| National Parks Traveler

I have sat and played cards one evening at the Prince Of Wales while drinking a nice cool beverage from the bar. Spectacular. I have also been at the North Rim at Grand Canyon and some choice picnic tables at Yellowstone. All great views. But I have too add the chuck wagon dinner at the Tetons. They took us in a horse drawn wagon to a spot where they had dinner waiting for us.

Jul 3rd - 09:24am | Lee Dalton

Any picnic table in Loop A at Norris campground in Yellowstone at sunrise while mist still floats over the meadow, a few elk are grazing and a trumpeter swan or two are browsing for algae in the stream.

Jul 3rd - 08:31am | waggin

Breakfast at dawn at the El Tovar after a snowstorm!

Jul 3rd - 08:28am | Connie Hopkins

Mike and Rebecca have spoken true! I would add the Grand Canyon Lodge at the North Rim!!

Jul 3rd - 06:15am | Rebecca Latson ...

Yes, I love that view from the Prince of Wales. I also like the view from the dining room at the Many Glacier Hotel, as it looks out over Swiftcurrent Lake.

Jul 3rd - 05:57am | MikeG

El Tovar

U.S. House Subcommittee To Take Testimony On Yosemite National Park's Merced River Plan Impacts

Jul 3rd - 12:46pm | Owen Hoffman

<<Drawing the congressman's ire is a proposal by the park staff to remove the ice-skating rink in Curry Village, as well as the horseback riding concession in the valley. Bike rentals also would no longer be allowed if the proposal is approved, nor rentals of tubes for floating on the Merced.

Jul 3rd - 09:18am | Lee Dalton

Does anyone remember which plutocrat once said, "I love our members of Congress. I buy another two or three a month for my collection."

Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Parks Asked To Open More Waters To Canoeists, Kayakers

Jul 3rd - 11:55am | Lee Dalton

EXCELLENT, Buxton. You recognized exactly the concerns many of us have and expressed most of our frustrations perfectly well in only two short paragraphs. Well Done!

Jul 3rd - 11:46am | Buxton

At first when I read this I thought how could a kayak or canoe be a problem.

Jul 3rd - 09:21am | Lee Dalton

Then you should have said what you meant. If an individual makes money, it's called counterfeiting.

Jul 3rd - 08:13am | ecbuck

You can send me as much of it as you wish. We already know you like other peoples' money being given away, I said "making", i.e. earning it. There may be legitimate reasons not to allow canoes et al in these rivers, but the fact that someone might make money off the activity isn't one of them.

Jul 2nd - 21:15pm | Lee Dalton

I don't have an aversion to making money. You can send me as much of it as you wish. But I do become impatient with those folks who seek a profit margin out of virtually everything they can glom onto. Gosh, some would even copyright a sunset or patent a bird song if they could pack a few more dollars into their stashes.

Jul 2nd - 20:40pm | ecbuck

What is the real reason behind the proposal? Gee, maybe somebody wants to paddle on scenic water. But then - so what if someone makes a buck off it? Why do you have such an aversion to someone making money?

Jul 2nd - 19:43pm | Kurt Repanshek

I wouldn't think it's a money generation issue, Lee. Being a paddler, some of those streams are attractive. And American Whitewater's pitch doesn't involve the Firehole, Madison, Gibbon, Lamar, Gardner, or Yellowstone rivers in Yellowstone.

Jul 2nd - 19:26pm | Lee Dalton

Here we go again. What is the real reason behind the proposal? Could it be $$$$$ maybe?

Jul 2nd - 17:01pm | ecbuck

I would imagine most of the wildlife would move away from all the activity as well? You mean like the buffalo, elk and bear have left the roads?

Jul 2nd - 14:25pm | gutz54

Somehow seeing canoes on the Yellowstone river would kind of cheapen the whole experience--- I would imagine most of the wildlife would move away from all the activity as well?

Jun 30th - 13:16pm | Roger Siglin1

When I worked in Yellowstone many years ago a heavy rain muddied the water on the Madison River for a few days. Fishermen left the river and waterfowl numbers increased dramatically. I have often wondered what impact fishing activity has on waterfowl use of rivers including nesting. I don't know that it has ever been studied.

Jun 30th - 07:58am | MikeG

Let my paddlers go!

Heat Possibly Played Role In Death Of Grand Canyon National Park Hiker

Jul 2nd - 19:55pm | Rudy Stefancik

We had a similar discussion about a year ago when the Yosemite Ranger checking the daily passes at the foot of the Half Dome cables did nothing as hikers, knowing that they could not come back the next day with a no longer valid permit, went right past her and went up the cables in a rain squall, despite the obvious danger of the already slick granite being coated with water.

Jul 2nd - 12:14pm | Kurt Repanshek

Stormy, the only trail closures I can recall were for wildlife issues or trail damage.

Jul 2nd - 11:11am | Stormy

Forgive my ignorance, I'm not a hiker or outdoors-person. Do they not suspend permits or close trails during periods of extreme heat or similar dangers?

If You Live In A National Park, You Understand The Theory Of Relativity

Jul 2nd - 12:32pm | Rick B.

We don't have quite the "please put us up" problem here at the Klondike Gold Rush NHP in Skagway, but it is common for old friends or relatives to announce that they'll be in town on X date on a cruise ship. We'll meet them for lunch or such, maybe drive them around and show some behind the scenes stuff, but for the most part they are back on their ship and sailing by early evening.

Jul 2nd - 07:55am | Lee Dalton

Actually, for my family, frequent fliers from back home were not a problem because home was far away. We really enjoyed visits from family when they did come west, though.

Jul 1st - 15:31pm | Owen Hoffman

I thoroughly enjoyed working seasonally in the parks as a park ranger-naturalist. I was amazed at all the chance encounters I experienced, running into grade school friends and classmates, college profs on vacation, neighbors, and acquaintences. Usually, I'd be in uniform, and I would recognize them, before they'd recognize me.

Jul 1st - 08:34am | Lee Dalton

One of my classmates at Albright was sent to Grand Teton where he and his wife lived in a one-bedroom seasonal unit of some kind. He told me a few years later that they had finally been forced to send a notice to anyone who wanted to visit that said something like :

Jul 1st - 08:03am | Danny Bernstein

What a great article. I would have loved to have been one of your relatives in those days. Danny

Jul 1st - 07:24am | Jim Burnett

Megaera - You're absolutely correct. When we can offer free lodging near a prime destination for friends and family, "proximity" can also be relative. :-)

Jun 30th - 17:32pm | Megaera

You don't have to live in a national park to get this effect. I live about an hour and a half from Paradise on Mt. Rainier, and I've had more than my share of houseguests because of it [g].

Reader Participation Day: Which Historic Person Would You Take Hiking In The National Parks?

Jun 30th - 20:23pm | Rick B.

I would like to take William H. Seward on a nice long leisurely tour of the Alaskan parks.

Jun 30th - 16:18pm | jane apple

Thomas Moran whose paintings in oil and watercolors inspired congress to create the National Parks. Congress created the Parks but did not vote at that time for park funding. That came later. The good news is they paid the artist. If I remember correctly it was about $10,000 for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The painting hangs with The Chasam of the Colorado in the Capitol.

Jun 27th - 19:02pm | Jeff Frank

Grandma Gatewood - Appalachian Trail Truman Everts - Yellowstone NP Albert Gallatin - Friendship Hill NHS Daniel Morgan - Cowpens

A View From The Overlook: Mountain Bikes

Jun 30th - 08:28am | Buxton

I only went mountain biking once in the mountains years ago and I was on a national forest off of the blue ridge parkway. I remember two things holding on for dear life coming down a logging road I had walked the bike up and the beautiful trail that followed a ridge line that required peddling and coasting that was gentle enough to contemplate the scenery and wildlife.

Jun 29th - 17:41pm | Roger Siglin1

Mountain bikers are their worst enemy as hikers and equestrians are injured by them. In addition to injuries more users are avoiding single track trails heavily used by mountain bikers. The proliferation of illegal trails continues in parks and preserves nationwide.

Jun 29th - 09:04am | Lee Dalton

Despite signs like this at every trailhead on the Wasatch-Cache just above Ogden, new trails and "jumps" pop up like toadstools. Receiving a buzz job from a mountain bike -- or even a whole stampeding herd of them -- is just about a monthly occurance for anyone who hikes the trails regularly.

Jun 28th - 20:52pm | mjvande

Excellent article! But probably the worst effects of mountain biking weren't mentioned: (1) teaching our young people, by example, that the rough treatment of nature (including the best that we have) is acceptable (who knows what the downstream effects of that will be?), (2) killing small animals and plants and destroying habitat (e.g.

Jun 28th - 10:50am | Owen Hoffman

PJ, unlike your previous guest editorials, this one seems to have elicited no commentary. Maybe you should have said something about the rights of mountain bikers to carry guns while riding into park wilderness?

Groups Criticize Senate Bill That Would Require Park Service To Reassess ORVs At Cape Hatteras National Seashore

Jun 28th - 16:56pm | Buxton

Beachdumb

Yellowstone National Park Rangers Put Down Black Bear After It Obtained Human Food

Jun 28th - 10:42am | Connie Hopkins

Oh yeah, we have the old 8MM movies (transferred to DVD) that were taken when my husband and his family went to Yellowstone (1962-66) and we see people feeding the bears etc. It's hard to fathom that it was acceptable and encouraged behavior, to further the National Park experience. I think people are better educated but they're still not using good common sense all of these years later!

Jun 27th - 18:29pm | Rick Smith

West Thumb in 59 and 60 (pre Grant Village) and Lake from 61-68, all in the protection division. I then joined the Peace Corps, spent two years teaching at the National University in Paraguay, and returned for one last summer in Yellowstone in 71. Then on to Yosemite and elsewhere. The research I remember most vividly was done by the Craighead brothers on grizzlies.

Jun 27th - 16:13pm | Lee Dalton

And in Yosemite, two or three times a week we'd get a call that a child was trapped in a dumpster somewhere. It was always a bear cub who'd managed to get in but couldn't get out. We had ladders stashed near most of the dumpsters that we could toss in to provide an exit route.

Jun 27th - 15:05pm | Rick Smith

Lee is absolutely correct. I was a seasonal ranger in Yellowstone from '59-'68. Bear jams on the road were a common, everyday event, bears raiding ice chest occurred daily. A visitor from Europe once asked me what was the dumbest thing I had ever seen as a ranger.

Jun 27th - 14:17pm | Lee Dalton

Yes, Connie, it is sad. But things have come a long way since I took these photos in 1966. Scenes like this were everyday (almost hourly, for that matter) occurances.

Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story Of Faith and Madness On The Alaska Frontier

Jun 28th - 09:59am | Danny Bernstein

I was priviledged to meet Tom Kizzia a few years ago at Camp Denali. He gave a talk on his research. It sounded fascinating. I can't wait to read this book. Danny www.hikertohiker.com

Photography In The National Parks: Fox Kits In Yellowstone National Park, Shooting Nature And Broken Hearts

Jun 28th - 09:45am | Buxton

Great story really enjoyed it, Old Yeller move over.

Jun 27th - 21:30pm | osdianna

Good job of telling the story, Deby...painful though it is.

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