National Parks Traveler Podcast

There are places in the National Park System that take your breath away. Places such as Glacier National Park, along the shoreline of Avalanche Lake, or atop Logan Pass staring down valley along with the mountain goats. If you've been here, you'll never forget the experience. Husband-wife duo Laurie Raveis & Dennis Kole capture their experiences in "Glacier" in their upcoming 2023 album "In the Moment."

This year has been a year of firsts for the National Parks Traveler Editor Kurt Repanshek. First-time visits to units of the National Park System, that is. This year Repanshek has taken road trips through Nebraska, Kansas, and New Mexico to explore overlooked gems of the park system. To discuss these and other must-see sites with us today are Rebecca Latson, Traveler's contributing photographer, and Kim O’Connell, a Traveler contributing editor.

As winter approaches, the slow season is setting in across the National Park System, which makes it a good time to take measure of some issues that are confronting both the parks and the National Park Service. We’ve invited Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, and Mike Murray, the chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

As hot, arid, and dusty as Death Valley National Park is, it might come as a surprise to learn that it has a very important fishery of sorts. There is a place in the national park where there is a warm spring that is home to a rare and endangered fish - the Devils Hole Pupfish. Each year the population of pupfish can swing wildly between highs and lows. Recently, researchers completed their biannual count of Devils Hole Pupfish and the numbers are encouraging. Devils Hole is the only natural habitat where this critically endangered fish exists in the wild, and as the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick discovers from a chat with a park aquatic ecologist, the numbers are the highest in two decades.

National Parks Traveler Founder Kurt Repanshek and contributing editors Kim O'Connell and Lynn Riddick discuss the Traveler's role in reporting on national parks and how reader and listener support make that role possible.

Back in 2009, a small herd of bison was relocated from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota to Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas. The goal was not only to restore an essential foundational species of wildlife that had not grazed on those lands for more than a century, but to also reestablish the unique ecological benefits bison bring to the landscape while preserving the genetic integrity of the species. In this week’s podcast, the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick takes us to Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and chats with Park Superintendent Kristen Hase to see how this special conservation herd has been faring lately.

Terry Karlsen is Parks Canada's only shipwright. And his latest challenge is a big one: Restoring the S.S. Klondike, a vintage steam-powered paddlewheeler. The work is underway at the S.S. Klondike National Historic Site in Whitehorse, Yukon.

If you’ve spent time in the National Park System, you’ve seen a mix of conditions in terms of a park’s infrastructure. Some are in great condition, some not so great. Recently my wife and I had the opportunity to stop by Grand Teton National Park and the Jenny Lake area. The trails that lead around the lake and up onto the flanks of the Tetons are in wonderful condition. But it wasn’t always so. When the Civilian Conservation Core built the original trails and overlooks, they weren’t expecting millions of feet to pound them each year. Fortunately, the Grand Teton National Park Foundation stepped up to help the National Park Service raise millions of dollars to pay for projects at the Jenny Lake area as a gift for the National Park Service’s centennial. But that’s just one example of how the Foundation has been able to help Grand Teton National Park. This year is the foundation’s 25th anniversary, and we have president Leslie Mattson with us to discuss the work the foundation has accomplished.

A sea kayaking paddle on Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park just might be the perfect way to end summer if you like paddling. It's also a great way to gain another perspective of the park, and the National Park System.

Our climate is changing, and not subtly. And it's having a great and visible impact on the National Park System. We saw flooding and fires at units of the National Park Systems this year, as well as an ongoing historic drought thought to be the worst in 1,200 years. Are those events the result of human-driven climate change, or simply the vagaries of weather? Today we're going to explore that question, and others tied to the weather we're experiencing, with Stephanie Kodish, the senior director and counsel for the National Parks Conservation Association's Clean Air and Climate programs.