Carlsbad Caverns opens after heavy snowfall

Carlsbad Caverns National Park reopened Wednesday after heavy snowfall shut down the popular New Mexico tourist stop a day earlier.

Carlsbad Caverns' chief of interpretation and education, Marie Marek, said about 80 people were waiting to get into the park when it opened Wednesday morning, compared with the dozen or fewer people typically waiting when the park opens.

However, New Mexico hasn't seen the last of winter weather this week. The National Weather Service has issued a winter weather advisory for the northwest quarter of the state through Thursday morning. The advisory includes Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Farmington, Gallup, Grants, Taos, Los Alamos and Las Vegas. Forecasters say up to three inches of snow is possible at lower elevations.

A desert paradise: Joshua Tree National Park

Following is the second (first was Mesa Verde) of my Top Ten National Park picks, a difficult choice with so many great parks to choose from. To qualify, they had to be RV friendly, offering camping, road-touring, or optional means of seeing the park. They had to encompass some of the most breathtaking and wild scenery in the country, have abundant wildlife, and offer a variety of recreational opportunities to make it a destination choice, a place you could spend days or weeks. They represent several types of terrain spread over nine states and Canada, from Maine to California.

Joshuaa Tree National Park is the only desert park in the list, and provides an introduction to the variety and complexity of the desert environment. The park illustrates the vivid contrast between the higher Mojave and lower Colorado Deserts that range in altitude from 1,200 feet in the Pinto Basin to 5,814 feet, spanning many ecosystems.

Few roads pass through the 1,017,748-acre park, but entrances at both north and south ends of the park connect to a cross-park scenic drive, with spur roads to specific attractions, hikes, petroglyphs, campgrounds, and desert gardens.

The desert explodes with vivid hues in the spring when wildflowers burst through the sand and gravel of the desert floor, painting the desert with a profusion of color. Cacti begin to bloom in April, their neon flowers seem like creations from Photoshop. Best time to visit is in spring and fall, when temperatures moderate. Mid-winter can be cold and windy with occasional snow, while summers are hot and dry.

Hiking trails encourage exploration of the desert scenery: granite monoliths (popular with rock climbers), petroglyphs carved into the rocks by early Native Americans, the dark cavities of old abandoned mines, and the now deserted ranches. Look for wildlife and birds at the park’s five fan palm oases.

There are nine campgrounds. Reservations are available at Black Rock and Indian Cove, which also have dump stations (as does Cottonwood). Water is scarce, this is a desert, so arrive with a full tank and a couple of Jerry jugs for back-up. It's a long drive down to the visitor center to fill up.

From Palm Springs drive east on Interstate 10 to the southern entrance, or on CA62 to Twentynine Palms for the northern entrance. There is a visitor center at both entrances where you can pick up maps and information.

Learn more about desert camping with my new eBook, Snowbird Guide to Camping and Boondocking in the Southwestern Deserts.

In memory of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo and his journey to CA in 1542

Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma in San Diego commemorates the conquistador and explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and his 1542 journey up the California coast. This national park provides a great spot from which to take in the City of San Diego and the beauty of the Pacific Ocean. The Coronado Islands, mountains, and the sea lie beneath your eyes, seducing you to linger on the refurbished first floor of the lighthouse, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, made of local sandstone and featuring floor tiles taken from the ruins of an old Spanish fort.

Once you’ve seen the panorama of the coast and the nearby urban world,
descend to the water’s edge and get a close-up view of a tidepool. In
autumn and winter, tide levels drop, offering a peek at anemones, sea
stars, and other inhabitants of the ocean’s rocky intertidal zone. Rangers
can take you on guided walks if you wish.

From late December until early March, you can glimpse Pacific gray whales
whose annual migration route passes the park. The whales travel from the
Arctic to Baja California, where they mate and give birth in the warm
waters. The shiny, knuckled back of a gray whale may appear as the animal
breathes out warm, moist air that interacts with cool air at the ocean’s
surface to form a bushy column called a blow or spout. You might see a
whale display its flukes, or tail, before it dives or even see it
breach—throw its body out of the water and return with a terrific splash.

Lassen NP to again offer snow shoe walks

Lassen Volcanic National Park's popular ranger-led snowshoe walks will again be offered from the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center near the park's southwest entrance beginning Dec. 26.

Bring your holiday guests to the park and experience the fun of snowshoeing through a red fir forest blanketed in deep snow, said Superintendent Darlene M. Koontz.

Other activities to enjoy include cross-country skiing, snowboarding, snow play, sledding, snow camping, or just sitting by the fireplace in the visitor center with a cup of hot chocolate after viewing the park film.

Snowshoe walks are offered on Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30 p.m. at the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center from Dec. 26 through April 4. Programs last 11/2 to 2 hours and are open to individuals and families with children age 8 and older. For safety reasons, infants and children in carriers are not permitted. Rangers provide participants with proper snowshoeing techniques, outdoor survival tips and winter mountain travel safety information. The National Park Service provides snowshoes for the walks. A $1 donation is suggested for their use and maintenance.

The park is always open throughout the winter. The road is plowed to the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center on the south side, which is open daily except Dec. 25.

Wolf numbers up outside Yellowstone, down inside park

Wyoming’s wolf population is thriving and growing in most of the state, despite continuing declines among Yellowstone National Park wolves, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist says.

Wyoming’s wolf population – animals in the Equality State whose home ranges are outside Yellowstone – grew from 178 animals, 30 packs and 16 breeding pairs last year to an estimated 200 in 30 packs with between 19 and 21 breeding pairs this year. The overall increase is 12 percent, although year-end numbers won’t be calculated for some time.

USA Today recently reported that the decline in Yellowstone can partly be attributed to the loss of federal protections for the species in Idaho and Montana. Wyoming wolves remain under the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

Inside Yellowstone, the population declined from 171 wolves in 2007 to 124 wolves in 2008 and 116 wolves this year. The change marks a 32 percent decline in three years, a 6 percent decline this year.

While Montana hunters did kill four wolves from the Cottonwood Pack, which inhabits a territory on both sides of the boundary between Montana and the park, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wyoming wolf recovery coordinator, Mike Jimenez, said Yellowstone’s population decline has more to do with natural processes.

“The wolf populations in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are all expanding and doing very well,” he said. “The population drop in Yellowstone has been anticipated from day one and is from natural causes.”

San Antonio Missions National Historic Park, the Alamo, and Davy Crockett

Many travelers to San Antonio know before they arrive that they want to visit the Alamo, which gained fame during the Texas Revolution. They may, however, need a prod to remember the Alamo’s four sister sites, the missions preserved in the national historical park that bears their name.

Mission San Antonio (also known as the Alamo) and the missions Concepcion, San José, San Juan, and Espada were founded in the 1700s. The four missions in the park display Spanish Colonial baroque architecture, exemplified by Mission San José, with its ornate façade and rose window. When visitors enter a mission church, they may feel as if they have stepped back in time.

The churches work with remnants of walled pueblos, a reconstruction of a 1794 gristmill, and an 18th-century stone aqueduct to bring the Spanish Colonial period into focus. The park’s museum and daily tours also illustrate this chapter of the past.

Although people visit San Antonio Missions National Historic Park (NHP) primarily to discover architecture, art, and history, the park also offers outdoor recreation. The four missions have accessible, short walking paths and a route along the San Antonio River for hiking and bicycling.


San Antonio Missions NHP preserves and interprets the largest concentration of Spanish Colonial resources in the country. Admission to the park is free and open daily from 9 AM to 5 PM.

Top Ten National Parks: Mesa Verde

Visiting the National Parks is at or near the top of the reasons why many of us chose the RV Lifestyle. What better way to tour these national treasures, to experience with all our senses the wondrous glacier-covered mountains, rugged wave-sculpted coastlines, centuries-old Native American dwellings, and free-roaming wildlife--a virtual retrospective of the New World that the first explorers found when they stepped off the boat.

Following is the first of my Top Ten National Park picks. The rest will follow in the weeks ahead. A difficult choice, with so many great parks to choose from, to qualify they had to be RV friendly, offering camping, road-touring, or optional means of seeing the park, encompass some of the most breathtaking and wild scenery in the country, have abundant wildlife, and offer a variety of recreational opportunities to make it a destination choice.

They represent several varieties of terrain spread over nine states and Canada, from Maine to California. Not in any special order, my first profile is Mesa Verde National Park.

Mesa Verde in the Southwestern corner of Colorado celebrated its 100th anniversary as a national park in 2006, the first park in the National Parks system dedicated to preserving the efforts and lifestyle of a human culture, and is the only park in this list whose main attraction is man-made. The park has also been designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO.

More than 4,000 archeological sites have been discovered in the park, representing the Ancestral Pueblo (formerly called Anasazi) culture from AD 600 to 1300. Six hundred cliff dwellings hug the cliffs, the best preserved in the nation. For wildlife watcher, in addition to abundant deer and wild turkeys, watch for black bear, elk, coyote, gray fox, and marmot. Free-roaming horses from the Ute Reservation graze along park roads.

The park's Morefield Campground has 435 campsites, 15 with hookups, takes no reservations, and has never filled in its history. Amenities include showers, dump station, laundry, gas station and general store.

Learn more about RVing in Colorado at RVbookstore.com

Padre Island National Seashore bans dogs from park

Padre Island National Seashore in Corpus Christi, Texas announced that the park is now closed to dogs, since "Visitors choosing to bring their dogs to the National Seashore are putting their dogs at significant risk for severe illness and potentially death."

Several dead coyotes have been found and the park has received reports of dogs becoming ill or dying after visiting the park.

The park has limited information regarding the cause of the deaths, but toxicology reports suggest brevetoxin, acquired from the consumption of fish killed by the recent red tide, may be the cause for the recent coyote and dog mortalities.

Brevetoxin is a toxin produced by dinoflagellates, such as Karenia brevis the dinoflagellate responsible for the recent red tide event. There is no known antidote for the toxin.

The National Park Service (NPS) will advise the public once more information is available.

Christmas bird count at Wind Cave NP this Sunday

South Dakota's Wind Cave National Park will host its annual Christmas Bird Count on Sunday, December 13.

The event, like many others throughout the National Park System, is patterned after the National Audubon Society’s effort to document trends in wintering bird life throughout the United States. The count area will include all of Wind Cave National Park and areas of the Black Hills National Forest and Custer State Park.

“This annual activity helps us document winter bird life in the park and surrounding area,” said Wind Cave Superintendent Vidal Davila. “Information from the count is added to the park’s bird database and provided to the South Dakota Ornithological Union.”

People wishing to participate should meet at the park visitor center at 8 a.m. Participants are asked to dress warmly, bring a lunch, field guides and binoculars, something to share for dinner and a place setting. Participants will return to the park’s VIP Center at 4:15 p.m. to compile results and share in a potluck dinner. For more information, contact Barb Muenchau or Dan Roddy at (605) 745-4600.

Mammoths discovered in Waco, Texas

According to the National Park Service (NPS), the Waco Mammoth Site is “The nation’s first and only recorded discovery of a nursery herd of Pleistocene mammoths.”

After 30 years of excavation, the Waco Mammoth Site in Waco,TX a project teaming private landowners and donors in partnership wtih the NPS, the City of Waco, Baylor University, and the Mayborn Museum, is now open!

So far 24 mammoths have been discovered, and it's likely other fossils exist also. If you are an amateur or wannabae Paleontologist and happen to be passing through Waco, the museum is still looking for volunteers to lead tours at the dig site.

The public opening took place Saturday, Dec. 5 and the site will begin normal operating hours on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009.
Admission rates range from $5 to $7. Open 11 AM to 5 PM Tuesdays thru Fridays, 9 to 5 Saturdays.

Battle over Yellowstone bison featured in new TV show

A new one-hour special about the conflict surrounding Yellowstone National Park's bison herd is set to premiere on the cable network Planet Green on Saturday, Dec. 5, at 10 p.m.

Called Buffalo Battle, the show is the pilot episode of a potential series and tracks the work of activists with The Buffalo Field Campaign, an environmental group based in West Yellowstone, MT.

For thirteen years, Field Campaign volunteers have used direct action techniques to oppose the slaughter and management of Yellowstone bison, considered by some to be America's last wild, genetically pure herd. More than 6,000 wild bison have been killed when they left the safety of Yellowstone Park, as part of a plan to manage the cattle disease brucellosis. Bison carry brucellosis and livestock officials argue the migrating animals may transmit the disease to the region's cattle. But Field Campaign activists say the bison pose little or no threat of transmitting the bacterium. A Planet Green film crew spent more than two weeks in the Yellowstone area in May 2009 to document the work of the activists and the state and federal officials trying to manage the bison.

Agents used a helicopter, ATV's and horses to round up and move the bison. Activists opposed the relocation, or "hazing" of the bison, particularly during the spring calving season. They used video surveillance, coordinated wilderness patrols and other direct action techniques to protest the government's work and to gather evidence that relocation is unsafe for the bison and other sensitive wildlife.

Smoky Mountains NP announces road closures

Roads Closed in the Smoky Mountains National Park
* Cades Cove Loop Road will be closed for repaving to all traffic, hikers and bikers starting sometime in March 2010 until at least late May 2010

* Balsam Mountain Road is now closed for winter until May 8th 2010.

* Clingmans Dome Road is now closed to vehicles traffic until May 2010 and will be closed to all hikers, bikers and skiers due to repaving starting February 2010.

* Fontana Dam Access Road to the AT is closed to vehicles (Hikers Allowed) until January 31st, 2010.

* Heintooga Ridge Road is now closed for winter until May 8th 2010.

* Little Greenbrier Road is closed for winter from December 31st 2009 until March 13th 2010.

* Parson Branch Road is closed for the winter and will open in late in April 2010.

* Rich Mountain Road is now closed for winter until March 13th 2010.

* Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail in now closed to vehicles and will be closed in December to all hikers and bikers starting sometime in February 2010 until May 2010.

* Roundbottom/Straight Fork is now closed for winter until March 13th 2010.

* The Sinks Parking Area on Little River Road will be closed due to construction from sometime in December 2009 through May 2010.

The fire breathing dragons of Hopewell Furnace NHS

Hopewell Village’s rolling hills, rows of apple trees, rustic barns and outbuildings, and meandering trails suggest a mood of pastoral peacefulness, offering only a clue to what life was like in this bustling 18th century community. The restless colonists of the period, filled with the fervor of a new land of freedom and commerce, were poised to charge into the new century with the bravery and confidence of medieval knights slaying fire-breathing dragons.

The dragons confronted by Hopewell’s residents, however, belched smoke and flames from tall, stone, charcoal-fueled furnace chimneys, that grew out of the ore-rich earth of eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1800s.

Sweat soaked “founders” fed the roaring, voraciously hungry monsters that demanded feeding day and night, seldom shutting down for fear of losing production. There was great demand for the products spit out by these dragons, not just the raw pig iron demanded by the mother country, but also cast iron stoves, plowshares, pots, sash and scale weights, and—when war broke out—cannon and shot.

Manufacturing anything—except for the production of pig iron--was strictly forbidden by England. But the colonists did not take kindly to these orders. Instead the independent entrepreneurs defied England’s proclamation, and when relations exploded into revolution in 1775, the colonies’ forges were producing enough finished goods to rate them as the seventh largest producer of iron products in the world.

Fortunately for these revolutionaries, when war broke out Colonial ironmasters were poised and ready to turn out the weapons, cannon, and shot needed by the Continental Army and Navy to wrest independence from Britain. Established in 1771, the iron-producing Hopewell Village forges operated successfully for 112 years until 1883, when new processes and production methods ushered in an era of efficient, low cost iron production, forcing the furnace to shut down. The roar of the beast would be heard no more.

Today you can tour the grounds and ten restored buildings including the ironmaster’s mansion, cast house and furnace stack, smokehouse, and springhouse as they appeared in the 1820-1840 period, when the furnace produced its most successful product--the cast iron Hopewell Stove.
Exhibits and audio programs show and explain the operation of the furnace and the village. During special event days, the village comes alive with living history programs and demonstrations conducted by characters in period dress.

Hopewell Furnace National Historic site is southeast of Reading, five miles south of Birdsboro, on PA-345

Everglades proposes partial ban on outboard motors

The Everglades once covered most of the southern third of Florida, supporting countless species of plant and animal life. But as more and more people arrived there, more and more changes were made to the Everglades. Now, scientists say the Everglades is dying.

In an effort to prevent boat propellers from tearing up seagrass, the park has proposed banning the use of outboard motors in part of Florida Bay, establishing pole and troll zones where only push poles, paddles, and electric trolling motors could be used.

The no-motor zone is intended to protect seagrass and wildlife habitat, showing that damaged areas can recover, enhancing habitat for fish and other wildlife and improving the experience for people who fish, paddle or watch wildlife.