Archive for the 'National Parks' Category
Leonid meteor shower 2009 to peak early Tuesday morning
November 16, 2009 12:34pm
Sky-watchers in North America can expect to see up to 30 meteors hourly tonight as the annual Leonid meteor shower peaks in the wee hours of Tuesday, Nov. 17. Earth will cross the first meteor-producing stream on this date starting at around 1 a.m. PST, experts predict.
This shower, consisting of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, may not be as grand as the Perseids of this past summer (a recent year’s meteor is pictured above, in Joshua Tree National Park), but the show should still be worth watching.
And it’ll be unusual. “A remarkable feature of this year’s shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars,” said Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office on a NASA blog.
Your best vantage point is a remote, dark place. That means that, yes, you’d do well to pack up your warmest sleeping bag and camp out in the desert or mountains. In the past, Los Angeles Times staff members have recommended Joshua Tree National Park, Red Rock Canyon State Park and Mount Piños. Read the rest of this entry »
Yosemite: Bracebridge Dinner begins Dec. 13 [Updated]
November 13, 2009 11:47am
Squire Bracebridge and his household request your attendance at a most unusual feast this holiday season, but you’d better book a seat soon. The famous and long-running dinner at Yosemite’s Ahwahnee hotel, though pricey, is always popular. Last year, most of the eight evenings sold out. [Corrected at 11:53 a.m. Nov. 17: Previous versions of this post, along with the headline, said the dinner was in its 80th or 84th season. It began in 1927 but missed some war years.]
In recounting her experience at a 2008 Bracebridge Dinner, L.A. Times staff writer Sharon Bernstein called the tradition, which has been going since 1927 (it took a two-year hiatus during World War II), “part corny, part historical, wonderfully musical, very California and perfectly Christmas.”
[A scene from last year's Bracebridge Dinner is shown above. Click here for a related photo gallery.]
For the event, the Ahwanee’s Dining Room transforms into the Great Hall at Squire Bracebridge’s manor, where guests are treated to a four-hour, seven-course Christmas feast and pageant featuring more than 100 performers. Read the rest of this entry »
Washington: Clam-digging season underway; scheduled digs and hotel deals this winter
November 12, 2009 11:18am
Are you manic for mollusks? Then head north, dear adventurer, as clam-digging season is underway in the Pacific Northwest.
Among upcoming clam digs in Washington is one on Nov. 16 at Olympic National Park’s Kalaloch Beach, scheduled by the National Park Service. The search at this coastal site, presumably popular with clam-digging types, will be for razor clams during the evening tide, with digs restricted to the period between noon and midnight. Other tentative dates for the season, meant to coincide with clam digs in other parts of the state, are Dec. 4-5, Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.
Helping to make such an excursion easier to plan, Kalaloch Lodge, a remote hotel within the park which Times staff writer Christopher Reynolds visited on a road trip in July, is offering related deals.
Deals: Kalaloch Lodge’s “Clam Digger” package features one night’s accommodations, a bucket, shovel and net, and breakfast for two for $169 per night (pre-tax). The equipment will be yours to keep. Experienced clam-diggers with their own tools, however, can opt to skip the equipment component and pay just $129 for the room and breakfast. Read the rest of this entry »
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.”
