When Chief Ranger Jerry Epperson hired me to be a seasonal ranger at Arches National Park in Utah 25 years ago, I wasn’t sure what my duties were. So it seemed like a good idea to ask. Epperson smiled wryly and said, “A ranger should range.” So even though we had to endure chores like […]
National Park Service
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
To Save the Wild Bison
To Save the Wild Bison Mary Ann Franke309 pages, hardcover: $29.95University of Oklahoma Press, 2005. Mary Ann Franke traces the controversial history of Yellowstone National Park’s bison, the only wild bison herd that’s persisted since pre-Columbus days. Praised as a potent restorer of biodiversity, the animals have also been persecuted as transmitters of disease; dozens […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Revealed — secret changes to park rules
Critics say the Bush administration is again subverting the public process
Posted inWotr
Park ranger presides over the meeting of heaven and earth
In the dog days of this August, the ashes of “gonzo” writer Hunter S. Thompson are to be blasted out of a cannon from the top of a 150-foot tower, over the beauty of his mountain home near Woody Creek, Colo. Just a few weeks ago, while I was working at the Black Canyon of […]
Posted inWotr
How Delicate Arch was saved by bureaucratic stonewalling
“There have been some, even in the Park Service, who advocate spraying Delicate Arch with a fixative of some sort — Elmer’s glue perhaps or Lady Clairol Spray Net.” Believe it or not, that’s what Edward Abbey wrote in Desert Solitaire, and when I first read that, I thought he was kidding. The idea of […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Mountain bike association wheels into national parks
Mountain bikers scored an access victory last month when the National Park Service agreed to explore opening the long off-limits national park system to knobby tires. But riders won’t be hitting singletrack in Yellowstone or Yosemite anytime soon, says International Mountain Biking Association spokesman Mark Eller. The association signed a five-year deal with the Park […]
Posted inWotr
You don’t need a motor to experience Yellowstone
While I disagree with Interior Secretary Gale Norton’s agenda for Yellowstone National Park, I have to admire her political smarts. She showed great form during her recent snowmobile and snow coach tour of the park this winter. Secretary Norton charmed reporters with her grit, gamely bouncing through sub-zero temperatures on a three-hour snowmobile excursion, and […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
Lawsuits swarm around Yellowstone snowmobiles
As predicted, after seven years of lawsuits, contradictory plans and court rulings, the National Park Service announced on Nov. 4 that it will continue to allow hundreds of snowmobiles per day into Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks for the next three winters (HCN, 11/8/04: Judge vaporizes Yellowstone snowmobile ban). The new rules will allow […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
Anasazi outpost dodges the drill
In early December, Hovenweep National Monument, in the remote southeast corner of Utah, narrowly escaped an attempt to lease nearby land for oil and gas drilling. The monument’s 400-acre Square Tower unit was created in 1923 to protect the remains of an almost 800-year-old Anasazi settlement, where as many as 500 people once lived. From […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
What’s wrong with user fees?
Sen. Larry Craig’s article about “Fees and our forests don’t always fit” makes a few good points, although I think that it misses some others. What I do not understand is the reluctance of Sen. Craig to support these user fees, since according to him, activities like hunting, fishing and hiking are done on “unimproved […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
National parks pinching pennies
Former Park Service employees say headquarters is hiding budget woes
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Park police chief canned for candidness
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “National parks pinching pennies.” U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers didn’t know what to expect when she reported to the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy, on Dec. 5, 2003. “I had […]
Posted inWotr
When does our garbage become archaeology?
A rusted cooking pot, an old stove top, bits of china and pottery. Exploring in the woods around a backcountry chalet in Montana’s Glacier National Park, we poked through the remains of garbage–everything from glass chips to bed springs. We prodded these remnants of the past: Historic rubbish. Knowing the National Park Service classifies these […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
One national park could tell the truth about the West
The Black Canyon in western Colorado is one of the world’s most splendid examples of the depths to which erosion and uplift can go. A steep gash in ancient granite, nearly 3,000 feet deep — only 40 feet wide at its narrowest, and not a whole lot wider at its rim — the Black Canyon […]
Posted inWotr
One national park could tell the truth about the West
The Black Canyon in western Colorado is one of the world’s most splendid examples of the depths to which erosion and uplift can go. A steep gash in ancient granite, nearly 3,000 feet deep and not much wider at its rim, the Black Canyon is the kind of geological anomaly we like to single out […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Park Service wilderness in disarray
Departing wilderness boss blasts the agency
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Getting under the desert’s skin: Biologist Jayne Belnap
The scenery of southeastern Utah is hard to miss. Steep redrock canyons plunge into long and lazy riverbends; wind-sculpted stone arches glow pinkly at sunset. But when biologist Jayne Belnap hikes through this famous landscape, it’s not the show-stopping rocks that draw her attention. It’s the algae. “This is not a rocky landscape, this is […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2003: San Diego's Habitat Triage
Park expansion threatened
A ranch that promised to be an important addition to Wind Cave National Park in the Black Hills is now for sale on the open market. The 5,555-acre Casey Ranch would increase the park’s land base by 20 percent, and add an 85-year-old homestead and a “buffalo jump” — a cliff from which American Indian […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
More helicopters to buzz Glacier Park
The skies over Glacier National Park will be noisier this summer, and helicopters lugging seat-belted tourists don’t deserve all the blame. Park managers are increasing their own helicopter and airplane traffic to do backcountry chores, adding 52 flights to their recent average of 50 per summer. According to an environmental assessment, the park’s air force […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Park Service guts budget to fight terrorism
The National Park Service plans to cut millions of dollars in trail and building repairs to cover its share of the “war on terror.” Since 2001, the Park Service has moved more of its rangers to parks with international borders and high-profile icon parks such as the Statue of Liberty. As rangers are reassigned, their […]