Archive for the 'National Parks' Category
Enjoy a free day at national parks, forests on Veterans Day, Nov. 11
November 4, 2009 8:52am
Next week, national parks and forests will waive entrance fees for one day, Wednesday, Nov. 11, to honor servicemen and women. Unlike past years, when only U.S. veterans, active members of the U.S. armed forces and their families got a free pass, this year’s Veterans Day observance will allow everyone in for free, according to a news release Tuesday, Nov. 3, from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
If the deal otherwise works like it did in past years, you’ll still owe fees for camping, permits and other activities. But you can save a lot anyway because some popular parks, including California’s Yosemite National Park, normally charge entrance fees of $20 or so per car.
The Interior Department earlier this year expanded the number of free days on federal lands, offering three fee-free weekends over the summer. At that time, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar noted that parks provide affordable family vacations “during these tough economic times.”
Grand Canyon deal: Travel to the rim by rail this winter
November 2, 2009 5:58am
Complement your trip to Grand Canyon National Park with a ride on the rails through Arizona’s wintry landscape. Every morning from Williams, Ariz., a Grand Canyon Railway locomotive departs for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, a journey of 65 miles one way. Among various ride-stay packages available is the following deal that gives you a little bit of everything.
Deal: The three-night “Canyon Limited Plus” package costs $364 per person, pre-tax, based on double occupancy, for stays Nov. 1, 2009 through Jan. 2, 2010, and $304 per person Jan. 3 through March 14, 2010.
For that, you get two nights of accommodations at the Grand Canyon Railway Hotel and one night at Maswik Lodge, near the South Rim. Plus, you’ll get round-trip, coach-class train travel, a narrated motor-coach tour of the South Rim (lunch provided), and two breakfasts and two dinners per person at the Grand Depot Café. Read the rest of this entry »
At Yellowstone, wolves and winter deals
October 24, 2009 9:00am
While it can’t compete with the 25-cent hotel rooms recently offered in the U.S. Virgin Islands, or $20 rooms at Hooters Casino in Las Vegas, Yellowstone National Park is offering up some interesting snow packages that include wildlife tours, snowmobiling and ice skating.
The “Winter Getaway” packages are available just after the holidays, Jan. 3 to March 6, a period often ripe with snow-play specials.
Particularly appealing: “Trail of the Wolf,” a guided snowmobile trip to the interior of the park, which is known for its wolves, and wildlife watching by special van in the park’s northern range. The package includes three nights of lodging at Old Faithful Snow Lodge or Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, two breakfasts per person, a one-hour hot tub rental, unlimited skating and skates. Prices begin at $411 per person pretax, double occupancy, for two nights at Mammoth Hot Springs and one night at Old Faithful. Two nights at Old Faithful and one night at Mammoth Hot Springs runs $546 per person.
Orionid meteor shower peaks tonight: Use Twitter hashtag #meteorshower to boast of spotting shooting stars
October 20, 2009 4:33pm
Do something different tonight: Leave the city and the suburbs for a late-night picnic beneath a meteor shower. The Orionids, the second annual meteor shower of the year, is expected to peak Oct. 21 around 3 a.m. PT. The best places in Southern California to view a meteor shower are, as you’d expect, in rural areas. Here’s a photo gallery of some prime viewing locations, such as Red Rock Canyon State Park and Joshua Tree National Park (pictured above and taken during the more well-known Perseid meteor shower that occurs between July and August).
“The best time to watch will be between 1 a.m. and dawn local time Wednesday morning, regardless of your location. That’s when the patch of Earth you are standing on is barreling headlong into space on Earth’s orbital track, and meteors get scooped up like bugs on a windshield,” said Robert Roy Britt on Space.com.
For those of you who want to Twitter your star-gazing experience tonight, use the hashtag #meteorshower. You can also find other reports of people talking about the Orionid meteor shower by searching for “Orionids” on Twitter Search.
‘Leave No Trace’ video now online, inspires minimizing our impact on the back country
October 19, 2009 3:40pm
Recently available to view online for the first time is the National Park Service’s “Leave No Trace” video. At just 9-1/2 minutes, it’s a short and scenic entreaty to park visitors to exercise care and conscientiousness in the back country.
Seasoned campers have no doubt heard park rangers utter the saying, “Take only pictures and leave only footprints.” But there’s more to it.
To make our outdoor ventures as low-impact as possible, we all know that we should take out what we bring in. But maybe next time we can think about bringing out even more than what we brought in (i.e., trash left by other people). And an evening campfire is a given for many campers, but it’s worth considering, for the good of the environment, not starting one up at all next time, if we don’t need it.
These are just a couple of the themes brushed upon in the video, which briefly describes the following seven widely known leave-no-trace principles for outdoor enthusiasts to follow: Read the rest of this entry »
Death Valley: Furnace Creek Resort deal includes golf below sea level
October 15, 2009 8:58am
Average temperatures are now more reasonable than they were just a couple of months ago, it’s still low season for tourism, and the Furnace Creek Inn, popular with travelers who prefer four-diamond digs to camping, has just opened for the season. Now is a fantastic time to visit Death Valley National Park for hikers and other explorers, as well as golfers interested in teeing off at 214 feet below sea level.
Deal: The “Stay & Play” package at Furnace Creek Inn & Ranch Resort — a Xanterra property that includes Furnace Creek Inn and the more casual Furnace Creek Ranch — includes a one-night stay for two people, based on double occupancy; one day of unlimited play at the resort’s golf course (billed to be the world’s lowest); and cart rental.
Prices vary depending on dates booked and whether you stay at the more upscale inn or at the cheaper ranch, which is adjacent to the golf course. Stays now through Dec. 23, 2009, at the ranch start at $214 per night, pre-tax, though you can find a midweek stay in January for as low as $207 per night. Use promo code “GOLF” when booking.
This is a good deal for golfing couples considering that a stay in a comparable ranch room at present, without the golf component, costs $159, and green fees are normally $55 per person (for 18 holes). Cart rental generally costs $12.50, and no extra fee is charged for club storage.
Yosemite bears’ car of choice: the minivan
October 14, 2009 8:51am
The jury is still out on whether gentlemen prefer blonds. But in the unguarded campgrounds and parking lots of Yosemite National Park, black bears prefer minivans.
That’s the conclusion of a new study in the Journal of Mammalogy, drawn from seven years of park data on bear-related break-ins.
Analyzing reports on 908 Yosemite Valley vehicle break-ins, authors Stewart W. Breck, Nathan Lance and Victoria Seher classified automobiles in nine categories. They found that 26% of the victimized vehicles were minivans, 22.5% were sport-utility vehicles, 17.1% were small cars, 13.7% were sedans, 11.9% were trucks, and the remaining targets were split among other types.
Comparing those numbers with figures on the types of vehicles that visited the park in 2004-05, the authors found that only minivans were targeted at disproportionately high rates. (Most of the vehicles broken into, minivans and otherwise, contained evidence of available food.)
The authors offer four possible reasons, beginning with one that won’t surprise many parents of small children. Perhaps, the authors say, the black bears like minivans because “minivans are more likely to emit food odors, based on the fact that minivans are designed for families with children, who are more likely to spill food and drink in a vehicle.”
Other hypotheses: Maybe minivan passengers are more prone to leave large amounts of food in a vehicle parked overnight. Perhaps minivans are structurally easier to break into than other types of vehicles. (”Bears mostly often gained access to minivans by popping open a rear side window.”) Or maybe a handful of bears is responsible for all of the break-ins, and they have somehow learned to favor minivans.
Those findings sound sensible to Scott Gediman, spokesman for the park.
“Especially at this time of year, bears are hoping to get about 20,000 calories a day, and bears are opportunistic eaters,” Gediman said Tuesday. “It’s very easy for a bear to break into a vehicle — little effort for a possibly big reward.”
Yosemite National Park travel: $99 fall cabin deal at Evergreen Lodge
October 8, 2009 5:54am
Does the PBS Ken Burns series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” have you itching for a hike in Yosemite? Do you want to see the valley at sunset or sit by the fireplace at the Ahwahnee before it closes for a big remodel? If you answered yes, or were already researching a trip to Yosemite, check out this fall deal from Evergreen Lodge brought to you by Hotwire’s Travel-Ticker.
The lodge has a history dating back to 1921, but the property was renovated and expanded in 2005. This summer they added 24 more cedar cabins spread out among towering old growth trees. Valued for its serene location about a mile outside the park’s northwestern side, near the Hetch Hetchy entrance, it offers numerous outdoor activities. Or you can just relax with the family during a night of s’mores at the Plaza fireplace.
Winter deal: Lodge rooms at Grand Canyon National Park for $82
October 5, 2009 5:59am
If you think winter is a weird time to visit the Grand Canyon, think again. The snow-dusted scenery is stunning, the crowds thinner, the hiking can be great (absent a snowstorm) and some lodge prices are lower.
I know because I’ve been there in November. My hike down the Bright Angel Trail a few years back started out icy but soon turned comfortable. No scorching heat at the bottom, like in summer — or so they say. (OK, so I didn’t make it all the way down. But I had fun and bagged the perfect souvenir: a snowy snapshot for my holiday cards.)
This year, Xanterra South Rim, the concessionaire for Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park, is discounting rooms at Maswik Lodge up to 38% for most of the winter. These rooms, starting at $82 per night plus tax, won’t put you right at the canyon rim, but they’re only about a quarter-mile away — a short walk.
$5-million settlement reached in lawsuit over flash-flood tragedy at national park in Hawaii
October 3, 2009 5:31pm
The U.S. government agreed to pay $5 million late last month to settle a lawsuit filed by Holly Brown, a Louisville, Ky., doctor, and her son, Clayton, after the deaths of her 39-year-old husband, Kevin, and 8-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, during a flash flood at Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui in April 2003.
Brown said the family of four had checked at a nearby ranger station just before going hiking along Pipiwai Trail on the southeast side of Maui, according to a report on the website of the Courier-Journal. Even though there were dark clouds, the ranger did not issue a flash-flood warning, court documents said.
The family followed the path to an overlook above 184-foot Makahiku Falls and then decided to walk to the bottom. Kevin and Elizabeth were crossing the stream when they were suddenly overtaken by a 6-foot wall of water. Their bodies were never recovered.
