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Should the NPS Be Given Mount St. Helens?

Both the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service are hamstrung by deficient budgets. In the case of the Forest Service, one symptom of its financial plight is that the agency wants to close a visitor center at the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. That move has spurred calls that the Park Service be given the monument to manage, and the National Parks Conservation Association now is echoing those calls.

Back in the Saddle

My, my, my. Leave town for a little over a week and look what breaks out. Dangerous Park Service uniforms, an elderly, and theoretically over-the-hill, National Park Service, a proposed centennial project to create a $12 million jazz museum, debate (arguments?) over who should manage lodging in the parks and how, and much, much more.

National Park Service to Charge for Clean Air?

Is the National Park Service preparing to charge us for the clean air in parks? Based on a recent survey request, in which the parks were seeking our "willingness to pay to improve visibility at national parks", and considering all of the other use-fees charged in the parks, I was ready to believe they were. The good news? I was wrong! Find out why.
  • By jersu - August 27th, 2007 2:50pm

The Essential Death Valley

Towering sand dunes that ripple across the heart of a 3.4-million-acre landscape, hidden canyons that echo with splashing, gurgling water that nourishes a surprising cache of lush vegetation, a human history of anguish as well as prosperity. The surreal landscape of Death Valley can be deadly hot in summer, and yet it is one of the more intriguing units of the national park system because of its stark beauty and demanding nature.