present a Wilderness Experience?As far as I can tell, the (big-W) Wilderness areas in the contiguous 48 states are all such small islands of wildness surrounded by lands that are in many cases heavily impacted by human presence. Even if we completely eliminated all amenities for human visitors, such as trails, signage, established ...
10/26/2007 - 10:38amCamping in Comfort: A Guide to Roughing It With Ease and Style"Roughing-it" doesn't have to be rough. It's mostly about your mindset and your expectations. All of the most memorable backcountry experiences I've had were not when everything went smoothly, but rather were when there was some excitement that let us discover, gently, that we could be happy and feel even ...
10/16/2007 - 1:59pmWhat is YOUR Favorite Park Experience?July 1968, [url=http://www.nps.gov/isro/]Isle Royale National Park[/url], [url=http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=47.93556&lon=-89.17667]Huginnin Cove[/url]: My first family backpacking trip. I was still in grade school, and my parents were total novices who had no idea what they'd got us all into. We did all of our cooking and water purification over a modest wood fire. My ...
09/06/2007 - 3:36pmThe Secret Life of Drugs in ParksWe did a story in 2005 on what it took a volunteer group to clean up one relatively small marijuana garden in a California state park: [url=http://www.wildebeat.net/index.cgi/2005/11#E019]The WildeBeat number 19: Restoring a Park Gone to Pot[/url] (I suppose that Kurt and Jeremy are going to get tired of my pointing ...
09/06/2007 - 3:17pmFederal Real ID May (Not) Be Required For Park Visit"A reliable source" in Lassen Volcanic National Park told me recently that it costs them close to 150% as much to staff the entry and exit gates as they take in admissions revenue. And they only staff those gates in the summer during office hours. For those of you who ...
09/05/2007 - 2:28pmFederal Real ID May (Not) Be Required For Park VisitEven at Yosemite National Park, the entry gates on the roads are only staffed during normal office hours. There isn't the budget for staff to manage visitor entrances and exits at other times. I was once told by someone at another park that hikers entering and exiting the parks on ...