|
Another ranger checking in. If anyone has questions about national parks in Alaska, especially the ones that are not Denali and Glacier Bay, please ask them! It’s easier to get a long way off the beaten path than you might think. Also plugging state parks, our usually under-resourced cousins. Three in particular are near and dear to my heart: Chugach State Park, which has some of the best road-accessible trails in the country, all of which also offer jumping off points to legit backcountry; Denali State Park, which has for my money better views of the mountain than the national park (and is where you get southern views); and Wood-Tikchik State Park, which nobody has ever heard of but is Extremely Cool.
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2020 21:25
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 20:03 |
|
|
Yooper posted:I've got to go to Homer for a week to handle my deceased fathers stuff. Got any treasure spots to check out? I plan on heading across Kachemak Bay to the State Park for a day hike or two. Any hidden gems between Anchorage and Homer? If you can get one of the public use cabins on the other side of kachemak bay that would be pretty terrific. It will also be a better value for your water taxi ride than a day hike. When you’re on the Kenai peninsula you are actually pretty close to Lake Clark National Park. The coastal part of the park (primarily Silver Salmon Creek and Chinitna Bay) have terrific bear viewing, particularly this year with lower visitor numbers. I believe Natron Air out of Soldotna offers seat fare rides over there, as opposed to chartering a whole plane. If you’re comfortable walking around coastal brown bears on your own it’s a pretty amazing experience.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 20, 2020 18:21
|
|
|
Sleepytime posted:We just got Indiana Dunes National Park. I've gone there before it was a national park so it will be interesting to go back and see how they have it set up. For what it’s worth, internally we don’t treat things differently based on their designation, at least in terms of how well we take care of them, provide for visitor services, etc.. I.e., the agency should not treat Indiana Dunes National Park differently than it did Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. To the extent a change in designation carries statutory changes to required planning processes or prohibited activities or w/e, that would be different, but some of the recent ‘elevations’ of units to the national park designation are more or less for bragging rights on the part of the state in which the units are located. Externally people attribute greater significance to something called a national park than to the various other names, even if the level of protection, services, etc., do not change. Which is to say, other than changes in visitation levels since you were last there, it should not be that different!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2020 05:09
|
|