With Valentine's Day this Sunday, it seems only appropriate that this week's question revolve around romance. So tell us, would your beau/significant other prefer a national park getaway spent in a lodge, or in a tent?
Piecing together a Jigsaw puzzle is challenging even when you have a picture to guide you. Imagine the challenge Jim Werker and Val Hildreth-Werker faced when they were confronted by 600 pounds of fragile gypsum pieces that they were tasked with putting back in place in a passageway in Mammoth Cave National Park's Crystal Cave.
When you're planning a visit to a national park, don't overlook the dark side. No, we aren't suggesting you join forces with Darth Vader, but many parks offer a great opportunity to enjoy a view that's unfortunately becoming increasingly rare—the night sky. An upcoming nationwide event and several other opportunities can help you protect and enjoy the beauty of the night.
An astronaut aboard the space shuttle Endeavour is carrying with him a Zion National Park commemorative coin, an expression, perhaps, that the park's red-rock landscape is other worldly.
Anyone who has ever been part of a school field trip knows that such events can be a fun…or frantic experience. The folks at Gettysburg National Military Park have prepared a kit to help anyone planning such expeditions to that park to have the "Best Field Trip Ever!"
Not all proposed wilderness areas are always pristine. Some have waning vestiges of an early day. In Dinosaur National Monument, for instance, there long have been some falling down structures in an area along the Green River that has been recommended for wilderness designation. It took a while, but crews from the monument were able to remove all the facilities from the setting.
In one of the "Iron man," or perhaps "Iron dog," events of sled-dog racing, the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest race is under way, with 24 teams mushing from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon. The trail follows historic Gold Rush and Mail Delivery routes from the turn of the 20th Century, and passes through part of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided not to allow the North Carolina Transportation Department to build a four-lane highway beneath a stretch of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.
It promised to be the biggest event in Western North Carolina in 67 years – bigger certainly than when Eric Rudolph was caught dumpster diving in Murphy. The North Shore Road controversy in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was over. Swain County was going to get its $52 million over 10 years -- an amount calculated as the present value of the road that was flooded in 1943 to create Fontana Lake and Fontana Dam.