Mary Forgione, the Los Angeles Times’ Daily Deal and Travel Blogger has written an article about winter vacation deals in Utah and California. It turns out that there are some great weekday deals in and around our national parks. In California, for example, Sequoia & Kings Canyon national parks have fewer visitors, snow, and low prices!
Category Archives: National Parks
Dan Lungren and John Van de Kamp have penned an opinion piece in the L.A. Times about the Hetch Hetchy Valley. They’d like to see the valley restored and the dam removed. I’m too young to remember what the valley looked like, but I’m of the opinion that it’s too late, and California has already wasted too much of the taxpayer’s money doing idiotic things like re-electing mistakes for governor and investing in high speed rail that nobody – except those getting rich off kickbacks – wants.
Well, I’m no scientist, but I could have told you that without having to embark on any years-long study. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with how cattle graze and where toads live knows that cattle don’t graze in marshy water areas and toads don’t forage in dry meadows. Duh.
But, to make it official, a UC forest study has found that excluding cattle doesn’t help toad population.
The USDA has posted an article about the Watershed Assessment Model that’s being used at Yosemite National Park:
An award-winning watershed assessment tool, the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA), was deployed to assess potential Rim Fire threats in Yosemite National Park in California. The park experienced a devastating fire that began on August 17, 2013, and took several months to contain. The fire burned more than 400 square miles in and around the park, cost $125.8 million to date, and is considered one of the largest wildfires in California’s history.
The Pacific Southwest Region of the US Forest Service has released a statement of its Leadership Intent for Ecological Restoration, which laid out the Region’s guiding vision and goals for its stewardship of wildland and forests for the next 15-20 years. The following draft document reflects the Regional leadership’s current thinking on how the Leadership Intent will be implemented. This draft is a beginning point for discussions with employees, partners, tribes, agencies, communities of place and interest and those who care about the future of their National Forests.
Like the Leadership Intent the Implementation Plan is fluid and we expect that adjustments will be made over time as the Region continues to collaborate; follow new science; and seek out and form new alliances. These ongoing processes will reveal new and smarter ways to increase the pace and scale of restoration work while balancing the ecological, social and economic benefits of our restoration actions. Regional leadership has committed to editing and improving this document following these discussions and then reviewing and updating it at least annually in the future years. Hence we invite discussion, input and insight to ensure that the Implementation Plan reflects and is responsive to new information, partnerships, and conditions.