Ten miles from the Dutch coast, near the top of a concrete high-rise in downtown Delft, is a palatial glass-walled office better suited to Silicon Valley than a 13th-century city. The building is home to the Ocean Cleanup, a foundation created in 2013 that is hoping to deploy a giant 62-mile-wide filtration device in the Pacific Ocean, the initial step in an effort to rid the seas of plastic. 22 year old CEO Boyan Slat is a new breed of environmentalist: young, crowdfunded, and tired of waiting around for government solutions. Still, he’s...
read moreIt was a sleepy little town where farmers worked the rich land along the Linville River. The Burke County town of Fonta Flora was also once home to a post office, the Rhyne School and Old Sardis Church of 1838. But starting in 1916 the residents were dispersed and displaced to higher ground as the Catawba and Linville rivers and Paddy’s Creek were dammed to create Lake James and produce hydroelectric power for the growing region. A century later, the little lost town is being honored by the creation of the Fonta Flora Trail. The newest unit...
read moreA New Hampshire woman has become the first known person to complete a vaunted White Mountains hiking challenge – which takes some hikers a lifetime – within a single year. Sue Johnston of Littleton, NH hiked each of the state’s 4,000-foot mountains in January, and then again in February, and in March, and so on, for a total of 576 peaks in 2016 – plus some extracurriculars. The quest to hike all 48 Granite State mountains on “The List” in each calendar month is called “The Grid.” Only 70 people have finished it, including Johnston in 2003,...
read moreRight now, a big chunk of Antarctic ice is hanging on by a frozen thread. British researchers monitoring the crack in the Larsen C ice shelf say that only about 12 miles now connect the chunk of ice to the rest of the continent. “After a few months of steady, incremental advance since the last event, the rift grew suddenly by a further 18 km [11 miles] during the second half of December 2016,” wrote Adrian Luckman in a statement by the MIDAS Project, which is monitoring changes in the area. The crack in question has been growing...
read moreOn December 12, 2016 the National Park Service purchased 640 acres within Grand Teton National Park from the State of Wyoming. The Antelope Flats purchase was made possible by the successful completion of an eight-month fundraising campaign by Grand Teton National Park Foundation and the National Park Foundation that raised $23 million in private funds. These funds were matched by $23 million from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The newly protected land preserves critical wildlife habitat, migration routes, and viewsheds,...
read moreThe National Park Service (NPS) today released its strategy that connects cultural resources and climate change. The Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy (CRCC Strategy) is a landmark statement for the NPS and its historic preservation and climate change partners about how to anticipate, plan for, and respond to the effects of climate change on cultural resources. Cultural resources are our record of the human experience. Collectively, these archeological sites, cultural landscapes, ethnographic resources, museum collections, and...
read moreTravel takes on lots of perspectives, depending on your mode of getting around. From high above in a plane, out the window of a moving car or train or perhaps from a bicycle perch, each grants its own scope of exploration. For an up close, intimate look at your surroundings, nothing beats hiking and connecting with your environment step by step. And nothing could be more perfectly suited to hiking than the collaboration of your own two feet and nature’s pure scenic beauty discovered in our state parks and national monuments. In celebration of...
read moreThe John Muir Trail passes through what many backpackers say is the finest mountain scenery in the United States. This is a land of 13,000-foot and 14,000-foot peaks, of lakes in the thousands, and of canyons and granite cliffs. The John Muir Trail is also a land blessed with the mildest, sunniest climate of any major mountain range in the world. The trail is 211 miles long and runs (mostly in conjunction with the Pacific Crest Trail) from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney, in California. Winding through the famed Sierra Nevada, the JMT visits...
read moreThe National Park Service (NPS) proposed revisions to the regulations that address smoking in national parks. The proposed revisions would change the regulation that defines smoking to include the use of electronic cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). The proposed revisions would also allow a superintendent to close an area, building, structure, or facility to smoking, which would include the use of ENDS, when necessary to maintain public health and safety. “Protecting the health and safety of our visitors and...
read moreWhen it comes to mitigating the impact of modern civilization on our planet’s environment, many scientists and engineers have been focused on ways to clean up excess carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change. India-based company Carbon Clean Solutions is making headway in that area, with its unique method for turning CO2 into harmless baking powder. The method can be employed by coal-burning industries to reduce CO2 emissions and turn the waste into usable byproducts that do no harm. Carbon Clean is putting its methods through the...
read moreLyme disease has been spreading across the United States over the past several decades, and a new study has confirmed that ticks carrying the disease are present in eastern national parks. According to the study published in the Journal of Medical Entomology, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Park Service (NPS) collected ticks along hiking trails in nine eastern national parks. They found blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), also called deer ticks, infected with the bacteria that causes...
read moreHouse Republicans have changed the way Congress calculates the cost of transferring federal lands to the states and other entities, a move that will make it easier for members of the new Congress to cede federal control of public lands. The provision, included as part as a larger rules package the House approved by a vote of 233 to 190 during its first day in session, highlights the extent to which some congressional Republicans hope to change longstanding rules now that the GOP will control the executive and the legislative branches. Current...
read more2016 has crushed the record for hottest year, set way back in 2015, which itself smashed the previous record for hottest year that was set in 2014. Such a three-year run has never been seen in the 136 years of temperature records. It’s but the latest in an avalanche of evidence this year that global warming will either be as bad as climate scientists have been warning for decades — or much worse. Climatologists have been expecting just this kind of “jump” in global temperatures for a while. There is “a vast and growing body of research,” that...
read moreThe first Appalachian Trail Community in New Jersey is here. The Greater Blairstown Area is now an official community along the 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail. That puts Blairstown on trail guidebooks, hiking maps and on the trail’s website. Eventually, the designation could have a financial benefit for the town, Warren County’s Public Information Director Art Charlton said. “We’re very excited about it,” Charlton said. “It really works both ways, connecting hikers to the town and the town to the...
read moreThe U.S. Forest Service wants visitors to the Kaibab to snap photos of plants and animals and submit them to an online database. The project will run throughout 2017. Mark Christiano, GIS coordinator, says participants need to download a free app called iNaturalist. “It automatically collects a lot of the data for us,” he explains. “So for example, you’re not just getting the photo, but you get the location where the photo was taken [and] the timestamp. This generates really good data the forest can directly use at the end of the year.”...
read moreOfficials should have doused a 1.5-acre fire in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park days before high winds created a megafire that swept into Gatlinburg, former U.S. Forest Service firefighters said . At the very least, said retired employees with almost 200 years of firefighting experience, officials in the National Park should have summoned every resource available when alerted Nov. 26 of the expected high winds. Former U.S. Forest Service firefighters agreed park officials didn’t pay attention to the severe drought, low humidity that...
read moreEven by Utah standards, few things are as beautiful as snow on redrock, especially in Zion Canyon where visitors can take in this lovely sight this week in the stillness of winter — if they can get there. It may be the middle of the “offseason,” but the canyon, the centerpiece of Zion National Park, has been so packed since Christmas that park officials have had to exclude tour buses and oversize vehicles and close the canyon road because no more vehicles can fit in the parking areas. Traffic has periodically backed so far into...
read moreJim Warnock, principal at Arkansas’ Alma Intermediate School, wrote “Five-Star Trails: The Ozarks – 43 Spectacular Hikes in Arkansas and Missouri,” which was published in August. Warnock’s guide offers hiking advice, detailed trail descriptions, GPS coordinates, driving directions and topographical maps. A “recommended hikes” list at the beginning of the guide offers tips on the best hikes for various needs, such as for hikers traveling with children or dogs, interested in history, or looking for...
read moreThe Blue Valley Experimental Forest (Blue Valley) lies in southwest North Carolina in the Nantahala National Forest. Located in Macon County, near the point where North Carolina meets Georgia and South Carolina, the experimental forest was established in 1964. At 1,300 acres, it is the smallest of the three experimental forests in North Carolina and the second smallest of the 19 managed by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS). Blue Valley’s landscape is dominated by eastern white pine, but also includes mixed hardwood and...
read moreIf you’ve heard about one hiking trip in Norway, likely it was Pulpit Rock. With its jaw dropping cliff it is no wonder this is one of Norway’s most popular hikes — more than 270,000 hikers complete the trip every year. You will ascend about 330 meters [1,080 feet], but that will all be forgotten once you get to the edge of Lysefjorden and the 604 meter (1,982 feet) drop from Pulpit Rock. The trip starts at Preikestolen Mountain Lodge where there is a large parking lot. The trail is easy to find — just follow the red T...
read moreDropping into Southern California’s Anza-Borrego State Park from a twisting ride down Montezuma Valley Road, you get the sense Anza-Borrego is a world unto itself. A world of ancient fossils and mysterious mirages, lush palm oases and hidden waterfalls, ocotillo forests, remote hiking trails and captivating wildlife from tarantulas and chuckwalla lizards to golden eagles and desert bighorn sheep, or borrego. With help from several partnerships, donations and state and federal funds, the Anza-Borrego Foundation has been working to make...
read moreThe Continental Divide Trail Coalition will hold its third annual Trail Days & Kick-Off throughout the weekend of April 28 through 30, 2017, in Silver City, NM to celebrate the launch of the 2017 hiking season on the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, and Silver City as the trail’s first Gateway Community. Continental Divide Trail Days will feature seminars, presentations, gear demos, a “Basecamp” outdoor expo, giveaways, raffles, community hikes and more. The three-day event welcomes those who are setting out to hike over 3,000...
read morePresident Obama has designated Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah and Gold Butte National Monument in southeastern Nevada. Representing the best of America’s natural wonders, these designations complete what tribes, members of Congress, state and local officials, and local business and community leaders have sought for decades. The new monuments protect approximately 1.64 million acres of existing federal land in two spectacular western landscapes – 1.35 million acres in Utah and nearly 300,000 acres in Nevada. Both areas...
read moreAfter attempts to chip away at the law bill by bill, Utah Rep. Rob Bishop says he’d rather scrap the Endangered Species Act altogether. The delta smelt, a tiny, silvery-blue fish hanging on for survival in California’s San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin estuary, is notorious among opponents of the Endangered Species Act. Efforts to help the smelt have contributed to farm closures, and water reductions for households and businesses, letting more water flow towards the smelt’s habitat. And yet since 1993, when the fish was listed as...
read more“What is it about the desert?” “For me, it’s always been the wide open spaces. You know, you’re very small, and so therefore any problems that you might have also feel really small. And so it’s really a place to put things in perspective,” park ranger Liz Ballenger said. “It’s restorative.” But there are times when even the desert needs to be restored. The arches and cliffs haven’t gone anywhere, but after more than a century of cattle-trampling, beginning in the mid-1800s, vast stretches of land in the West still haven’t come back. Native...
read moreThe Chickamauga Dam and Cloudland Canyon State Park are just 2.9 miles of new trail away from being connected for ambitious hikers and mountain bikers. Lula Lake Land Trust crews are planning to begin work in January, 2017 on the Chattanooga Connector Trail that will link the land trust to Covenant College and provide the missing stretch in a network of trails between the Tennessee Riverwalk and Cloudland Canyon, a popular Georgia state park. The connector trail will be a key link in Lookout Mountain’s trail network, which is part of...
read moreEvery thru-hiker will tell you there is a little voice in their head constantly nagging them to move forward. Thru-hikers are always concerned with making continuous progress on towards their goal, be it the Canadian border or the next resupply town. Yet traveling in lightning country often requires thru-hikers to be flexible with their schedule and hiking style because the risk is very real: about 10% of those struck will die, often from cardiac arrest, and the other 90% may become permanently disabled. One way long-distance hikers can make...
read moreLake Clark is one of the National Park System’s true gems—a large sliver of all of the best parts of Alaska rolled into one easy-to-get-to place. It is almost as if Mother Nature created it with explorers in mind, offering diverse environments for mountaineers, backpackers, paddlers, big-game fisherman, hikers, and photographers to play in. The lake that bares the park’s namesake is Lake Clark—a 40-mile, vividly turquoise-colored body of water that is fed by glaciers, waterfalls, rivers, and streams; and that is surrounded by volcanoes,...
read moreFor those looking to release pent-up energy from the holiday season, Pilot Mountain State Park officials have a suggestion: take a hike. A First Day Hike at the park that is, which will be helping to perpetuate a statewide New Year’s Day tradition. Every year on January 1 since 2011, parks across North Carolina have hosted First Day Hikes and encouraged the public to participate as a wholesome way to begin the new year while enjoying the Great Outdoors — free of charge. “It’s starting the year off on the right foot, so to speak,” said Pilot...
read moreLast month, temperatures in the high Arctic spiked dramatically, some 36 degrees Fahrenheit above normal — a move that corresponded with record low levels of Arctic sea ice during a time of year when this ice is supposed to be expanding during the freezing polar night. And now this week we’re seeing another huge burst of Arctic warmth. A buoy close to the North Pole just reported temperatures close to the freezing point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 Celsius), which is 10s of degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. Although it isn’t...
read moreThere are around 200 huts scattered throughout Australia’s alpine regions. Though some of them are much newer, others date back as far as the 1860’s. For over 150 years, they’ve given shelter to cattlemen and women, gold miners, foresters, hydro-workers, fishermen, miners, skiers, and bushwalkers. Unquestionably, they’re an icon of European Australia. Unlike in other countries where huts are setup for people to sleep in, most of Australia’s huts are provided for emergency shelter only, but they are traditionally left socked with matches and a...
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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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