During the week of April 28, 2015, highly skilled sawyers from across the Blue Ridge Parkway met in Blowing Rock, NC and conducted intensive vista restoration work at Milepost 300 near Grandfather Mountain. With decades of growth in some areas, large trees now obstruct some scenic views and potentially impact the visitor experience. “Research consistently finds...
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Imagine visiting Yellowstone this summer. You wake up before dawn to take a picture of the sunrise over the mists emanating from Yellowstone hot springs. A thunderhead towers above the rising sun, and the picture turns out beautifully. You submit the photo to a contest sponsored by the National Weather Service. Under a statute signed into law by the Wyoming governor this...
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Back Country Horsemen (BCH) of America says it values wild lands and the right to enjoy them by horseback. Protecting the wilderness from unnecessary damage is imperative to keeping it pristine. But that creates unique challenges that can prevent proper maintenance of trails, bridges, shelters, and other amenities that allow us to recreate there. The U.S. Forest...
Learn MoreDuke Energy, the nation’s largest electrical utility, pleaded guilty in federal court May 14, 2015 to nine criminal violations of the Clean Water Act for polluting four major rivers for several years with toxic coal ash from five power plants in North Carolina. The $50.5-billion company was fined $102 million and placed on five years of probation for environmental...
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The U.S. Forest Service began paving the way for a sprawling urban development near the southern edge of the Grand Canyon that would include more than 2,100 housing units and 3 million square feet of retail space along with hotels, a spa and conference center. The superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park has called the project one of the greatest threats to Grand...
Learn MoreSen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, says he disagrees with the Pentagon’s assessment that climate change is a national security concern. The Pentagon released a report in October 2014 that assessed the national security implications of climate change. “Politics or ideology must not get in the...
Learn MoreTo many outdoor enthusiasts the mountains and forests are waking with life again and trails beckon. With the days of summer in plain sight, recalling the cold and snow of winter would be a cruel exercise. But hitting the trail often means entering a place where the effects of winter can be seen well into spring. Alex DeLucia manages the Trails Volunteer and Leave No...
Learn MoreEnjoy this time lapse of Western North Carolina from local videographer Smith Woosley.
Learn MoreThe Dixie National Forest will participate in Kanab’s Amazing EarthFest by hosting geology, history and fire presentations. Events will be held at the Red Canyon Visitor Center on May 15, 2015, beginning at 1 p.m. and continuing throughout the afternoon. Geology and history presentations will focus on the colorful red canyon region of the Dixie National Forest....
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June 6, 2015 is American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day®, the country’s largest celebration of trails. National Trails Day events will take place in every state across the country and will include hikes, biking and horseback rides, paddling trips, birdwatching, geocaching, gear demonstrations, stewardship projects and more. If you are interested in leading or...
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The Attachment Shovel is a necessity for camping and other outdoor adventures. It can charge your phone, chop wood, help start a fire, and even dig a hole. The shovel measures 40 inches in length and weighs a little over 3 pounds. The shovel portion is made from Hi-Carbon Steel. This thing can take a beating. The Shovel can cut wood, saw branches, dig holes, move rocks,...
Learn MoreIn its first six months of existence, the world’s first solar road is performing even better than developers thought. The road, which opened in the Netherlands in November of last year, has produced more than 3,000 kilowatt-hours of energy — enough to power a single household for one year. “If we translate this to an annual yield, we expect more than the 70kwh per square...
Learn MoreJoin Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy (CMLC) on Saturday, May 16th, for a guided hike through the scenic Johnson Branch conservation easement in Transylvania County. This hike has been one of CMLC’s most popular hikes from previous years, featuring a picturesque 68-acre property conserved by the Jones family through CMLC in 2009. Hikers will enjoy a moderate hike...
Learn MoreGlacier National Park, which spans more than a million acres of pristine Montana wilderness, is home to a variety of predators, from cougars to wolves to grizzly bears. Most of the time they pose no danger to hikers, for whom the adage, “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them,” holds more or less true. For more than half a century after the park was founded — on...
Learn MoreThe National Park Trust and Buddy Bison, their lovable woolly mascot, invite you to join the nationwide day of play by discovering and exploring your local, state, and national parks and public lands on Kids to Parks Day. Children, families, teachers, cities, towns, and parks are gearing up for this year’s Kids to Parks Day (KTP), a nation-wide day of outdoor play...
Learn MoreFramed by pitch-black canyon walls rising monumentally on either side of the rushing, rain-swollen Havasu Creek, the night sky bursts with snow-white stars and Milky Way swirls. It is the last night of a grueling three-day Havasupai Trail round trip to the waterfalls in northern Arizona’s Havasu Canyon, an offshoot of the Grand Canyon. The hike offers bliss by way of...
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On April 30, 2015 the glitzy electric car company Tesla Motors, run by billionaire Elon Musk, ceased to be just a car company. As was widely expected, Tesla announced that it is offering a home battery product, which people can use to store energy from their solar panels or to backstop their homes against blackouts, and also larger scale versions that could perform...
Learn MoreOfficials in North Bend, Washington, hope a new shuttle service will ease traffic congestion at some of the area’s most popular hiking trails, including Mount Si. The city has teamed up with the state Department of Natural Resources, the Washington Trails Association and the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust to offer the shuttle, which will run every half-hour on...
Learn MoreOn the morning of July 11, 1983, Maine State Police Detective Sgt. Ralph E. Pinkham got a call from a woman in Texas worried about her sister Jessie Albertine Hoover. She hadn’t heard from her since May 16, when Hoover called from a Bangor motel. At the time, her sister said, the 54-year-old had only about $15 to $20, but intended to wire for money when she passed...
Learn MoreAs the West girds itself for what looks likely to be a fierce wildfire season, a bipartisan group of Western senators is pushing a bill to rethink the way the federal government pays to fight catastrophic fires. The idea is that the largest wildfires would be treated like natural disasters. As with big hurricanes or earthquakes, funding for them wouldn’t have to come...
Learn MoreRoads and trails and buildings in our national parks are deteriorating, and adequate funding to fix that problem remains elusive. With so many competing demands for federal dollars, the National Parks Service is often a lower priority, especially for repair projects. The result is that despite user fees the backlog of projects at national parks nationwide is $11.49...
Learn MoreA toxic chemical used in the controversial drilling practice known as fracking has been detected in the drinking-water supply of Pennsylvania homeowners, according to a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The chemical—2-Butoxyethanol or 2BE, known to have caused tumors in rodents—showed up as “white foam,”...
Learn MoreThe 52-mile Lost Coast Trail runs about 255 miles north of San Francisco. It was named the Lost Coast because of depopulation in the area in the 1930s and because the terrain is too steep and rugged to build a road. If you look at a map, you can see how Highway 1 heads inland north of Fort Bragg. There are two distinct sections of the Lost Coast Trail. The northern...
Learn MoreRangers in the San Bernardino National Forest call them “red trees.” Instead of the typical deep green color, large swaths of pine trees now don hues of death, their dehydrated needles turning brown and burnt-red because of the state’s worsening drought. “Unlike back East, where you have fall colors, here it’s because the trees are dying,” said John Miller, a spokesman...
Learn MoreA coalition of big insurance companies, consumer groups, and environmental advocates are urging the United States to overhaul its disaster policies in the face of increasingly extreme weather due to human-caused climate change. According to a report released by the SmarterSafer coalition, the U.S. needs to increase how much it spends on pre-disaster mitigation efforts...
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Beginning in May, the Montana Wilderness Association is offering more than 150 free day hikes, field trips, trail building and maintenance projects, wildland inventory outings and backpacking adventures across some of the state’s most magnificent backcountry. Now in its 53rd season, MWA’s Wilderness Walks program continues to offer hikers of all ages and experience...
Learn MoreCalifornia’s old-growth coastal redwoods are the tallest trees on Earth, and the old-timers thrive in the foggy, rainy territory between Mendocino and the Oregon line. For many locals, these trees don’t just dominate the landscape; they connect with matters of life and death — even now, years past the timber industry’s glory days. Bgin with the 32-mile...
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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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