Here's your chance to help us plan our editorial calendar for the rest of the year.
How would you rank the following categories of stories that we work on at the Traveler. Put another way, which keep you coming back to the Traveler?
* Features
Due to our inability to be everywhere in the National Park System at all times, these stories let us focus on specific issues around the park system. They range from hard-edged topics such as this week's two-part series on how the Park Service interprets history at Fort Laramie National Historic Site and U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop's efforts to do away with the Endangered Species Act, Wilderness Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, to travel pieces such as "Inn Step With Asheville" and "Arlington House, Home of Robert E. Lee".
* Spot news
These are stories such as the recent search for two missing backcountry skiers at Grand Teton National Park, the theft of scrimshaw artifacts from Cape Cod National Seashore, and mention of various facility openings around the park system.
* Puzzles and Mysterys
* Book reviews
* Gear reviews
* Seasonal travel story packages
Did you find any value in the series of stories we put together for fall visits to the parks, or for summer visits?
Your input will help us decide how best to dedicate our resources in the coming months and hopefully bring you more value from the time you spend on the Traveler. So if you've long been a lurker, this is the time to come out of the dark and leave a comment, even if it's only anonymous.
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Comments
I agree with IMTNBIKE and would take it further with possible kid developed storylines on both side of the issues.
My 6 year old knows about several of these parks from our visits, but by far his two favorite ones offered the most for his age. Cape hatteras (things to do and waves) and Grand Canyon (PURE unadulterated AWE)
The devil's advocate would have to question IMTNBKE's Luddite comment by noting 1) That Sam enjoys playing in the waves at Cape Hatteras and was awed by the Grand Canyon, two age-old aspects of nature that are obviously appealing to generations young and old, no other toys required, and 2) in the Traveler's recently concluded essay contest for youth 8 to 18 the winners described the national parks as representing a "legacy of history and beauty," touched on how they can offer "a solution to the health
concerns we face today," and
explained how national park settings can offer not just incredible
outdoor experiences you can hold onto for life, but also introduce you
to new friends.
They seemed very happy with what the parks offer in terms of recreation and experiences.
And really, there's more to do in parks than hike if you find that boring. Adrenalin rushes come every day from activities such as white-water paddling, sea kayaking, canoeing, climbing, backcountry skiing, snorkeling, or scuba diving.
Well, even so, that doesn't take away from the undeniable fact that there's a tension between the traditionalists and the nontraditionalists (whom it would be unfair to denigrate as relying on "toys"; it's a far broader issue than that) that must be a major challenge for the NPS. Maybe a guest columnist or reporter could be commissioned to do a story on how the NPS navigates between those shoals. I think it would be interesting.
"Toys" denigrates? And "Luddites" doesn't;-) (Sorry, couldn't resist....)
That tensions exist I don't doubt, but the cause I think is the view that some folks are trying to open the national parks to forms of use that were not intended under the National Park Service Organic Act, the view that lands protected as part of the National Park System are not expected to be managed as are BLM or Forest Service lands, or open to all uses permitted in those landscapes.
This isn't a Luddite approach to managing the parks. Rather, I think it could be argued, it's an approach that these landscapes are unique, have a unique place in society, and need to be preserved as best they can be.
That said, there are many, many broad issues that need to be explored in how the Park Service manages its farflung landscapes -- contradictions abound -- and we're going to touch on that a bit come Monday.
As for commissioning an article, that would likely run around $2,500-$3,000. If you're willing to contribute that amount via our "Help Sponsor the Traveler" button, I'll start recruiting a writer....;-)
Fair enough. I admit that I write in a polemical style.
If the Organic Act consists solely of 16 USC § 1, it's vague about what kinds of uses are suitable for national parks and what uses are not. (I don't know if the Organic Act comprises multiple code sections, however.) It seems that the Act doesn't forbid all sorts of motorized transport, fancy hotels, etc., in the national parks.
No, roads and fancy hotels are definitely allowed....although some think there should be more, but that's another story;-)
Founders and promoters of the Park Service were keenly aware that to promote the parks and gather public support for them, they had to make them accessible and provide beds for folks to lay their heads upon. But at the same time, they also viewed them as landscapes that should be managed differently than Forest Service lands.
Of course, greatly complicating the usage issue was the arrival of the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. And, I might add, the autonomy superintendents have in deciding what's appropriate, as well as the ever-present political pressures.
Imtnbike--
As an old fuddy duddy, I hold to the idea that park areas exist as a contrast to the activities of our daily lives. We live in a world of noise, urgent meetings, and impossible deadlines. Being in a park area gives us the chance to take off our watches, turn off our iphones, unplug our androids, and live life according to the rhythms of nature or the measured pace of our history. There are plenty of places in the public domain where it is perfectly acceptable to go single-track mountain biking or BASE jumping, but we have to guard against, in my opinion, making national park areas like everywhere else. Do you remember the argument that raged 20 or so years ago about making trips on the Colorado River oars-only experiences? The argument against it was that many people didn't have time to do a rowing trip. My feeling was that if this were the case, then people were floating the river at the pace of human enterprise and not attuned to the timeless pace of the river.
Aldo Leopold put it this way: "Let me tell you of a wild river bluff which until 1935 harbored a falcon's eyrie. Many visitors walked a mile to the river bank to picnic and watch the falcons. Comes now some planner and dynamites a road to the river, all in the name of recreational planning. The excuse is that the public formerly had no right of access;now it has such a right. Access to what? Not access to the falcons for they are gone."
Rick
Hey, Rick —
Thanks for posting that. I don't disagree with your basic premise. Actually, you make excellent points. As you say, we live in a world of phenomenal distraction, of jumpy multitasking, of manufactured urgencies. These arguably run against our evolutionary makeup (humans evolved to be long-distance runners and foot travelers, operating rhythmically and steadily) and the effects of modern multitasking probably are pernicious even at the neurological level. They certainly are at the social level. I see that everytime I see someone race up to a red light and sit there drumming her fingers because 12 seconds waiting for the light to change is intolerable. Quite unhealthy.
So, thinking that way does not make you a fuddy-duddy, else I am one too.
What has happened, though, is that a strain of modern environmentalism has devolved, also unhealthily in my opinion, into a kind of fundamentalist temperance movement. Some Puritan sects thought that buttons were the work of the devil and that only hooks and eyes were suitable to fasten clothing. There was no logic to this; it was simply a received tenet. Similarly, some conservationist/environmentalist factions think that the wheel is the work of the devil and that only travel by hoof, foot, or paddle is religiously acceptable. The wheel is a defilement, a profanation of outdoor cathedrals.
There's no logic to that either. I can understand this viewpoint if we're talking about motorized activities, because those do have objectively annoying effects (although, unlike many mountain bikers, I do not hate ATVers and motorcyclists and admire the latter's skills in riding on technical singletrack trails). But a bicycle wheel enables one to go quietly at perhaps 7 mph with less impact on the landscape than an overnight backpacker has. As for pack trains involving heavy mammals, the comparison is much more dramatic. Yet we don't see (many) people fomenting against large commercial pack trains ripping up trails and campsites. And we do see (quite a few) people railing against bicycles. Entire organizations like the Wilderness Society are obsessively opposed to them. It is illogical, but explainable because America's wildlands have become substitute churches for a highly motivated subset of conservationists and environmentalists. That's my point about Luddites.