Channel Islands National Park is an archipelago of five almost entirely undeveloped islands that remains one of the least visited parks in the country.
Much like the park’s farther-flung islands — San Miguel to the west and tiny Santa Barbara to the south — Santa Rosa Island receives only about 5,000 visitors annually, despite its impressive sprawl: 53,000 acres, more than three times the size of Manhattan.
That’s likely to change gradually. Until this year, 90 percent of the island was shut down for half the year for deer and elk hunting. Those animals have since been eradicated, the latest in a long line of projects to remove nonnative species from the Channel Islands in favor of endemic ones, like the Santa Rosa Island fox; it has rebounded from a population of just 14 in 2000 to more than 350 today.
Hikers can now travel pretty much anywhere they please, whenever they please, save for certain beaches, which are closed seasonally to protect species like the snowy plover. And that access may grow in years to come, as the park is considering changing a historic family ranch property into a small inn and running a shuttle to the south side for day hikers.
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, publisher of Meanderthals, and a passionate hiker. I live in western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my doorstep, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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