All Parks News

By Kelly Restuccia This month, more than 1,000 professional interpreters will gather at the National Association for Interpretation’s (NAI) annual workshop in Portland, Oregon. The attendees will discuss ways to use their expertise in nature, history, and other topics to continue their goal of enriching visitor experiences at parks, cultural sites and historic landmarks across the country.

Visiting the region's national forests will be free Tuesday in honor of America's veterans, officials say. "The Fee-Free Day is an opportunity to get outdoors and appreciate the open spaces and national treasure of our public lands here in Southern California, while also honoring our country's veterans," said Recreation Officer Fran Colwell, of the San Bernardino National Forest.

As if, in this economy, you didn’t have enough reasons to feel grumpy about staying home to save money, now comes “Great Lodges of the National Parks, Volume Two” (Graphic Arts Press, $35) to a coffee table near you. In these pages, behold Death Valley’s Furnace Creek Inn, Hawaii’s Volcano House, Alaska’s Camp Denali and seven other memorable outdoorsy lodgings, all west of Denver, in historic black-and-white and contemporary color.

Today, National Park Foundation Honorary Chair, Mrs. Laura Bush and Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers Band participated in a First Bloom event with Dallas youth to mark the program's one-year anniversary.

Outposts has reported that presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are not hunters or serious fishermen. But both appear genuine when remarking, in the November issue of Backpacker magazine, on their fondness for hiking.

Since the 1980s, mountain bikers have long battled for better access to National Parks. Now, thanks to a new regulation being considered by the National Parks Service, mountain bikers might finally be allowed to roll knobbies onto some of the most sacrosanct trail systems in the nation.

More than 190 million acres of federal land in 12 western states will be opened for development of geothermal energy resources, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced today.

Two conservation groups are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force the federal agency to clean up emissions that cloud the air over national parks and wilderness areas. The National Parks Conservation Association and Environmental Defense Fund filed a lawsuit Tuesday against EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' next project continues his cinematic journey into American history to answer the question, "Who are we?'' "It's emotional archaeology we're undertaking,'' Burns said Thursday. "The past points us to future horizons.'' Burns previewed pieces of "The National Parks: America's Best Idea'' to about 500 people at the Rococo Theatre in Lincoln for a Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation fundraiser. It was the first public peek at the unfinished documentary.

A proposed National Park Service (NPS) regulation change will benefit Americans by improving mountain biking experiences in national parks. The new policy would empower park superintendents to manage trails for bicycles, without sacrificing environmental review or public comment opportunities.

More than three out of four (77 percent) of 1,400 present and former employees of the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) predict that the controversial Department of Interior (DOI) proposed rule reversing the long-standing prohibition of carrying loaded, concealed weapons in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges will have an adverse affect on the ability of NPS and USFWS employees to accomplish their mission.

There's nothing more I'd like to do than spend all my days visiting every national park in the park system. Working at BACKPACKER certainly helps, but this thing called the Internet keeps dragging me back to society.

The Bush administration plans to make it easier for mountain bikers to gain access to national parks and other public lands before the president — an avid cyclist himself — leaves office.

More than 100,000 miles, two motorcars, 48 states and 270 national parks later, 12-year-old Chandler Johnson still hasn’t met her goal — a goal to visit every National Park by the time she is 14.

After a career as a journalist at newspapers including the San Francisco Examiner, Christine Barnes, has established a second career for herself writing books about national park lodges around the West.