23
Let's Enjoy America's State and National Parks!
I recently spent some truly fantastic time in a state park and recommend that you do the same this summer in America's fine state and national parks systems! Enjoy them while you can. (Caveat: but don't die out there).
Wow, so hard to guess that the filmmaker was a twee Austin douchebag who probably now claims he lives in Marfa. But thanks LBJ. We like that park. Also, why did the camera not melt?
JESUS H CHRIST, wake up on the wrong side of the sweaty Texas bed much, BoHan?
Watch it without the audio if you're gonna be a jackass about it, BH. Maybe hire a west texan to mumble over it.
@deepo: a little too late to ask Donald Judd to voiceover, 'tis a shame.
America's National Parks are, by far, the best thing about the country and completely unique in the world.
Too bad they're all falling apart and neglected.
But there's a huge plus to that too–which is that they're not over-regulated, and not having horrible new things built in them, and the like. While most of the structures from the parks I visit are at least 30 years old, they're neither intrusive nor hideous. And I don't trust them to build anything these days that isn't going to be disgusting!
Also: no money for rangers to bust you when you get nekkid.
My uncle, a Park Ranger, would perhaps like a few updates in the system. Like, a raise.
not to mention mismanaged and environmentally short-sighted, but that's a discussion for another day. if anybody needs some sweet sierra backpacking suggestions i've got them in spades!
Agreed. There are so many lovely buildings in our National Parks. Even the 1950s style futuristic buildings are just a hundred ways perfect.
What I love about them, and I'm thinking Yellowstone and Glacier, where I've spent the most time, is that if you walk about 100 feet from the road, you have the place to yourself.
With all we managed to screw up, setting aside–and expanding–our parklands is an enormous positive for America.
And the system is woefully underfunded.
that thought occurred to me after I posted — but the only way most people will experience them and therefore value them is by visiting easily accessible crappy visitor centers and run-down campgrounds.
But walk a mile outside of Yosemite Valley and the park is as it should be…Oh, great. Now I haz a sad.
My Grandad spent decades working on the creation of this, and got shot at by angry hillbillies! Watch for flying bullets, y'all.
I'd be pleased and proud to have had that grandad.
You bet I am, Annie.
(the reprint of his memoir on the subject is out now, btw-)
As someone who does this for a living; I can assure you that the people who plan, manage, and maintain your parks appreciate your patronage.
Also, please stop setting them on fire. Thanks.
ok, please DO NOT commit commenter suicide today.
Yes, please make sure to light the campfire in the appropriate campground perimeters, thank you very much!
@theheckle: Oh, sure, take all the fun out of my visit. Jeez.
not to start a fight in a post about one of the few things to be completely joyous about in this country, but they wouldn't catch on fire so easily if it weren't for shitty management policies that continue to this day.
If there was a fight on the Awl about federal fire suppression policies, I would die happy.
I'm willing to bite. I agree federal fire management is still mostly in the dark ages at the regional and national level. However, at least out west most jurisdictions are pretty progressive in terms of letting fires burn and doing prescribed burns when the funds exist.
To get any real change you'd have to spend billions on clearing out fuel, then you'd have to convince private property owners to either create defensible space or stop building in the middle of forests, and finally you'd have to change an entire culture's position on wildfires.
I was mostly concerned with the poor fire management skills of park visitors. I'm all for letting natural fires burn themselves out and I'd think most other managers would be too.
uh, yup. that sounds just about right on. personally, i'd happily agree to spend those billions on a progressive, well thought out management plan than on fighting and dealing with the aftermath of yet another catastrophic wildfire. but you're right, it's not just the fed's problem and like a lot of our biggest environmental issues, fires don't recognize the boundaries we've constructed between national park, national forest, blm, state, and private land. and good jesus, if it's hard to get one branch to agree on a policy it's hard times a million to get them all to agree.
and thanks for taking the bait. due to my own terrible "career" moves, i haven't had much chance to talk about this stuff since college.
Shameless plug: the National Park beaches on Cape Cod are some of the most beautiful places to go on this here peninsula. If you've never wandered the dunes, skinny dipped in the ocean, the bay AND the ponds, or pondered the endless horizon, I recommend. Yay for JFK for saving the landscape here.