Kurt Repanshek Podcasts

It’s been six years since an oil company headed out across the marl prairie of Big Cypress National Park with vehicles weighing as much as 30 tons to search for oil reserves. Signs of that work continue to show on the prairie, despite stringent National Park Service requirements for restoring the landscape after the searching was completed. Located…

Utah has five spectacular national parks, and Arches is one of them. It’s a relatively small park. The scenic drive is only 18 miles long, ending at the Devil’s Garden area, but you’ll have incredible views of the reddish rockscape the entire way right from your vehicle. Of course, it’s always better to get out on the trails and take in as much off…

Throughout history the barrier islands that today are home to Cape Hatteras National Seashore have been attractive to wildlife. A variety of sea turtle species come ashore to lay their nests, and a variety of shorebirds settle there, too, to lay their eggs. But the thing with wildlife nesting on the beaches of Cape Hatteras is that one great season…

It was just over a month ago when the federal government was staring at the possibility of a shutdown. Well, little seemingly has changed in the ensuing four weeks, other than that the House of Representatives has a new speaker in Mike Johnson from Louisiana, and the full chamber has settled on its budget numbers for fiscal 2024…which started back …

When a young park ranger was asked by his supervisor to clean out an old barn at Grand Teton National Park in the early 1970s, he discovered a dusty and stained blue, grey, and green poster inviting folks to “Meet the Ranger Naturalist at Jenny Lake Museum. This young ranger, Doug Leen, soon discovered that it was one in a series of posters created…

There are more than 2,000 species currently listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. And while species that gain protection under the act have a great chance to survive, not all do. Just recently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that 21 species – birds, fish, mussels, plants, and even a bat – were officially …

As you walk through the white gypsum sands of White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico, your footprints will likely be quickly erased by shifting winds. So it’s somewhat of a phenomenon of nature that the oldest footprints ever discovered in North America are not only found here — in perfect form, having withstood time and weather — but sho…

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington state is a wild and wooly place, even now in the 21st century. That’s no doubt largely because the heart of the peninsula is taken up by Olympic National Park, a more than 900,000-acre jigsaw puzzle of glaciers and peaks, rainforests, rivers, and Pacific coastline. You might view Olympic National Park as three pa…

Snow has fallen in the upper reaches of Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, and fall weather in general is making a national park trip in the northern half of the United States not terribly appealing. October is a season of transition across the National Park System. Cooler, and in some cases colder, weather is sweeping across the northern stat…

For the second time in five years, and the third time in the past decade, the United States government was poised to shut down this weekend because of an impasse in the House of Representatives over how to fund the government. And, as a result, the National Park System was poised to shut down. Indeed, by the time you’re listening to this episode, t…

For the past 240 weeks, the National Parks Traveler has brought you weekly podcasts examining life, news, and exploration of the National Park System. It’s been a long-running series that has never lacked for topics. We hope you’ve found those episodes as informative and interesting as we have. For this week’s show, we’re diving into shows from pas…

Grand Teton National Park is an incredible place, rich in wildlife, mountaineering history, pioneer history, and Native American history. And, rightfully so, it’s one of the busiest parks in the National Park System. In 2021 the park saw nearly 4 million visitors, as the public rushed back out into nature after the worst of the Covid pandemic. Last…

Bison have been in the news recently. The Interior Department this past week released $5 million to help fund both bison restoration and grasslands rehabilitation. And next month Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan will release their latest documentary, The American Buffalo. The American Buffalo documentary traces the history of how bison nearly went extin…

It’s been nearly eight years since a storm of historic proportions pounded Death Valley National Park and did extensive damage in Grapevine Canyon in the northeastern corner of the park where Scotty’s Castle stands. The popular tourist attraction still has not reopened as repair work continues. That storm was described as a once-in-a-thousand years…

If you were to plan an extended trip through the National Park System, how would you do it? Where would you go first? How would you prepare? In this week’s podcast, the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick talks with Cristian Garza, who recently returned from a four-month jaunt through the parks. He clocked some 300 hours of driving across 17,000 miles of the U…

In 1964, passage of The Wilderness Act promised Americans that there would be lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition. It was a promise from Congress that the American people of present and future generations would be able to enjoy the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.” When President Johnson signed…

The New York Times recently summed up one of the biggest climate change stories of the year so far. The planet’s average sea surface temperature spiked to a record high in April, and the ocean has remained exceptionally warm ever since, the paper reported. In July, widespread marine heatwaves drove temperatures back up to near record highs, with so…

Majestic wildlife abounds across the National Park System. You can see wolves, grizzlies and bison in Yellowstone, California condors at Pinnacles and Grand Canyon, moose in Voyageurs, and sea turtles at Cape Hatteras and Padre Island, and elephant seals at Point Reyes National Seashore, just to name some of the possibilities. Another charismatic s…

Why expand the National Park System? That can be a controversial question. There are many folks who would love to see additional units added, and there are just as many who say the National Park Service does not have the staff or funding to adequately maintain the existing park system. We’ve been exploring that question in recent weeks and months, …

This summer has been one of the hottest for the entire world, with temperatures rising above 100 degrees Fahrenheit quite frequently. Here in the United States, there are many places where the heat has gone well above 100 degrees. And at Death Valley National Park, the temperature this past week attracted crowds hoping to see it reach 130 degrees. …

There are seemingly endless guides to exploring the national parks: Moon, National Geographic, Lonely Planet, and various other corporate publishers. Indeed, it’s rare these days that you find a writer who takes on the role of both guidebook author and publisher. Most of these guidebooks take the same approach: a nice overview of the park in questi…

When you talk about expanding the National Park System, any expansion should be strategic. Whether it’s to protect a cultural or historical site, or one rich in natural resources. Today, if you want to protect natural resources, it should be done with an eye towards protecting biodiversity. There is too much at stake today to expand the National Pa…

Once upon a time, there might have been 60 million bison on the North American continent. The herds were so large that they covered prairies like immense horizon-stretching black cloaks, and their annual migrations carved such wide paths into the landscape that some were turned into roads by human travelers. As vast as bison herds were, the species…

A winter heavy in snowfall has slowed the start to the wildfire season across parts of the West, although the return of the El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean could reverse that start and contribute to another smoky summer in the National Park System west of the Continental Divide. Climate change, coupled with the departure of the La Niña…

There always seem to be calls to expand the National Park System. And those calls always spur a number of questions. Why does the National Park System need to be expanded? What sites might be considered for expansion? Can we even afford to expand the system? After all, as the Traveler frequently points out, the National Park Service doesn’t have th…

You likely know that Dry Tortugas National Park houses Fort Jefferson, which served as a Civil War-era prison with a community for soldiers, civilians, and slaves. Were you aware that hidden remnants of a hospital and graveyard have been found nearby — offshore — adding to the puzzle of life and death in the Civil War era? Lynn Riddick dives into t…

It’s summer. Not officially, but close enough. Many schools have already taken the next few months off, others will soon join the summer break. Summer for many is the peak travel time. Parks are a great destination, whether in summer or just about any other month of the year. To help you come up with some ideas of which parks to visit and why, we’v…

Horses can be found in many corners of the National Park System. You spot them running wild at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, splashing in the surf at Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina and at Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia, and of course as pack animals and tireless steeds that carry b…

There are external and internal influences that can impact units of the National Park System. Urban sprawl can strangle parks and their natural resources. Wildfires can sweep across boundaries and into parks. Rivers can flood and wash out trails and roads, as we saw last June at Yellowstone National Park. Today we’re going to be talking about loomi…

While spring is slowly giving way to summer in many parts of the country, with visitors gaining more and more access to the National Park System, a stand-off in Washington over the country’s debt ceiling very likely would greatly disrupt operations in the parks. It was just a decade ago that a federal budget sequestration, that is a forced cut acro…

National parks are not alone in grappling with crowds. Many gateway communities surrounding our national parks are notable for their own amazing offerings -- natural beauty with tranquil spots for solitude and reflection…and nice venues for dining, listening to live music and pursuing year-round outdoor recreational and leisure activities. But when…

It's easy to take the status of national parks for granted. We read wonderful beckoning stories about them in magazines and newspapers. And we watch gorgeous travelogue pieces about them on television. But how much do we know about the operational status of the national parks? How much do we know about the health of the natural resources, the condi…

Across the National Park System, there are incredible sights that explore American history. There’s a robust mix of cultures reflected in the parks, and breathtaking vistas that, well, will take your breath away. But there also are seemingly countless needs, from backlogs of maintenance projects, interpretation for history, wildlife and science tha…

Travel extensively through the National Park System, and you’ll quickly come to realize that the park’s restaurants try to reflect the local culinary trends, or at least use local ingredients in crafting their menus. For instance, visit national parks in Alaska and you can pretty much count on salmon in the dinner offerings. Travel through the park…

Over the years there have been more than a few units of the National Park System that have been head-scratchers. Why were they added? What redeeming value did they bring to the park system? James Ridenour who was director of the National Park Service from 1989 through 1993, was well familiar with these units. As he once put it, “I’m in complete agr…

When warm weather spreads across the National Park System, many parks offer nightly gatherings around the campfire. The tradition of gathering around a flickering fire goes back thousands of years. Fire, after all, was the giver of light in the darkest of night, and seen as offering safety from what might lurk about in the dark. For the park visito…

Coastal grey wolves in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska seem to be feasting well these days on an unlikely food source - sea otters. In fact, the shorelines of Glacier Bay offer wolves a cornucopia of otters and other marine menu items, providing this carnivorous predator safe and dependable locations for food and raising offspring.…

How did America get hooked on skiing? In 1939, Hannes Schneider moved from Austria to North Conway, New Hampshire, to teach skiing. But before the sport really took off, World War II broke out. After the war, a gritty band of soldiers who fought in the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division, returned home into the mountains they loved. Last week, Christi…

How much do you know about World War II history, Grand Teton National Park, and the evolution of outdoor recreation in the United States? Believe it or not, they’re all intertwined. Ninety-Pound Rucksack is a podcast about the U.S. Army’s legendary 10th Division, and the dawn of outdoor recreation in America. Hosted by veteran alpinist and climbing…

Big Bend National Park is not simply a park that you pass along the way. Located in West Texas along the US/Mexico border, this 1,252-square-mile park is five hours from the closest commercial airport. In other words, you must make Big Bend your final destination if you’re going to visit. You’re not going to just happen upon it as you drive down th…

Bears tend to scare us when we’re outdoors and they’re not behind steel bars. Particularly grizzly bears. They’re big, with sharp claws and powerful jaws, and seem to be in a bad mood whenever we spot them. We hear about people being mauled to death by bears, and even of black bears attacking campers in their sleeping bags. Are bears really as terr…

For more than a decade, Colorado College has sponsored a poll to gauge conservation sentiments of residents in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada. Over the years, the questions have ranged from whether the members of the public view themselves as conservationists, whether land conservation and protection can be …

The US Geological Survey operates five different volcano observatories around the country. These observatories monitor real-time volcanic, hydrothermal, and earthquake activity in Alaska, the Cascade Mountains, California’s Long Valley Caldera, Yellowstone National Park, and the State of Hawaii. There are virtual partnerships between federal and st…

It is one of the longest units of the National Park System in the country. "It," of course, is the Oregon National Historic Trail, which stretches more than 2,100 miles from Missouri to Oregon. It’s been estimated that between 1840 and 1860 some 300,000-400,000 men, women, and children embarked on the four-month-long trip to head to the West Coast.…

It’s a problem that’s been coming for quite some time, and one that really comes as no surprise. The large landscape national parks that are home to many species of wildlife have been turning into biological islands as development hems them in. You can look back to 1993 when the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative launched to begin to see the discussio…

There is a wide acceptance that we have drifted too far away from nature, and that we need to pull closer. Many have called for 30 by 30 - conserving 30% of nature by 2030. The 2022 State of the Birds Report pointed out that more than half of bird species normally found in habitats as diverse as forests, deserts and oceans in the United States are …

Exceptionally well-preserved fossils of Columbian Mammoths and other Ice Age animals are found at the Waco Mammoth National Monument in Waco, Texas. In this unit of the National Park System, you can see the only recorded evidence of a nursery herd of Columbian mammoth mothers and their offspring and get a rare glimpse into the behavior and ecology …

National parks offer some of the best birding in the country. From Acadia National Park to Big Bend National Park and over to Haleakalā National Park, you could spend days looking overhead for a species to add to your life list. But as rich as national parks are in bird life, that’s not to say it’s business as usual in the birding world. At Acadia …

When unprecedented flooding roars through a national park, shredding major roads that access that park, it rightfully could be pointed to as the top story in the National Park System. And while Yellowstone National Park was that park, not only the flooding, but the lack of human casualties, and rapid recovery rank that story as arguably the top one…

We’re just about to close the books on 2022 and what a year in the National Park System it has been. We’ve seen catastrophic flooding, drought, and crowds, lots of crowds. Today though, we’re going to focus on some of the positives about being out and about in the parks. We’ve asked contributing editors Lynn Riddick and Kim O’Connell to join us tod…