National Parks Traveler Podcast

When warm weather spreads across the National Park System, many parks offer nightly gatherings around the campfire. The tradition of gathering around a flickering fire goes back thousands of years. Fire, after all, was the giver of light in the darkest of night, and seen as offering safety from what might lurk about in the dark. For the park visitor, nightly campfire gatherings are not about feeling safe from the darkness, but rather an opportunity to learn about the surrounding park landscape from a well informed park ranger. Back in 1968, a National Park Service training brochure explained that the national park campfire provides an opportunity to weld the visitor's random experiences and impressions into an understanding and appreciation for the park’s real values. Of course, there are a number of definitions and expectations for what constitutes a campfire story.  Today we’re going to explore “Campfire Stories: Tales from America’s National Parks and Trails” with editors of the book Dave and Ilyssa Kyu. 

Coastal grey wolves in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska seem to be feasting well these days on an unlikely food source - sea otters. In fact, the shorelines of Glacier Bay offer wolves a cornucopia of otters and other marine menu items, providing this carnivorous predator safe and dependable locations for food and raising offspring. This week the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick speaks with park wildlife biologist Tania Lewis, whose research team is evaluation coastal wolf diets. Their goals are to identify different wolf packs and the shoreline areas important to them for feeding and reproduction. With annual visitation to Glacier Bay approaching 550,000, the team’s work will be instrumental in determining whether those areas should be protected from unnecessary human disturbance.

How did America get hooked on skiing? In 1939, Hannes Schneider moved from Austria to North Conway, New Hampshire, to teach skiing. But before the sport really took off, World War II broke out. After the war, a gritty band of soldiers who fought in the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division, returned home into the mountains they loved.  Last week, Christian Beckwith, an alpinist and climbing historian, introduced us to the 10th Mountain Division and how it was jump-started by climbers who had honed their skills in the craggy mountains of Grand Teton National Park.   Beckwith, who rolls out this history in his podcast “Ninety-Pound Rucksack”, is back with us today to explain how those soldiers kick-started the ski industry in America, started organizations such as the National Outdoor Leadership School, and played a role in fields of avalanche science and wilderness rescue.

How much do you know about World War II history, Grand Teton National Park, and the evolution of outdoor recreation in the United States? Believe it or not, they’re all intertwined.  Ninety-Pound Rucksack is a podcast about the U.S. Army’s legendary 10th Division, and the dawn of outdoor recreation in America. Hosted by veteran alpinist and climbing historian Christian Beckwith, Ninety-Pound Rucksack examines the stories that made the unit legendary, as well as those that history has forgotten.  The tale of the 10th Mountain Division, a gritty unit of World War II climbers and skiers who trained for more than two years high in the Colorado Rockies to fight the Axis powers in extreme cold and mountainous terrain, is famous for good reason. Not only did its insertion into the war help end Germany’s occupation of Italy, but post-war its surviving members helped found and develop ski areas across America, started organizations such as the National Outdoor Leadership School, and played a role in the fields of avalanche science and wilderness rescue.  Equal parts real-time research, intimate conversation, and revelatory journalism, Ninety-Pound Rucksack explores not only the conventional wisdom about the 10th, but the transformative power of the mountains to forge a collective identity among the mountain troops. And to ignite a passion for the outdoors that reshaped American society in the process.

Big Bend National Park is not simply a park that you pass along the way. Located in West Texas along the US/Mexico border, this 1,252-square-mile park is five hours from the closest commercial airport. In other words, you must make Big Bend your final destination if you’re going to visit. You’re not going to just happen upon it as you drive down the road. But once here, you’re likely to be astounded by the ruggedness, the beauty of the Chisos Mountain Range that falls entirely within the park's borders, and the rich cultural history preserved here. Aside from the natural beauty of Big Bend, there’s a lot going on here that’s going to affect most visitors. There’s work to design a new lodge, a question of whether the official wilderness designation should be applied to some of the park's landscape, and there are staffing issues and even wildlife issues. The Traveler’s Lynn Riddick traveled to Big Bend to discuss these issues and more with Superintendent Bob Krumenaker.

Bears tend to scare us when we’re outdoors and they’re not behind steel bars. Particularly grizzly bears. They’re big, with sharp claws and powerful jaws, and seem to be in a bad mood whenever we spot them. We hear about people being mauled to death by bears, and even of black bears attacking campers in their sleeping bags.  Are bears really as terrifying as they appear? Or is our fear driven by a lack of understanding of their behavior? Derek Stonorov knows a little bit about bears and their behavior, after all the wildlife biologist has spent the past 50 years observing coastal brown bears in Alaska, in a bid to better understand their social structures and behaviors. He details he findings in his forthcoming book “Watch the Bear."

For more than a decade, Colorado College has sponsored a poll to gauge conservation sentiments of residents in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada. Over the years, the questions have ranged from whether the members of the public view themselves as conservationists, whether land conservation and protection can be paired with a strong economy, and even whether federal lands should be turned over to the states.  The 2023 State of the Rockies poll just came out, and it points to public support for strong conservation policies that protect wildlife and wild lands, and what some might call surprisingly strong support from a largely conservative corner of the country, for a conservation goal of protecting 30 percent of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030. We’re going to get into the poll results with Brian Kurzel, the National Wildlife Federation’s regional executive director for the Rocky Mountain region.

The US Geological Survey operates five different volcano observatories around the country. These observatories monitor real-time volcanic, hydrothermal, and earthquake activity in Alaska, the Cascade Mountains, California’s Long Valley Caldera, Yellowstone National Park, and the State of Hawaii.    There are virtual partnerships between federal and state agencies, university-based researchers, and scientists. Their work involves monitoring, measuring, and analyzing data, all helping to increase our understanding of these powerful and fascinating geologic forces. This week Lynn Riddick catches up with Matt Patrick, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. He and his colleagues have seen quite a bit of awe-inspiring volcanic action recently, with eruptions from Mauna Loa and Kīlauea within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

It is one of the longest units of the National Park System in the country. "It," of course, is the Oregon National Historic Trail, which stretches more than 2,100 miles from Missouri to Oregon. It’s been estimated that between 1840 and 1860 some 300,000-400,000 men, women, and children embarked on the four-month-long trip to head to the West Coast.  A new book, “Exploring The Oregon Trail, America's Historic Road Trip,” can help you explore sections of the trail, or the entire trail if you have the time. It was written by Kay and David Scott, longtime national park travelers and park lodging experts.

It’s a problem that’s been coming for quite some time, and one that really comes as no surprise. The large landscape national parks that are home to many species of wildlife have been turning into biological islands as development hems them in. You can look back to 1993 when the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative launched to begin to see the discussion around opening up these parks through migratory corridors. That initiative, which continues today, envisioned a corridor stretching from Yellowstone National Park to Canada’s Yukon Territory to serve wildlife by protecting core wildlife habitat.  There have been other somewhat similar initiatives. There’s the Wildlands Network, which since 1991 has been, as that organization puts it, striving to reconnect, restore, and re-wild North America. There have been efforts in Congress to pass legislation that would provide funding for such corridors. The Pew Charitable Trust this past October released a report on the need for creating migratory corridors and the challenges standing in their way.  Today we’re going to zoom in on some national parks, their wildlife, and the need to establish habitat connectivity between those parks to prevent animals from being stranded on biological islands. Joining us is Dr. William Newmark, a research curator and conservation biologist in the Natural History Museum of Utah.