Category: National Parks

… was authorized on this date in 1937. The National Park Service tells us:

Stretched over 70 miles of barrier islands, Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a fascinating combination of natural and cultural resources, and provides a wide variety of recreational opportunities. Once dubbed the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” for its treacherous currents, shoals, and storms, Cape Hatteras has a wealth of history relating to shipwrecks, lighthouses, and the U.S. Lifesaving Service. These dynamic islands provide a variety of habitats and are a valuable wintering area for migrating waterfowl. The park’s fishing and surfing are considered the best on the east coast.

was established on this date in 1911. From the National Park Service:

Established in 1911 by presidential proclamation, Devils Postpile National Monument protects and preserves the Devils Postpile formation, the 101-foot Rainbow Falls, and the pristine mountain scenery.

The Devils Postpile formation is a rare sight in the geologic world and ranks as one of the world’s finest examples of columnar basalt. Its columns tower 60-feet high and display an unusual symmetry. Another wonder is in store just downstream from the Postpile at Rainbow Falls, once called “a gem unique and worthy of its name”. When the sun is overhead, a bright rainbow highlights the spectacular Falls.

The monument is also a portal to the High Sierra backcountry, with some 75% included in the Ansel Adams Wilderness. At 800 acres, Devils Postpile National Monument may be considered small by some, yet its natural and recreational values abound.

was established on this date in 1960. From the National Park Service:

In 1686, Henri de Tonti established a trading post known as “Poste de Arkansea” at the Quapaw village of Osotouy. It was the first semi-permanent French settlement in the lower Mississippi River Valley. The establishment of the Post was the first step in a long struggle between France, Spain, and England over the interior of the North American continent.

Over the years, the Post relocated as necessary due to flooding from the Arkansas River, but its position always served of strategic importance for the French, Spanish, American, and Confederate military. Spanish soldiers and British partisans clashed here in the 1783 “Colbert Raid,” the only Revolutionary War action in Arkansas.

Arkansas Post became part of the United States following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. By 1819, the post was a thriving river port and the largest city in the region and selected as the first capital of the Arkansas Territory.

During the Civil War, Confederate troops tried to maintain tactical control of the confluence of the two rivers, and in 1862 they constructed a massive earthen fortification known as Fort Hindman at the Post. In January 1863 Union troops destroyed the fort, ensuring control of the Arkansas River.

Today, the memorial and museum commemorate the multi-layered and complex history of the site. Located on a peninsula bordered by the Arkansas River and two backwaters, the site offers excellent fishing and wildlife watching opportunities.

was authorized 70 years ago today. From the National Park Service:

Big Bend is one of the largest and least visited of America’s national parks. Over 801,000 acres await your exploration and enjoyment. From an elevation of less than 2,000 feet along the Rio Grande to nearly 8,000 feet in the Chisos Mountains, Big Bend includes massive canyons, vast desert expanses, and the entire Chisos Mountain range. Here, you can explore one of the last remaining wild corners of the United States, and experience unmatched sights, sounds, and solitude.

In Big Bend National Park all roads end at the Rio Grande, the boundary between the United States and Mexico. But far more than two nations meets here. Three states come together at Big Bend: Texas in the United States and Coahuila and Chihuahua in Mexico. Many of the park’s famous, expansive vistas mix scenes belonging to both nations.

Big Bend National Park also marks the northernmost range of many plants and animals, such as the Mexican long-nosed bat. Ranges of typically eastern and typically western species of plants and animals come together or overlap here. Here many species are at the extreme limits of their ranges. Latin American species, many from the tropics, range this far north, while northern-nesting species often travel this far south in winter. Contrasting elevations create additional, varied micro-climates that further enhance the diversity of plant and animal life and the park’s wealth of natural boundaries.

YOSEMITE — When I was a young child just beginning to walk, my parents took me to this special place where I learned the songs of the birds and the waterfalls, and the wind that blew mist into the air that created rainbows. I remember the intense feeling of comfort, as all of nature sang, and the immense granite walls were so tall that I’d almost fall over backwards trying to see their tops. As if cradled in my mother’s arms, that’s how tranquil I felt, just looking in awe.

Last week we revisited Yosemite Valley and, even after a half century of annual trips, my senses were never so keen. I realized a profound sense of permanency. The ages-old, glacially carved granite provided us solace and resolve that, while much of the world has gone mad, the natural processes here are in order — methodical, timeless and overwhelming. Extraordinary snow melt this year has turned its most famous waterfalls — Yosemite, Bridalveil and Vernal — into most exquisite plumes of frothy white, and allowed a plethora of other temporary waterfalls to drape the walls and spew some 5,000 feet down to the valley floor. Wherever we looked there was water.

Peter Ottesen in the Stockton Record

Link via Yosemite Blog.

was established on this date in 1960. The National Park Service tells us:

William and Charles Bent, along with Ceran St. Vrain, built the original fort on this site in 1833 to trade with plains Indians and trappers. The adobe fort quickly became the center of the Bent, St. Vrain Company’s expanding trade empire that included Fort St. Vrain to the north and Fort Adobe to the south, along with company stores in Mexico at Taos and Santa Fe. The primary trade was with the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians for buffalo robes.

For much of its 16-year history, the fort was the only major permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements. The fort provided explorers, adventurers, and the U.S. Army a place to get needed supplies, wagon repairs, livestock, good food, water and company, rest and protection in this vast “Great American Desert.” During the war with Mexico in 1846, the fort became a staging area for Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny’s “Army of the West”. Disasters and disease caused the fort’s abandonment in 1849. Archeological excavations and original sketches, paintings and diaries were used in the fort’s reconstruction in 1976.

Bent’s Fort is east of La Junta, Colorado, on the Arkansas River, which was the border between Mexico and the United States from 1819-1848. The present fort is a reconstruction built in 1976.

was established on this date in 1923. From the National Park Service:

Pipe Spring National Monument, a little known gem of the National Park System, is rich with American Indian, early explorer and Mormon pioneer history. The water of Pipe Spring has made it possible for plants, animals, and people to live in this dry, desert region. Ancestral Puebloans and Kaibab Paiute Indians gathered grass seeds, hunted animals, and raised crops near the springs for at least 1,000 years. In the 1860s Mormon pioneers brought cattle to the area and by 1872 a fort (Winsor Castle) was built over the main spring and a large cattle ranching operation was established. This isolated outpost served as a way station for people traveling across the Arizona Strip, that part of Arizona separated from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon. It also served as a refuge for polygamist wives during the 1880s and 1890s. Although their way of life was greatly impacted, the Paiute Indians continued to live in the area and by 1907 the Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation was established, surrounding the privately owned Pipe Spring ranch. In 1923 the Pipe Spring ranch was purchased and set aside as a national monument.

From a report in the Los Angeles Times:

Tucked away in the 96-page emergency military spending bill signed by President Bush this month are four paragraphs that give energy companies the right to explore for oil and gas inside a sprawling national park.

The amendment written by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) codifies Mississippi’s claim to mineral rights under federal lands and allows drilling for natural gas under the Gulf Islands National Seashore — a thin necklace of barrier islands that drapes the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.

As a preliminary step to drilling, the rider permits seismic testing, which involves detonating sound-wave explosions to locate oil and gas deposits in the park. Two of the five Mississippi islands are wilderness areas, and the environs are home to federally protected fish and birds, a large array of sea turtles and the gulf’s largest concentration of bottlenose dolphins.

The legislation marks the first time the federal government has sanctioned seismic exploration on national park property designated as wilderness — which carries with it the highest level of protection.

was established on this date in 1983. The National Park Service:

Harry S Truman National Historic Site includes the Truman Home in Independence, Missouri, and the Truman Farm Home in Grandview, Missouri.

Harry S Truman (1884-1972), 33rd President of the United States, lived here from 1919 until his death. The white Victorian style house at 219 North Delaware Street was built by the maternal grandfather of Bess Wallace Truman (1885-1982), and was known as the “Summer White House” during the Truman administration (1945-1953).

How much do you love Yosemite? Do you love it enough that you want it to be your final resting place?

If you’ve ever thought about being cremated and having your ashes spread over the National Park then here’s some news, you can.

Yosemite Blog tells us more.

Yosemite Blog

This was discovered as a result of a comment just made at NewMexiKen. Much about this week’s flood including great photos!

Thanks Loyd. Glad you found NewMexiKen so that we could find Yosemite Blog.

Things are a little wetter in Yosemite Valley than when NewMexiKen was there 19 days ago. Roads in the Valley were closed yesterday but reopened today.

The photo is dated May 16; click to enlarge. You should be able to make out a thundering Yosemite Falls in the haze in the distance. Wish I was there this week!

It poured again on Sunday in the Yosemite Valley, but people were smiling in their ponchos and galoshes. It has been that kind of spring here: dreadful weather and delighted visitors.

With extraordinarily heavy snowfall in the higher elevations, and lots of rain elsewhere, the rivers and waterfalls in the Sierra Nevada are gushing. Hikers must hopscotch around muddy puddles, and much of the park remains closed because of impassible roads, but the Yosemite water show is at its best in years.

“There are places we’ve stood, where you can look around and see six waterfalls at once,” said David Cosio of Watsonville, Calif., getting soaked from head to toe near Yosemite Falls with his wife, Linda, and three young sons. “We’ve been here before in May, but nothing like this.”

Yosemite Drapes Itself in Its Splendid Liquid Veils, and Preens from The New York Times

You saw it here ten days ago. It was stupendous — though NewMexiKen did get a sunny morning.

At the southern end of the Cascade Range, Lassen Peak was designated a national monument on this date in 1907. It became a national park in 1916.

This from the National Park Service:

Beneath Lassen Volcanic’s peaceful forests and gem-like lakes lies evidence of a turbulent and fiery past. 600,000 years ago, the collision and warping of continental plates led to violent eruptions and the formation of lofty Mt. Tehama (also called Brokeoff Volcano.) After 200,000 years of volcanic activity, vents and smaller volcanoes on Tehama’s flanks-including Lassen Peak-drew magma away from the main cone. Hydrothermal areas ate away at the great mountain’s bulk. Beneath the onslaught of Ice Age glaciers, Mt. Tehama crumbled and finally ceased to exist. But the volcanic landscape lived on: in 1914, Lassen Peak awoke. The Peak had its most significant activity in 1915 and minor activity through 1921. Lassen Volcanic became a national park in 1916 because of its significance as an active volcanic landscape.

The National Parks Conservation Association has a great new look to their home page. Worthy of a click.

Join while you’re there.

Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View Friday morning. That’s Bridalveil Fall on the right, El Capitan on the left, and Half Dome partially obscured in the distance.

NewMexiKen is in Yosemite National Park this evening. Lovely.

Word is the bears have learned to open unlocked car doors. I figure a couple of more generations of evolution and the bears will be ordering various car remotes over the internets.

Nearly 400 bison were pushed back into Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday, topping a single-day record for government agents working on the park’s western border.

Montana Department of Livestock officials said 396 bison were hazed into the park and 50 more may be pushed back today.

On Tuesday, 37 bison were captured and tested for exposure to brucellosis, the contagious disease that government officials worry the bison may spread to nearby cattle.

Of those 37, 16 tested positive for exposure and will be sent to slaughter, 18 tested negative and were released and three calves were taken to an experimental quarantine facility near Gardiner, according to Karen Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Department of Livestock.

Billings Gazette

was established on this date in 1908.

Natural Bridges protects some of the finest examples of ancient stone architecture in the southwest. Located on a tree-covered mesa cut by deep sandstone canyons, three natural bridges formed where meandering streams eroded the canyon walls. The bridges are named Kachina, Owachomo and Sipapu.

National Park Service

That’s Sipapu in the photo.

… was established on this date in 1937.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument celebrates the life and landscape of the Sonoran Desert. Here, in this desert wilderness of plants and animals and dramatic mountains and plains scenery, you can drive a lonely road, hike a backcountry trail, camp beneath a clear desert sky, or just soak in the warmth and beauty of the Southwest. The Monument exhibits an extraordinary collection of plants of the Sonoran Desert, including the organ pipe cactus, a large cactus rarely found in the United States. There are also many creatures that have been able to adapt themselves to extreme temperatures, intense sunlight and little rainfall.

National Park Service