Nature Valley kicks off 2011 Preserve the Parks campaign

by Kraig Becker on

As we’ve mentioned on several occasions recently, Saturday kicked off National Parks Week here in the U.S. To help celebrate, Nature Valley, in conjunction with the National Parks Conservation Association, launched their 2011 Preserve the Parks campaign in the beautiful desert near Joshua Tree in California.

Nature Valley started the campaign last year after their customers expressed how much they loved the national parks. In 2010, the Preserve the Parks program raised $400,000 for the NPCA, with those funds going directly to protect national parks from a variety of threats. The 2011 edition of Preserve the Parks hopes to raise even more money, while also taking a more direct, active role in the preservation of these fantastic natural spaces.

This year, Preserve the Parks has a charismatic and charming spokesman to help spread the word about the campaign. Josh Holloway, who played Sawyer on the television show Lost, is an avid outdoorsman who also happens to love America’s national parks. He was on hand for the kickoff event this past weekend to not only help get the festivities underway, but to also get a little dirty too. Holloway joined a host of volunteers who went to work building trails and helping to protect the habitat of desert tortoises that inhabit the region around Joshua Tree.I had the opportunity to chat with Josh on several occasions throughout the day and came away quite impressed. This isn’t the case of a celebrity spokesperson slapping their name on a project and paying lip service to it. Josh truly does have a love for the outdoors and was eager to lend a hand in the actual physical work of the day. For most of the morning he had a shovel, rake, or other tool in his hand, and was doing his part alongside the rest of the volunteers who were there to take part in a restoration project.

Despite the warm weather (temperatures approached 95 degrees Fahrenheit) the Nature Valley event drew an impressive turnout from volunteers. After a brief orientation about the area, including instructions on how to avoid stepping on a tortoise den, we were off on a mile long hike to the various work sites. Once there, we broke into teams that took on a variety of projects that included clearing trails of plants and other debris to more clearly define where to walk, as well as restructuring part of the landscape to allow water to flow naturally, without causing undue erosion. These simple efforts can go a long way toward protecting the area and ensuring that those who visit it can pass through without endangering the creatures that live there.

Nature Valley has a number of other similar events planned for the summer ahead, when the program will really kick into high gear. Those events will take place in Yellowstone, Acadia, Biscayne and several other national parks. Details on those events has yet to be completed, but you can watch the Preserve the Parks website for details on when they’ll be occurring and how you might be able to join in.

National Parks Week is a time that is dedicated to celebrating the spectacular natural beauty that exists inside America’s wilderness wonderlands. It is also a great time to acknowledge some of the threats that face the parks, such as environmental concerns, land management issues, lack of funding, and more. Organizations like Nature Valley and the NPCA recognize the importance of the parks on American culture and are working hard to protect them for future generations to enjoy as well. Programs such as the Preserve the Parks campaign are a perfect model of how businesses, non-profits, and grassroots activists can all work together to improve and protect the parks.

This trip was payed for by Nature Valley, but the ideas and opinions expressed here are my own.

Photo of the Day – Wildlife in Yellowstone

by Jeremy Kressmann on

It’s easy to clutter your travel photos with all kinds of random visual information. But sometimes the best shot is also the simplest. For instance today’s snap from Photo of the Day regular fiznatty. While exploring the famous Yellowstone National Park, our photographer spotted this elusive Red Fox trotting through the pristine white snow. Your eye is drawn immediately to the fox’s reddish-orange coat, furry tail and quick movement. It almost looks as if the animal was dropped on a plain white canvas for added effect.

Have any great photos from your travels you’d like to share with the world? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Nat Geo brings national parks maps to iPhone and iPad

by Kraig Becker on

National Geographic has launched a new iPhone and iPad app that is sure to please travelers visiting America’s national parks. The app offers detailed maps of 15 parks, providing information on places to camp, trails to hike, locations of shops and visitors center, and other points of interests.

The program is apply named National Park Maps HD and it comes preloaded with digital versions of Nat Geo’s excellent Trails Illustrated Maps. The parks that are included are amongst the most popular and beautiful in the entire national park system, attracting millions of visitors on a yearly basis.

Upon launching the app you’ll be presented with a map of the U.S. with a photo representing each of the parks. Simply tap on the park you would like to explore and a detaied map will appear with an overview of the region. Double tapping the screen will allow you to zoom in even closer, showing you all the roads, campsites, and various other points of interest. And if the default maps don’t have the detail you need, HD versions of each of the maps are also available to download inside the app, bringing the zoom levels up even further.

National Parks Maps HD also offers the ability to use your device’s built in assisted GPS to triangulate your location and there is even an in-app compass to help you find your way. You’ll also find an option to place virtual pins on the map to mark your own favorite places and the built in search function allows you to locate anything you’re looking for in the park. The amount of information at your fingertips is fantastic and a real benefit for travelers.

The list of parks included in the app are Acadia, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Glacier/Waterton, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Smoky Mountains, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia/Kings Canyon, Shenandoah, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion. If you were to buy each of those maps in paper form, it would cost over $300.

The National Park Maps HD app is available now for $4.99. The universal app is a one time download that will work on both your iPhone and iPad. If you’re planning a trip to one of the above parks in the near future, this would make an excellent travel companion for sure.

Native Americans in Oregon hunt buffalo for first time in a century

by Sean McLachlan on


In the old days, the Cayuse people used to rely on the buffalo hunt. Like many other Native American tribes, the buffalo gave them meat, hide, bone, grease, bone, and other materials. But once European settlers swept across the continent the buffalo all but disappeared. The Cayuse haven’t had a buffalo hunt in a hundred years.

All that has changed now that the Cayuse have won the right, initially given to them in a treaty dating back to 1855, to hunt buffalo on Federal land. It’s the latest in a string of victories for Native Americans in various states pushing for traditional hunting rights. In 2006, the Nez Perce and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai won the right to hunt on Federal land outside Yellowstone National Park, although they are forbidden from hunting within the park.

White settlers hunted the buffalo nearly to extinction by the early twentieth century. A couple of generations of careful management has helped the population rebound, and they’re now classified as “Near Threatened“, which is a lot better than “Endangered”.

Now the Cayuse and Shoshone-Bannock of Oregon have begun to hunt again. In addition to hiking, swimming, bird watching, logging, and a host of other uses, Federal land now has a new use, or an old one.

[Photo courtesy John Hill]

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Yellowstone’s volcano takes a breath, the park bulges

by Elizabeth Seward on

Part of what makes Yellowstone National Park so special is the supervolcano upon which it sits. Also known as the Yellowstone Caldera, the supervolcano’s major features measure about 25 by 37 miles. And so when something of that magnitude stops and takes a breath, the entire park feels it.

A substantial area of the park’s grounds has now dramatically risen due to the volcano’s activity over the last few years. Starting in 2004, scientists began to notice the ground over the caldera rising–at around 2.8 inches per year. Although this rate slowed in the last 3 years, the total increase since the beginning of the swelling is now at around 10 inches in some places.

The caldera is an ancient crater. Each time it has erupted, the eruptions have been a thousand times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Its last major blow-up was about 640,000 years ago, but about 30 smaller blasts have filled the caldera with lava and ash since then. The most recent of those smaller blasts was around 70,000 years ago.

But there’s no need to worry. Even though scientists were initially concerned that this commotion was pointing toward a soon-to-come eruption, that’s no longer a concern. Read more about the situation with the Yellowstone Caldera on National Geographic.

[photo by Elizabeth Seward]