Adventure-Crew.com

Delicate Arch, courtesy of NPB

Author: Jeffrey Strain
Published: April 10, 2012 at 6:20 am
From Technorati.com

For those looking for something to do later on this month without spending a fortune, National Park Week may be a perfect opportunity. From April 21 through April 29, the entrance fee for all 397 parks in the national park system will be waived allowing for free entrance. Most national parks do not charge an entrance fee anytime during the year, but those that do will not during this week. Many of the park vendors and partners will also be providing discounts in conjunction with the week to further savings.

As part of National Park Week, April 21 has been designated Volunteer Day where anyone willing to get their hands dirty can help on a variety of projects to protect and enhance the parks. Volunteer opportunities vary from park to park, so it’s necessary to contact the parks you plan to visit to see what volunteer opportunities they have prepared for Volunteer Day.

In addition, April 28 has been designated National Junior Ranger Day where kids will have the chance to “explore, learn, and protect” the national parks. Each child will also have the opportunity to be sworn in as a Junior Ranger.

While National Park Week is a great time to visit national parks at no cost, it isn’t the only time this year that will be free. There are national park free days June 9 for Get Outdoors Day, September 29 for National Public Lands Day, and Nov. 10 – 12 for the Veterans Day weekend.

Visiting nation parks during the week has the added important benefit of supporting the local economy of the many communities that exist around the parks. For those wanting to take advantage of this opportunity, only park entrance fees are being waived for National Park Week. Other common national park fees such as fees for camping, lodging, and park activities will still be collected.

The most important thing to remember when hiking out in the wild is to be prepared. The essentials needed before starting out are extra clothing and food, sunglasses, knife or multipurpose tool, fire starter, matches, first-aid kit, flashlight with extra batteries and bulbs, a map, a compass and a whistle. Anyone with these provisions will go a long way to surviving their foray into the wilderness, especially if they become lost.

To help prevent or aid in the possibility you do get lost, follow these tips. While hiking, take careful note of the direction you’re traveling, of prominent landmarks and approximate distances you have walked in the wilderness. Frequently ask yourself if you could find your way back under conditions of low clouds, rain or snow. Take careful compass bearings on the next day’s proposed route before retiring. Inform all your party of the planned route, campsite, and general direction of travel in the event you become separated, but try to stay together as much as possible.

If you become lost, don’t panic; stop and plan carefully. Don’t plunge onward and get even more lost. Have something to eat while you rest a bit. Stay together with your group and don’t get separated. Do not have one person go for help unless someone is injured.  Mark the area and take short forays in all directions to try and find the trail, always coming back to the marked area if you do not find the trail.

If you become separated from your group, stay where you are or move a short distance to the point where you were last in contact with the group. If alone, climb high to look for familiar landmarks. If you find no familiar landmarks or rivers, stay in one place and remain in the open. Bright signals or objects placed in sequence of three are widely recognized as distress signs. Use signal mirrors or whistles to attract the attention of any passersby or nearby individuals. Three blasts on the whistle is also a recognized distress signal. You can also shout for help, but a whistle can last longer then your voice.

Prepare for the night early and conserve your strength for the cold and dark hours. Find the tightest area where you will be shielded from the elements such as under trees or overhanging rocks. Build a fire for warmth and in hopes that a rescuer might see the flames or smoke. Your best hope is to stay put and let them find you rather then wander around becoming more lost. More people have died trying to find their own way out instead of just staying put and letting the rescuers find them.

BY JOE BERKOWITZToday
fastcompany.com

To create Trail View, granola bar makers Nature Valley and McCann Erickson sent a ragtag team of creatives and developers on a 45-day hike to get couch potatoes interested in the real thing and raise awareness of the national parks’ plight.

Photos from Nature Valley

Nearly a century ago, Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service, galvanizing a widespread movement to preserve the country’s heritage and promote tourism. At the time, President Wilson could only have imagined the technological and organizational tools that would help achieve these goals. And, almost guaranteed, not once did he imagine a huge part of this effort would be brought to us by the makers of mouthwatering granola bars.

Funny how things change.

As it happens, General Mills brand Nature Valley has embarked on an ambitious initiative called Trail View to bring the parks experience to the indoors- and outdoors-oriented alike. “Nature is something you have to get close to in order to be moved by it,” says Scott Baldwin, Senior Marketing Manager at Nature Valley. “It’s easy to just show a picture of nature, but people want to have deeper experiences.” To deliver that deeper experience, the company sent content-gathering teams throughout the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon this past summer to digitally capture 100 odd miles of each area, and replicate them online. Eventually, users will be able to experience, in real-time, a first-person perspective of hiking these trails, clicking on embedded points of interest along the way for pop-up information and videos. It’s a virtual hiking expedition anyone can take.

Although Nature Valley has long been a supporter of the national parks (it’s practically in the brand name), most recently raising money through its “Preserve the Parks” campaign, the company had been brainstorming ideas for how to do more to actually preserve them. The resulting concept, developed through agency partner McCann-Erickson, is a model for how marketers can make a useful contribution to a cause without over-branding it. In addition to removing the barriers to entry so people can experience these trails remotely, Trail View will spread awareness of the parks at a time when funding is low, and digitally record them for posterity.

Yellowstone

“This initiative lets [Nature Valley] stand for something,” says Leslie Sims, executive creative director at McCann. “They aren’t just pushing granola bars on hikers.”

It was only because of Nature Valley’s long-standing relationship with the National Park Conservation Association that the company was able to garner approval for the project. The parks are famously very protective when it comes to filming on their grounds, but the company approached each park individually and promised to leave zero impact on the environment.

Between March and June of 2011, Nature Valley and McCann-Erickson went to work, putting together a mixed team of talent for a project with many moving parts. The agency would need a content strategy team for web distribution, a design team that would also put together custom 360 degree photography equipment, a hiking team to lead the expedition, and a skilled camera person to shoot it all. The creatives would also have to participate in the fieldwork. Both figuratively and literally, there was a lot of ground to cover.

Editors from Backpacker Magazine agreed to lend their expertise in national park trails and lead the hikes. Content strategy firm In the MO came aboard soon after. The project required a team with best-of-class designers who would also be able to hike, so the agency recruited digital agency Your Majesty. In a meeting with YM co-founder, Jens Karlsson, Catherine Patterson, executive integrated producer at McCann offered this simple plea: “You’re the only ones crazy enough to do this, and you’re the only ones who can do this. Also, you’re going to get to hike your asses off.”

Grand Canyon

Everyone involved had to engage in four to six weeks of training to ensure that nobody would get dehydrated or otherwise crap out during the shoot. Each member of the crew logged 150 miles of mandatory hiking experience, done on their own time.

Because this initiative marks the first application of street view-style camera technology in hikes or on mountains, the cameras required specially designed backpack rigging. “A lot of equipment was involved,” says Mat Bisher, associate creative director at McCann. “There’s a good reason why street view is done in cars.” During a June test run in the Grand Canyon, the panoramic cameras fell apart and started melting during discovery. They were supposed to be heat-resistant up to 120 degrees, but not at sustained exposure to those conditions. After customizing the cameras further, the design team suggested saving the Grand Canyon for the final leg of the hike, where they’d know to anticipate the cameras falling apart eventually, rather than at the beginning of the trip.

The actual filming went off without a hitch, however, barring the occasional alarming grizzly bear scratch mark on trees. From a distance, the assembled masses would have looked like a caravan of settlers. The field crew from Backpacker Magazine (or “bear bait” as Patterson referred to them) headed up the front, setting the pace and keeping the operation environmentally sound. Shortly behind them were the agency creatives, who scouted locations and points of interest. The next wave included the tech team–who kept lenses clean, adjusted settings, and kept the cameras out of contact with each other–as well as master cameraman, Brandon McLane. Finally, trailing behind, was a sweeper team, who made sure nothing was left behind. Although some of the crew only stayed for shorter periods, the hike lasted 45 days total.

The biggest surprise along the way, according to Catherine Patterson, who stayed for the entire hike, was the sparse tourist traffic on the trails. “We anticipated having to avoid filming crowds, and blurring out logos when we did,” she says, “but there was hardly anyone hiking at all some days.” Seeing firsthand the lack of tourism in tough economic times only made the prospect of evangelizing the national parks more attractive to everyone involved.

The first stage of Trail View will debut online in February 2012. It will operate as its own platform, with an exploratory feel. Once utility is up and running, Nature Valley will add layers for user-generated content, social networking and mobility, and perhaps form partnerships with travel sites—encouraging visitors to actually take a trip to visit the parks. Eventually the company hopes to digitally map other locations and build an educational, curated layer to the initiative. “This is not just a piece of entertainment,” says Bisher. “We’re committing to an ongoing proposition.” As this proposition is aligned with the National Park Service’s original goals, Woodrow Wilson would have likely approved.

Saguaro National Park

from kvoa.com

TUCSON – Bioblitz 2011 is just around the corner and the National Park Service says they can’t wait for people of all ages to become one with Mother Nature.

“We’re going to have teams of people go out with scientists or experts and go out to count species,” National Park Service, Natalie Rose said.

Rose said the Saguaro National Park is one of ten parks to be chosen for this 24 hour species count and is a great way to allow everyone to embrace wildlife.

“It’s to remind people that there national parks are here for them. Their public lands are available, its thirty minutes away from home you don’t have to go far from vacation to go out and spend a beautiful day,” Rose said.

Scientist Cecil Schwalbe who researches reptiles and amphibians says this festival is a great way to educate and share his passion for nature with the public.

“From the scientists stand point, it’s an opportunity for us to share our enthusiasm about these creatures with the public and it’s especially gratifying when the kids come up, you get to show them these wonderful snakes and lizards,” Schwalbe said.

For more information on the festival, just visit www.nps.gov/sagu .

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on September 21, 2011 – 1:36am
National Parks Traveler.com

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Glacier Bay National Park, outside of glaciers, of course. But it didn’t take long to realize this Alaskan park is a birder’s paradise. From the “poor man’s puffin” to dwindling numbers of Kittlitz’s murrelets, I was rewriting my birding success.

And not in days, but in minutes.

“Did you see all the young Glaucous-winged gull (Larus glaucescens) chicks?,” park Ranger Linda Lieberman asked as we sat on the day-cruise ship Baranof Wind just off South Marble Island. “For those of you who want to see Common Murre (Uria aalge), the light is shining on them over here.”

Not only were there Glacous-winged gulls and Common Murre — an upright standing auk that, with its snow-white chest and belly, resembles a penquin — but also Horned Puffins (Fratercula corniculata), Tufted Puffins (Fratercula cirrhata), Marbled murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus), an occasional Kittlitz’s murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris), and Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla).

And it wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet.

Birds teem to Glacier Bay, thanks in no small part to its nutrient-rich waters — and insect-filled skies and seed-bearing forests in summer and early fall — along with its plentiful, and diverse, breeding habitat. Bird habitat in the park ranges from rocky slopes revealed in the not-too-distant past by receding glaciers to coastal rain forest and muskeg landscapes. In slender arms of the park’s waters, such as in Dundas Bay, extreme tidal fluctuations help churn up and reveal meals for many species. And the fact that the Pacific flyway makes a beeline across the park doesn’t hurt the overall species diversity, either.

There are an estimated 240 bird species in the park, and it seems like you see most of them on a day cruise from Bartlett Cove to South Marble Island 15 miles north and on towards Johns Hopkins and Tarr inlets, roughly 50 more miles of water up bay.

The surrounding landscape makes it tought to stay focused on birding. Horizon-stretching isn’t entirely an apt description, as from the deck of a boat the mountains seem to close in overhead, leaving a narrow patch of sky above. These are the sort of mountains you might pull from a Jack London novel or a passage from a James Michener or John McPhee book — rugged and heavily treed, laced in the morning by threads of cloud, and roamed by brown bears, wolves, wolverines and mountain goats. As a result, you want to scan the shorelines not just for birds, but for goats on the cliffs and brown bears fishing for salmon or tumbling rocks to get at the critters that lie beneath.

And no matter where you’re pointing your binoculars, once you hear the sharp report of ice calving from a glacier, you immediately look up to locate the new berg.

While terrestrial birders spend much of their time scanning trees, bushes, and even power lines for birds, in Glacier Bay you’re looking down onto the water’s surface to see what might be bobbing along at least as much as gazing overhead to see what might be wheeling over your boat.

South Marble Island arguably is the high point for day birders thanks to the rich variety of species to be spotted there. We spotted Common Murres and Pelagic Cormorants (Phalacrocorax pelagicus) clinging to the island’s rocky cliffs, tried to freeze-frame puffins zipping by through the air, watched murrelets dive for snacks, and looked up at the Kittiwakes and Mew gulls circling the ship to get a closer look at these odd beings floating on the bay and staring at the island.

The Marbled murrelets were particularly vexing, as they bobbed calmly on the water’s surface right up until the minute I aimed my camera at them. Then I was left with a swirl of water in my viewfinder as the birds had dived down and swam away with their strong wing-strokes.

But South Marble was far from the only place to go birding in Glacier Bay.

In August, bald eagles are readily visible, many with mottled fledglings in nests. During a short hike on Gloomy Knob we peered down into an abandoned nest that an eagle, perhaps confused, had built in the grass instead of in a tree. We could hear the sharp piping of a pair of eaglets in a more traditional nest, and a few moments later mom, or perhaps dad, came winging by on what we assumed was a lunch run.

Kayaking towards Margerie Glacier a little later during a week spent in the park we encountered Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea) and inqusitive Common Terns (Sterna hirundo), more Glaucous-winged gulls and Kittikwakes, and Pigeon Guillemots (Cepphus columba).

As the week went on we came upon what we could only figure to be a pair of Northern Harriers (Circus cyaneus) and some Black Oystercatchers (Haematopus bachmani) with their bright red, over-sized beaks seemingly guarding the mouth of Tidal Inlet.

Further on into the inlet we paddled towards hundreds of Black scoters (Melanitta nigra) — also called the “poor man’s puffin” by some for its somewhat colorful beak — in a raft stretching halfway across the inlet. The next day we counted Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca), somewhat small (compared to the Canada version) Brant goose (Branta bernicla), and a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in Fingers Bay, while exploration of an arm of Dundas Bay the following morning produced more bald eagles.

As our trip was mostly on the water, we didn’t get to wander deep into the forests that rim the bay and climb the mountains cupping its waters. But among the terrestrial birds that flit among those forests are pine siskins, redpoles, magpies, winter wrens, and ubiquitous chickadees. A Steller’s jay raucously announced himself during a short foray we made into the muskeg forest off Dundas Bay.

A week is not enough time to come close to cataloging the park’s birds through your binoculars. There are several varieties of warblers, common Robins, versions of plovers, ptarmigan, grosbeaks, grebes, loons, and phalaropes and that’s just a short list of what we didn’t see.

But a week in Glacier Bay is plenty of time to check off dozens of species on your life list.