One of my favorite Web sites about the National Parks, National Parks Traveler, has received both a face and content lift, and I highly recommend you give it a spin. It is lovely and they have a much more sensible web address now.

NPT is run by the ever-diligent, park-loving Kurt Repanshek who has done a stellar job over the years bringing to light issues and developments within our nation's national parks. Seems he has teams up with the folks that do Park Remark to create a fantastic new site dedicated to the parks.

I wax rhapsodic about the parks frequently here because I deeply believe they are the crown jewels of our national heritage. We should all thank Teddy Roosevelt Ulysses Grant for having the foresight all those years ago to set off Yellowstone as a place that would be protected from development and where all Americans (and others) would be welcome3 to enjoy. The parks are in peril...well, there is a large backlog of much-needed repairs, and it is our duty to pay attention to what is happening to them. Now, that said, I am a realist. My first job out of school (my first REAL Job...after being a photographer in Tahoe) was with the Department of the Interior, the government agency that contains the National Park Service. At that time, there was a serious backlog of repairs, a shortage of qualified rangers and various threats to the sanctity of the parks (i.e. snowmobile issues, planes over the Grand Canyon, etc.). So many of these issues are not new. Not that we shouldn't continue to pay attention, especially during these "difficult" years.

Anyway, I've given the new National Park Traveler a once-over and it is loaded with new features and lots of useful, interesting info. So I urge you, as we move swiftly into summer during which time your plans might include a trip here and there to the parks, to check it out.

Filed under: Activism, Biking, Climbing, Hiking, History, Learning, Podcasts, Stories, North America