The North and Northeast Entrances to Yellowstone National Park will offer free visitor admission on Friday, November 11, to honor all past and current members of the U.S. Armed Forces. All other park entrances and interior roads close at 8 a.m. on Monday morning, November 7.
All entrance fees, including commercial tour entrance fees and transportation entrance fees, will be waived at all National Park Service sites on Veteran's Day. Free admission is offered to all visitors, not just to veterans or military personnel. This annual fee free day was established in 2006.
Yellowstone has a long and proud association with our nation's military. After struggling for years with limited staff and budget in an effort to thwart souvenir hunters and poachers in Yellowstone's early years, the U.S. Army was called upon to protect the park in 1886.
During the 32 years the U.S. Army was present in the park, it set the tone for conservation and protection of special places like Yellowstone, which still guides the uniformed members of the National Park Service to this day. Among the most visible reminders of the military presence in the park are the stone and tile roofed structures of Fort Yellowstone in Mammoth Hot Springs, which are still used by the park for administration and residences. Visitors can take a self-guided tour of the historic fort all year 'round.
The road from the park's North Entrance at Gardiner, Montana, through Mammoth Hot Springs, Tower Junction, the Lamar Valley, and on to Cooke City, Montana, is open to wheeled vehicle travel all year.
At Mammoth Hot Springs, the Yellowstone General Store, Post Office, medical clinic, campground, and the Albright Visitor Center remain open all year. Pay-at-the-pump fuel is available 24 hours a day all year at the Mammoth Hot Springs and Tower Junction service stations.
Additional information on the military era and on Fort Yellowstone can be found online at http://www.nps.gov/yell/historyculture/ftyell.htm.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Yellowstone Completes Winter Use Environmental Impact Statement
Yellowstone National Park will issue a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) later today that ensures the park opens for motorized oversnow travel as scheduled on December 15th.
This Final EIS will be available online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov. The National Park Service intends to issue a Record of Decision selecting only the transition year from the preferred alternative, and then publish and implement a "One-Year Rule" for the upcoming 2011-2012 winter season
These actions will allow the park to open for winter use on December 15, and provide for managed motorized oversnow travel over groomed, snow-packed park roads in the same manner as allowed the past two winters under a temporary plan. Under the One-Year Rule, up to 318 commercially guided, Best Available Technology (BAT) snowmobiles, and up to 78 commercially guided snowcoaches a day will be allowed this winter into Yellowstone National Park.
After the Record of Decision and One-Year Rule are published, the National Park Service will begin working on a Supplemental EIS, which will contain the further analysis of the issues raised during the public comment period.
Some of the more than 59,000 public comments received on the Winter Use Draft EIS raised additional questions as to long-term effects and options regarding winter use in Yellowstone.
Among the subjects identified for further analysis are variable use limits, a 10:30 a.m. entry requirement, air quality and modeling assumptions, proposed Best Available Technology standards for snowcoaches, cost of avalanche hazard mitigation on Sylvan Pass, and opportunities for non-commercially guided snowmobile access.
A draft Supplemental EIS will be completed and released for public review and comment in early 2012. The National Park Service intends to have a final Supplemental EIS, a Record of Decision, and a long-term regulation in place prior to the start of the 2012-2013 winter season.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
This Final EIS will be available online at http://parkplanning.nps.gov. The National Park Service intends to issue a Record of Decision selecting only the transition year from the preferred alternative, and then publish and implement a "One-Year Rule" for the upcoming 2011-2012 winter season
These actions will allow the park to open for winter use on December 15, and provide for managed motorized oversnow travel over groomed, snow-packed park roads in the same manner as allowed the past two winters under a temporary plan. Under the One-Year Rule, up to 318 commercially guided, Best Available Technology (BAT) snowmobiles, and up to 78 commercially guided snowcoaches a day will be allowed this winter into Yellowstone National Park.
After the Record of Decision and One-Year Rule are published, the National Park Service will begin working on a Supplemental EIS, which will contain the further analysis of the issues raised during the public comment period.
Some of the more than 59,000 public comments received on the Winter Use Draft EIS raised additional questions as to long-term effects and options regarding winter use in Yellowstone.
Among the subjects identified for further analysis are variable use limits, a 10:30 a.m. entry requirement, air quality and modeling assumptions, proposed Best Available Technology standards for snowcoaches, cost of avalanche hazard mitigation on Sylvan Pass, and opportunities for non-commercially guided snowmobile access.
A draft Supplemental EIS will be completed and released for public review and comment in early 2012. The National Park Service intends to have a final Supplemental EIS, a Record of Decision, and a long-term regulation in place prior to the start of the 2012-2013 winter season.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Park Invites Public to Brown-Bag Lecture
The Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center at Glacier National Park is hosting a free brown-bag lecture on Tuesday, November 8 from 12- 1pm at the Community Building in West Glacier. The public is invited to join the Bigfork High School Cave Club for a presentation about their five years of cave research in the park.
The Bigfork High School Cave Club was created in 2005 to provide high school students with opportunities to participate in recreational activities through cave exploration and work with local land managing agencies, such as the National Park Service and the US Forest Service, to restore and conserve fragile cave resources.
In 2010, the club was awarded the President's Environmental Youth Award for their work in the conservation of caves in Glacier National Park. They were invited to present at the opening ceremony of the International GIS Users Conference in San Diego, California.
Recently, the club completed monitoring for 11 caves in Grand Canyon National Park and in October, club members presented at the National Cave Management Symposium in Utah.
For more information about the presentation, or the Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center, please visit www.nps.gov/glac/naturescience/ccrlc or contact 406-888-5827.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
The Bigfork High School Cave Club was created in 2005 to provide high school students with opportunities to participate in recreational activities through cave exploration and work with local land managing agencies, such as the National Park Service and the US Forest Service, to restore and conserve fragile cave resources.
In 2010, the club was awarded the President's Environmental Youth Award for their work in the conservation of caves in Glacier National Park. They were invited to present at the opening ceremony of the International GIS Users Conference in San Diego, California.
Recently, the club completed monitoring for 11 caves in Grand Canyon National Park and in October, club members presented at the National Cave Management Symposium in Utah.
For more information about the presentation, or the Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center, please visit www.nps.gov/glac/naturescience/ccrlc or contact 406-888-5827.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
A sprint to the top of the Eiger
In November 2008, Swiss climber Ueli Steck set the solo speed record on the 13,025-foot north face of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps of Switzerland.
In this video, Steck makes a mockery of the mountain by practically sprinting to the summit in a ridiculous two hours and forty seven minutes. This clip comes from the award-winning film, Swiss Machine, which was shown as part of last year’s Reel Rock Tour.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
In this video, Steck makes a mockery of the mountain by practically sprinting to the summit in a ridiculous two hours and forty seven minutes. This clip comes from the award-winning film, Swiss Machine, which was shown as part of last year’s Reel Rock Tour.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Can you survive in the wilderness in the winter?
I'm sure most you would never really want to actually find out, but you could test yourself - virtually - by playing the Discovery Channel's "Life or Death Game".
The scenario is that you are on a guided extreme winter hike to a luxury cabin. You awake after the first night to find that the guide has left - with all the food - and you're still two days away from the cabin. Can you survive?
Warning: the game can be quite annoying because everytime you miss the right answer, you're forced to start over again. Fortunately there's only a handful of questions. All in all though, it's a pretty good exercise because there are a couple of questions with counter-intuitive answers, forcing you to think outside of the box, which is something that would come in handy in a real survival situation.
The site also has other scenarios including being lost at sea and being stranded in the jungle.
Just click here to play.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
The scenario is that you are on a guided extreme winter hike to a luxury cabin. You awake after the first night to find that the guide has left - with all the food - and you're still two days away from the cabin. Can you survive?
Warning: the game can be quite annoying because everytime you miss the right answer, you're forced to start over again. Fortunately there's only a handful of questions. All in all though, it's a pretty good exercise because there are a couple of questions with counter-intuitive answers, forcing you to think outside of the box, which is something that would come in handy in a real survival situation.
The site also has other scenarios including being lost at sea and being stranded in the jungle.
Just click here to play.
Jeff
Hiking in Glacier.com
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