There’s no doubt about it: Hiking is having a moment. By now, we know spending time in nature comes with tremendous benefits. It has a scientifically proven anti-inflammatory effect on the body, it promotes a healthier microbiome, and Japanese Forest Bathing—or shinrin-yoku—has been associated with reduced stress, lower blood pressure, and a stronger immune system. Exercise has a similar effect on the body. From greater feelings of happiness to reduced heart disease risk, you’d be hard-pressed to find a medical professional who...
read moreThe Forest Society of Maine (FSM) is celebrating the completion of the permanent conservation of thousands of acres of productive forest land and access to popular recreation lands near Gulf Hagas and Whitecap Mountain in Maine’s North Woods in Piscataquis County. After four years of collaboration with the forestland owner, the state Bureau of Parks and Lands, and conservation partner Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust, an area used by thousands of people annually is permanently conserved for hunting, fishing, hiking, snowmobiling, and...
read moreThe book turns 50 this year, and is more relevant now than ever. Fifty years ago, Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire was published to decent reviews but little fanfare. “Another book dropped down the bottomless well. Into oblivion,” wrote a disheartened Abbey in his journal Feb. 6, 1968. Yet it has remained in print for a half-century and created a devoted following. As President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke carved 2 million acres out of Bears Ears and Grand-Staircase-Escalante national monuments, both in the heart of “Abbey...
read moreIn honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, national park units across the country will offer visitors free entrance into the parks on Monday, January 15, 2018. Martin Luther King, Jr. day will be the first of four fee-free days this year. Those days include April 21 to celebrate the start of National Park Week, September 22 for National Public Lands Day and November 11 in honor of Veterans Day Weekend. During these dates, all National Park Service sites that charge an entrance fee will offer free entrance to all visitors. Fee-free days give more...
read moreCrews once battling flames of the Thomas Fire in California are facing a new challenge – an influx of rain creating dangerous mudslides. “The fire and then the flood has been going on in this country for at least 100 years, more like 150 years,” National Forest Service Ranger Pancho Smith said running his hand over the Thomas Fire Burn map. As the rain moved in, equipment used to dig and repair fire lines in the Los Padres National Forest moved out. “We really pushed our people hard, did as much as we could and then...
read moreThe curvy, two-lane Forest Heritage Scenic Byway, aka U.S. 276, which runs along the Davidson River and through the heart of Pisgah Ranger District, looked more like a July 4 traffic jam over the weekend than a cold and lonely winter day. The lure during the chilly temperatures? The rarely seen frozen Looking Glass Falls, a 60-foot-high stunner that can be easily accessed by pulling off the road. But simply Snapchatting from the safely built overlooks wasn’t enough for most of the throngs of people, according to U.S. Forest Service rangers....
read moreAn almost forgotten railroad could become a big part of a new trail for hikers, bicycle enthusiasts, and horseback riders that are interested in exploring the mountains and forests of Mercer and Summers counties in West Virginia. Mercer County and neighboring Summers County are working on plans to develop hiking trails and water trails. The hope is that an old railroad right of way going through part of Mercer County will form a connection with trails in Summers County and beyond. This former railroad line was mostly forgotten until its...
read moreEddie Boyd spent months preparing for a 2015 hike of the Appalachian Trail, only to confront a sobering realization just 20 miles in: He wasn’t ready. At a shelter in Maine, 3 miles into the daunting Hundred-Mile Wilderness, dehydration and self-doubt had set in. Boyd contacted his uncle, who was staying with his parents at a cabin in nearby Baxter State Park, to pick him up. A few days later, he was back home in Columbus, Ohio. “I remember being absolutely devastated at the decision to turn around,” he said. “I had been planning this trip...
read moreThe lush beauty of the George Washington National Forest in Virginia is apparent to any visitor, but especially to the keen eye of retired U.S. Forest Service employee Brian Stout. During a 34-year career with the Forest Service, Stout had many assignments, including a final one as the forest supervisor of the 3.5 million acre Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. On a breezy fall day, Stout surveyed the maple, oak, hemlock and other varieties of trees in the George Washington National Forest. The retired forester could estimate the age...
read moreOne hundred twenty years ago, Wyoming’s Big Horn Forest Reserve was signed into existence by President Grover Cleveland. This legislation outlined that reserves had to meet the criteria of forest protection, watershed protection and timber production. In 1905, the Forest Service was established with the same resource protection focus. By 1908, the forest’s name had been officially changed to “Bighorn.” W.E. Jackson served as the first forest supervisor on the Bighorn from 1897 to 1910. At that time, he oversaw eight districts and their...
read moreWhen Tom Jamrog was a student at the University of Massachusetts in the early 1970s, a friend gave him the idea of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Jamrog put the quest on his bucket list. A move to Midcoast Maine to build a home in Lincolnville with his wife, Marcia, in 1977 and then raising a family and working as a school psychologist in Rockland put off the long-distance hike. But when Jamrog finally got around to the Appalachian Trail decades later, at age 57, he didn’t stop there. Jamrog completed the Appalachian Trail in 2007, then turned...
read moreDan Brinkman — a self-described tree nerd — knew he’d hit the jackpot when he was told about a certain tree standing in a cattle pasture near Mount Brydges, Ontario, Canada. To most, the tree looks like any other. But Brinkman was pretty certain this was an American chestnut, a species that once thrived in southern Ontario, and most of the eastern United States, but has been nearly wiped out by blight in the past century. “You read in the books about how rare it is and how small most of them are, just a sprout coming off a stump,...
read morePart of the attraction of Joshua Tree National Park is the contrast in landscape and environment. The park’s landscape exhibits considerable changes as the higher elevations are a mountainous ecosystem and, from the east to the west, the Mojave descends into the hotter and drier Colorado Desert. The western part of the park is filled with Joshua Trees that stimulate a visitor’s imagination with shapes resembling stick figures. The trees (actually yuccas) are pollinated only by yucca moths that lay eggs in the flowers. The larva feed on seeds...
read moreOcean dead zones with zero oxygen have quadrupled in size since 1950, scientists have warned, while the number of very low oxygen sites near coasts have multiplied tenfold. Most sea creatures cannot survive in these zones and current trends would lead to mass extinction in the long run, risking dire consequences for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on the sea. Climate change caused by fossil fuel burning is the cause of the large-scale deoxygenation, as warmer waters hold less oxygen. The coastal dead zones result from fertiliser...
read moreBiologists in the Great Smoky Mountains say there is a bright side to the recent spell of frigid temperatures. The deep freeze is a life-saver for some of the mightiest hemlock trees in the Smokies. “Definitely, these cold extremes help with the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid,” said NPS forester Jesse Webster. “It will not get rid of them completely, but we will take every bit of help we can get.” The hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) invaded the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2002. The tiny insect from Asia has...
read moreThe Trump administration unveiled a controversial proposal to permit drilling in most U.S. continental-shelf waters, including protected areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic, where oil and gas exploration is opposed by governors from New Jersey to Florida, nearly a dozen attorneys general, more than 100 U.S. lawmakers and the Defense Department. Under the proposal, only one of 26 planning areas in the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean would be off limits to oil and gas exploration, according to Interior...
read moreMention Colorado Springs and you probably think of Pikes Peak, the highest mountain in the southern Front Range of the Rockies, or the Broadmoor Hotel, the historic resort nestled in the hills overlooking the city. But what happens when you take both of those out of the picture, plus most of the other tourists? Colorado Springs is built around hiking, literally. The city is surrounded by 1,200 acres of open spaces designed to be part of the community. These parks are not the tended gardens you’d expect back East, in New York or Savannah, Ga....
read moreThe wilderness outside Nederland, just 30 minutes west of Boulder, holds some of the most beautiful land near a major urban area in Colorado. Pine, aspen, and spruce trees dot the hillsides, and rock promontories provide ample scrambling opportunities from which to view the Continental Divide. Everywhere there are animal tracks, including those from moose, deer, foxes, coyotes, bears, and, on rare occasions, mountain lions. People from around the country come here—to savor the solitude and beauty, to escape the chaos of their busy lives. They...
read moreYosemite National Park will add two Proterra Catalyst buses to its fleet. Situated in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite represents the first U.S. National Park to permanently add zero-emission buses to its shuttle fleet, offering its visitors a modern, ecologically-friendly transportation option. In 2015, the National Park Service (NPS) recorded 331 million visits. This August alone, the parks attracted 40 million people nationwide with 609,676 visitors at Yosemite. With millions of visitors coming to Yosemite each year from...
read moreAn exceptional country, in its own and in others’ view, Japan has throughout history been isolated, an island nation out on the periphery of Asia. Heavily influenced by China for centuries, it withdrew from the world from the 16th to the mid 19th Centuries, its ports closed to (almost all) foreigners. This isolation has produced a unique and fascinating culture and an idiosyncratic and much-admired aesthetic: its temples and gardens, its ceramics and art, its poetry and its cuisine are loved and venerated around the world. These can be hard...
read moreWooded hillsides, craggy ridges and wheeling birds of prey are a world away from Hong Kong’s famous skyscrapers but the city’s country parks are a necessary balm for its stressed out residents. With some of the world’s highest property prices, many can only afford tiny apartments, some living in infamous “cage homes” big enough only for a bed. Hong Kong’s fast-paced lifestyle and long working hours also take their toll. Fortunately, within easy reach of the densely packed tower blocks and traffic, there is...
read moreOpposition from local communities is growing against a proposed oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. The Davis Refinery, from California-based Meridian Energy Group, is awaiting air quality and water permits to start construction of its facility near Belfield, ND. Groups such as the Badlands Area Resource Council (BARC), an affiliate of the Dakota Resource Council, say it will hurt their community members in the backyard of this refinery. Laura Grzanic, a member of BARC, lives a mile from the proposed site....
read moreThe Trump administration is rescinding Obama-era rules designed to increase the safety of fracking. “We believe it imposes administrative burdens and compliance costs that are not justified,” the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wrote in a notice published in the Federal Register. The 2015 rule required companies drilling for natural gas and oil on public lands to comply with federal safety standards in the construction of fracking wells, to disclose the chemicals used during the fracking process, and required...
read moreThe U.S. Forest Service has released a draft of the environmental assessment of its proposed plan for visitor management of the popular Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs. An iconic Colorado landmark, the lake in the White River National Forest is both a popular destination for hikers and photographers, along with being a spur-of-the-moment stop for people passing by on I-70 as it winds through Glenwood Canyon. The site has seen tremendous increases in visitors over the last several years — 2017 brought 184,000 visitors, a 23-percent increase...
read moreOn clear evenings, the beacons on Mount Suppoa that bleep and flicker above an array of communication equipment are visible from many parts of the Phoenix valley. The spindly forest of red-lighted poles marks the highest point in South Mountain Park. The 2,690-foot summit is off limits to the public but equally swell sights can be had at nearby 2,330-foot Dobbins Lookout. You could drive up to this Depression-era observation deck, but for those who prefer to sweat for it, the Holbert Trail provides a moderately difficult slog and rewarding...
read moreOutdoor Chattanooga’s experienced guides will lead participants on short, section hikes (four to seven miles each) along the Cumberland Trail to explore unique geological formations, discover seasonal flora and fauna, trek over creeks and across suspended bridges to the tops of ridges with waterfalls and scenic overlooks. Along the way, participants will get hands on experience and learn how to make hiking and backpacking more comfortable and enjoyable. The Cumberland Trail is a scenic footpath along the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau...
read moreWhen John Muir helped establish the National Park Service, he argued that such parks were vital to help people unplug from the world. “Break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods,” Muir was quoted as saying in 1915. But these days at Yosemite National Park, hikers to Half Dome are likely to encounter people talking on cell phones as they climb to the top. Similar scenes are playing out at other national parks as the call of the outdoors increasingly comes with crisp 4G service. Not everyone is wild...
read moreIrakli Loladze was in a biology lab when he encountered the puzzle that would change his life. It was in 1998, and Loladze was studying for his Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Against a backdrop of glass containers glowing with bright green algae, a biologist told Loladze and a half-dozen other graduate students that scientists had discovered something mysterious about zooplankton. Zooplankton are microscopic animals that float in the world’s oceans and lakes, and for food they rely on algae, which are essentially tiny plants. Scientists...
read moreWith Arizona State Parks’ First Day Hikes on Monday, Jan. 1, you can enjoy a beautiful hike and start the new year feeling healthy. This year marks the sixth annual collaboration of all 50 state-park systems across the country to offer guided First Day Hikes and other activities on New Year’s Day, said Michelle Thompson, chief of communications for Arizona State Parks & Trails. “This event is specifically planned to kick-start resolutions for the new year and help people get started on a healthy note,” Thompson said. “First...
read moreThe blue mountain views from Deer Lick Gap on the Blue Ridge Parkway have never been sweeter. The scenic spot in northern McDowell County looking out over a sweeping mountain forest known as Wildacres will now look wild forever. On Dec. 20, 2017, in a years-long collaboration, the Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina, Conservation Trust for North Carolina and Wildacres Retreat completed conservation easements, or agreements, on 1,076 acres of the privately owned land adjoining the parkway and Pisgah National Forest. The $1 million...
read moreIf you’re from Hawaii, you’ve probably heard the saying, “Don’t take lava rocks, you’ll get bad luck.” Even most visitors know not to take lava rocks as souvenirs thanks to a popular episode of “The Brady Bunch” back in the 1980s. But many people still take lava rocks home, and some are paying the price. Ross Birch, executive director of the Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau, said they still get rocks in the mail. “We still get some,” said IHVB executive director Ross Birch. “It’s pretty infrequent any more as I think the folklore...
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, 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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