National Parks Traveler Podcast

There are more than 2,000 species currently listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. And while species that gain protection under the act have a great chance to survive, not all do. Just recently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 21 species – birds, fish, mussels, plants, and even a bat – were officially declared extinct.  We’re going to discuss that news, and the role of the Endangered Species Act in striving to prevent extinction, with Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, and Lindsay Rosa, the vice president of conservation research and innovation at Defenders of Wildlife.

As you walk through the white gypsum sands of White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico, your footprints will likely be quickly erased by shifting winds. So it’s somewhat of a phenomenon of nature that the oldest footprints ever discovered in North America are not only found here — in perfect form, having withstood time and weather — but show that ancient humans lived here much earlier than previously believed.  A research team from the U-S Geological Survey earlier this month strengthened their findings released in 2021 that dated these footprints to as much as 23,000 years old. That finding erased previous theories that humans first arrived in North America some 11,000 years ago, after the end of the last Ice Age.  This week the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick talks with key researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey team about their initial analysis of the footprints as well as their follow-up study that confirmed the age dating…and what it all means to our long-sought understanding of human colonization on this continent.

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington state is a wild and wooly place, even now in the 21st century. That’s no doubt largely because the heart of the peninsula is taken up by Olympic National Park, a more than 900,000-acre jigsaw puzzle of glaciers and peaks, rainforests, rivers, and Pacific coastline. You might view Olympic National Park as three parks in one: The coastal area battered by the Pacific Ocean, the inland rain forests that cloak the Hoh, Quinault, and Sol Duc areas, and the high, craggy landscape embracing nearly 200 glaciers. If you’ve never visited the park, or have only experienced it once for a few days, our guest on today’s show will no doubt make you want to start planning for a trip to Olympic National Park.  Tim McNulty is a prolific writer who lives in the shadow of the national park. He has a new book out. Salmon, Cedar, Rock and Rain, that is a perfect introduction on the ecosystem of not just the national park but of the surrounding Olympic Peninsula. 

Snow has fallen in the upper reaches of Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, and fall weather in general is making a national park trip in the northern half of the United States not terribly appealing. October is a season of transition across the National Park System. Cooler, and in some cases colder, weather is sweeping across the northern states, while southern states are not as blazingly hot as they were just a month or two ago. But school is in session throughout the country, so if your vacation plans are tied to school, you’re probably not heading anywhere now for an extended trip. Which makes it the perfect time to start considering where you might want to go next year. Here in the U.S. you don’t need to limit your choices to the National Park System. Canada is just a short drive, or flight, away. Rebecca Latson, Traveler’s contributing photographer and columnist, just returned from a trip to the Canadian Rockies, and is here to discuss what she found and what you might consider.

For the second time in five years, and the third time in the past decade, the United States government was poised to shut down this weekend because of an impasse in the House of Representatives over how to fund the government. And, as a result, the National Park System was poised to shut down. Indeed, by the time you’re listening to this episode, the parks might already have been closed and visitors already in them being told how soon they must exit. Different administrations in Washington take different approaches to whether to shut down the parks or keep them open during a government shutdown. Back in 2013 the Obama administration elected to close the parks. Five years ago, the Trump administration decided to keep them open, albeit with skeleton Park Service staffs. To learn more about the impacts of government shutdowns on the National Park System, both physical and financial, we’re joined today by Bob Krumenaker, a recently retired Park Service veteran whose last position was superintendent of Big Bend National Park, and John Garder, the senior director for budget & appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association.

For the past 240 weeks, the National Parks Traveler has brought you weekly podcasts examining life, news, and exploration of the National Park System. It’s been a long-running series that has never lacked for topics.   We hope you’ve found those episodes as informative and interesting as we have.    For this week’s show, we’re diving into shows from past years to bring you two we think you’ll find fascinating. One revolves around the question of whether a gun can keep you safe from bears in the backcountry of parks. We discuss that topic with Tom Smith, a professor of wildlife sciences at Brigham Young University and a member of the National Rifle Association.   In the second part, we look back at Lynn Riddick’s journey underground at Mammoth Cave National Park. 

Grand Teton National Park is an incredible place, rich in wildlife, mountaineering history, pioneer history, and Native American history. And, rightfully so, it’s one of the busiest parks in the National Park System. In 2021 the park saw nearly 4 million visitors, as the public rushed back out into nature after the worst of the Covid pandemic. Last year it counted 2.8 million visitors.  How many visitors are too many? How has that growing visitation impacted the health of the park, the tasks confronting the National Park Service staff in the park, and your experience as you explore Grand Teton?  We’re going to discuss those topics today with Chip Jenkins, the park superintendent. 

Bison have been in the news recently. The Interior Department this past week released $5 million to help fund both bison restoration and grasslands rehabilitation.  And next month Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan will release their latest documentary, The American Buffalo. The American Buffalo documentary traces the history of how bison nearly went extinct, and how they came back. It will be delivered in a two-part, four-hour series on public television. Earlier this summer I talked to Dayton Duncan about the project, and we’re rerunning that conversation to remind you of the documentary that is set to debut on October 16.

It’s been nearly eight years since a storm of historic proportions pounded Death Valley National Park and did extensive damage in Grapevine Canyon in the northeastern corner of the park where Scotty’s Castle stands. The popular tourist attraction still has not reopened as repair work continues.   That storm was described as a once-in-a-thousand years storm.   A year ago, rainstorms again pounded Death Valley. In roughly three hours 1.5 inches of rain fell on the park and did considerable damage to roads and water systems and shut down the park. That storm also was described as a once-in-a-thousand-years storm.   Another powerful storm hit Death Valley National Park two weeks ago. On August 20, 2.2 inches of rain fell at Furnace Creek, according to the National Weather Service, making it the rainiest day on record in the park. For some perspective, during a full year the park usually sees only 2.15 inches of rain.   To discuss these storms and how the National Park Service is responding to them we’re joined today by Abby Wines, the park’s management analyst.

If you were to plan an extended trip through the National Park System, how would you do it?  Where would you go first?  How would you prepare?  In this week’s podcast, the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick talks with Cristian Garza, who recently returned from a four-month jaunt through the parks. He clocked some 300 hours of driving across 17,000 miles of the U.S. and Canada and shares some of his experiences and perspectives with Lynn.