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National Parks Traveler Podcast

National Parks Traveler Episode 154: Chasing The Smokies Moon

Chasing the Smokies Moon at Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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.

National Parks Traveler Episode 153: Managing Elk And Cattle At Point Reyes National Seashore

How is the National Park Service managing elk and cattle at Point Reyes National Seashore.
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.

National Parks Traveler Episode 152: Exploring Big Bend, And Chuck Sams

Visiting Big Bend National Park and exploring the landscape.

Last week the National Parks Traveler took you to Big Bend National Park in far west Texas. Lynn Riddick sat down with the park’s Chief of Interpretation Tom Vandenberg to learn about the park’s history and its geological and botanical treasures. This week, in part two, Lynn gives us a first-hand, more personal glimpse into this vast remote park with her companion Mary Muenster as they clock nearly 1,100 miles to the park, through the park, and back home again. 

National Parks Traveler Episode 151: Understanding Big Bend National Park

Visiting Big Bend National Park

Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas has everything you might want in a national park –- isolated mountains for hiking and camping, a scenic and wild river for kayaking, canoeing, and rafting, dark skies for stargazing and a species-rich desert for birdwatching and exploring.  But because the park is located hundreds of miles from a major airport and one hundred miles from the nearest interstate highway, it is perhaps one of the country’s least visited of the big national parks. 

National Parks Traveler Episode 150: Recounting 2021's Major News Stories From The Parks

2021 News Across The National Park System

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.

Traveler's Postcard From The Parks: Hiking Kīlauea Iki At Hawai'i Volcanoes

Hiking the Kīlauea Iki Trail at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

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 descends 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. It was an eruption that saw lava fountains shoot roughly 1,900 feet into the sky.

National Parks Traveler Episode 147 | A Pleistocene Burial Ground

Exploring Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument

It’s hard to imagine that camels, lions, and mammoths once roamed the landscape around Las Vegas, Nevada.  But 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.  

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