National Parks Traveler Podcast

With the great rush to the outdoors that we’ve seen since the Covid pandemic erupted, there have been many calls for more space in the National Park System. While there are places in the West that seem to be logical additions to the parks there, that's not the case in the East. So, if we want more park lands east of the Mississippi, how could we gain them?

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the great hiking destinations in the mid-Atlantic region, if not the entire East Coast. Across its rumpled 522,427 acres there are more than 800 miles of trails. They range from relatively short footpaths to scenic payoffs like Rainbow Falls and Abrahams Falls to the more than 70 miles of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail that crosses the top of the park. Nancy East is well familiar with the park’s trail network, as she and a close friend set out in the fall of 2020 to hike every mile of that network, and then she wrote about it in a new book, Chasing the Smokies Moon. We talk with Nancy to understand what motivated her to embark on such a hike and what that endeavor taught her.

All is not well at Point Reyes National Seashore, as a years-long battle continues over ranching at Point Reyes, how it’s impacting the seashore’s environment, and how the National Park Service is trying to manage it. To sort through some of these issues, we’re joined by Laura Cunningham, California director at Western Watersheds Project.

Last week the National Parks Traveler took you to Big Bend National Park in far west Texas with a discussion with Chief of Interpretation Tom Vandenberg. This week, Traveler's Lynn Riddick provides a first-hand, more personal glimpse into this vast remote park.  Afterwards, Traveler Editor Kurt Repanshek shares a short conversation he had with Charles Sams, the new director of the National Park Service.

The National Parks Traveler’s Lynn Riddick begins a two-part series about her recent trip to Big Bend -- a vast wilderness in the Chihuahuan Desert along the Rio Grande. She meets up with the park’s chief of interpretation, who offers an overview of the park’s varied geology and diverse ecology, its human history and what the future may hold for visitors seeking adventure and solitude in the park’s 800,000 acres.

This has been one of the most newsworthy years in recent memory for the National Park Service and the parks. There’s finally a Senate-confirmed director at the helm, billions of dollars are flowing into the parks for a variety of projects, wildfires chewed through Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Lassen Volcanic national parks, lakes Powell and Mead are shadows of their former selves. A look back at news in the National Park System in 2021.

As the global human population continues to increase, as sprawl continues to wash over natural areas, the amount of space needed for flora and fauna to thrive and, even, in some cases, survive, is steadily being squeezed by the human footprint. Kristine Tompkins knows a little about protecting landscapes for nature. She and her late husband, Doug Tompkins, donated more than 2 million acres in Chile and Argentina to those two countries, which in turn were able to create 13 national parks.

When you visit Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, after you’ve gazed into the Kīlauea crater itself if it’s erupting, you should make a point to hike the Kīlauea Iki Trail. Starting from an overlook near Nāhuku (aka the Thurston Lava Tube), the trail goes down through the rainforest and out across a crater floor created back in 1959 by one of the most spectacular eruptions of the 20th century at the national park.

There is no shortage of hiking trails in the National Park System. From coastal walks and boardwalk trails to trails that run the ridges of the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park and the wildly popular hike to the top of Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park, the options can be overwhelming even if you had endless time to explore the parks. It might come as a surprise to those who view Yosemite National Park as an iconic valley and a grove of soaring sequoias, but there are more than 800 miles of hiking trails in that park. And to get a feeling for those trails, we’re joined today by Elizabeth Wenk, the author of the 6th edition of Your Complete Hiking Guide/Yosemite National Park from Wilderness Press.

Camels, lions, and mammoths once roamed the landscape around Las Vegas, Nevada. Such was the case during the latter part of the Pleistocene era, which spanned a period of time between 11,000 years and 2.5 million years ago. The area -- known as the Upper Las Vegas Wash –- is rich with the fossils of these and many more creatures as well as ancient plants and pollens. This trove of fossils is preserved within Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument. Lynn Riddick talks with Tule Springs Superintendent Derek Carter to learn about the treasures contained in the monument.