XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, has staked out an area that is as close as 100 feet from Theodore Roosevelt National Park, park officials said Monday. An application to develop two sections of land and “not more than four well sites” near the ranch where Theodore Roosevelt once lived was received by the North [ more... ]

There’s a plan in its infancy to add a mountain bike trail to Rocky Mountain National Park. Or, kinda. The details are fuzzy because the 15.5-mile-long trail for use by hikers and cyclists that would run from the Fall River Entrance to Sprague Lake is still just one option. One of the goals RMNP officials [ more... ]

New Mexico’s senatorial contingent, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, want the 89,000 Valles Caldera National Reserve to become a national park. New Mexicans have seen this movie before, though. In 2010 their state’s senators also pushed for converting the land, north of Albuquerque, toward national park status but it never got to a vote. Presently [ more... ]

In Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday nearly 50 search and rescue volunteers as well as several sheriffs departments and rescue dogs were on the hunt for 39-year-old Texan Troy Green. The San Antonio native was visiting the state on business and decided to go for an off-piste hike on Thursday between Bear Lake and [ more... ]

So far the National Park Service has moved 72 park collections online, totally about two million objects. Looking for a way to waste time at work? You just found it. The collection contains loads Native American art as well as very odd things like hats and belts from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and [ more... ]

Weather patterns resulting in extending high surf have pounded the sand at Cumberland Island National Seashore revealing what archaeologists believe is a mid-1800s shipwreck. The craft was about 80 feet long, and experts are unsure whether it was a freighter hauling goods or a Civil War vessel. So far no whiskey bottles have been recovered [ more... ]

Russia has taken the necessary steps to designate the remote Far Eastern Chukotka as a National Park making what will be the first U.S.-Russian nature reserve. This is the place Sarah Palin was talking about when she made a fool of herself. The park will span the Bering Strait, a remote patch of sea and [ more... ]

The National Park Service is asking the Feds to give them over $400 million to cover damage to the parks affected by Sandy. The first $348 million would go to immediate reconstruction and recovery needs, then the next $50 million would go to paying for rehabbing damaged historic properties like Ellis Island. Then, on top [ more... ]

“What are you in for, drugs?” “Sort of.” A man caught with 7 pounds of ginseng illegally harvested in a national park was sentenced to 15 days in jail and a $1500 fine. The plant is highly valued in some markets as a powerful aphrodisiac. It’s something I like to call, “poor man’s rhino horn.” [ more... ]

Twenty-five fuel pods used by F4 Phantoms in the 1970s have been pulled out of remote corners of the Noatak National Preserve and Kobuk Valley National Park. The gas tanks are used to extend the range of the jets, and the pilots jettison them when they’re empty. In total, the pods removed so far weigh [ more... ]