National Parks

Any Time of Year, A Great Idea: Giving Back to America's Best Idea

2016 was a great year for the national parks. The centennial really put the parks back into the minds of Americans, resulting in increased visitation and awareness. For more information, see the State of Utah's “Mighty 5” national television ads promoting their national parks, or the Suburu “What We Leave Behind” ad campaign, or the REI “Centennial Adventure” outreach, or the explosion of the Chimani park-guide apps, or the yearlong coverage of parks by National Geographic, or the serial “On the Trail” features on "CBS Sunday Morning," or the sudden popularity of the TV show “Rock the Park.” Et al.

So I’m intrigued to see what 2017 brings. Will interest in the parks remain at these levels, or diminish as the glow of the centennial subsides?

And what will the ramifications be? This year’s record attendance also produced some wears and tears, something the parks already had enough of before. The uptick in visitor fees may help pay for some of that maintenance and facilities backlog, but will next year’s probable downtick create an even greater shortfall for an already cash-strapped park system?

Who wouldn't want to help protect a view over heaven? Olympic National Park, © 2016 Chris Nicholson.

Who wouldn't want to help protect a view over heaven? Olympic National Park, © 2016 Chris Nicholson.

Another thought, which despite first appearance, I promise is related to the first: As national park photographers, as nature photographers, we sure do owe something to these wonderful places. They are our subject, our inspiration, our muse. As such, we should feel proud of them. We should feel protective of them. And we should feel an obligation to leave them better places than we found them, to ensure that they can be our muse again, and that they can inspire future generations of artists in our stead.

But how can we do this, aside from leaving only footprints (and hopefully not even those)?

Well, there certainly are means to do so. So as the old year winds down and we enter this season of giving and of giving back, I made a list of ways that we, as photographers, as lovers of these landscapes and wildernesses (and, of course, the pristine night skies that canopy them), can help support the national parks now and for the years and decades to come.

One way is to support the organizations dedicated to the cause of preserving these wild spaces. That support could be financial, but it could also be time volunteered, or it could be the creation of intellectual property (e.g., in our case, photography). Here are a few organizations to consider:

National Park Foundation

Chartered by Congress in 1967, the National Park Foundation is the official charitable partner of the National Park Service. The foundation raises private funds to support conservation and preservation efforts, to spread the word about the parks, and to inspire young Americans to learn to love these lands too. They also have a great free email newsletter that features articles about the parks. www.nationalparks.org

National Parks Conservation Association

These folks have been at it for a while, long enough to start getting ready to celebrate their own centennial. Founded in 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) has been a strong and independent voice supporting our country’s greatest idea. Their efforts range from in-park support to legal defenses to assist public lands to lobbying for pro-parks policy and legislation in Washington, D.C.  They also publish the excellent National Parks magazine, a subscription to which is a benefit of becoming a member. www.npca.org

NPCA volunteers work to remove fencing near the western entrance of Yellowstone National Park to allow pronghorn antelope to reestablish historic migration routes. Photo courtesy of the National Park Conservation Association.

NPCA volunteers work to remove fencing near the western entrance of Yellowstone National Park to allow pronghorn antelope to reestablish historic migration routes. Photo courtesy of the National Park Conservation Association.

National Park Trust

The National Park Trust is dedicated to land acquisition and preservation, along with conservation projects in 45,000 acres of public lands in 33 states. Perhaps more importantly, they also work to cultivate a love of the parks in the youngest generation, through two national youth programs, the Buddy Bison school program and Kids to Parks Day—because, as they say, “kids need parks and parks need kids.” www.parktrust.org

In Texas' Big Thicket National Preserve, Ranger Alex Halbrook leads and teaches school children who are part of the NPT's Buddy Bison program. The educational outreach program provides parks, wilderness and STEM opportunities to K8 kids in more than…

In Texas' Big Thicket National Preserve, Ranger Alex Halbrook leads and teaches school children who are part of the NPT's Buddy Bison program. The educational outreach program provides parks, wilderness and STEM opportunities to K8 kids in more than 60 schools across the U.S. Photo courtesy of the National Park Trust.

Sierra Club

Founded by noted naturalist (and meme star) John Muir, and staunchly supported by Ansel Adams, the Sierra Club is certainly one of the oldest (perhaps the oldest) group supporting the preservation of the wild. They also claim to be the nation’s largest grassroots environmental organization, with 2.4 million members and supporters. They help protect over 250 million acres of wilderness, host over 20,000 outings and events per year, and their reach and government lobbying power is well respected. www.sierraclub.org

Friends of Parks Associations

Most (if not all) of the parks are associated with a local organization that supports that specific park. These tend to be the groups that benefit from merchandise sales at the park gift shops, and the ones that get their hands dirty helping to blaze trails, or restore plantlife environments, and so on. Examples include the Yellowstone Forever, Conservancy of Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Friends of Big Bend National Park. If you live near a national park, or frequent a specific one, orhave an affinity for a specific park for whatever reason, these micro-organizations are a great place to start helping. For info on the many that exist, see the Friends Group Directory collated by the National Park Service.

Volunteers help with plantings at Glacier National Park. NPS photo by Jacob W. Frank.

Volunteers help with plantings at Glacier National Park. NPS photo by Jacob W. Frank.

Also, keep in mind that another way to help all or any of these organizations is to spread the word about them. These days we all have our own media reach, so can share the links and stories of these groups on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Congress

On the federal level, national parks have been underfunded for years—the reported maintenance and repair backlog is about $12 billion. Not only does that endanger the parks we have, but is also a good argument for not creating new parks, which is an unfortunate side effect.

How can you help with this, other than donating time and money to those organizations that try to help fill in the financial gaps? Write to your Congressperson to encourage the restoration of lost funding. Despite the massive list of deferred maintenance, in the first half of this decade the National Park Service budget was reduced by 12 percent, or $364 million. That’s understandable during cash-strapped economic periods, but surely in better times we, as a country, can start finding ways to recommit to this important shared resource.

(Along the same lines, the NPCA offers a "Guide for Meeting With Legislators," should you be fortunate enough to do so.)

Annual Pass

Buy an American the Beautiful pass even if you don't need it. If you travel to the parks a lot, the pass is a no-brainer—you’ll pay it off in about 3-4 visits. For one year, the pass garners you free entry to all national parks, national monuments, national historic sites, national wildlife refuges, national forests and grasslands, and all units managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That’s a lot of places. But even if you visit just one park per year, buying an annual pass contributes directly to the system, helping to support something you obviously care about.

Photography

Finally, you can consider donating photos or photography to the park. Anyone reading this knows the value of a good photograph. If donating your work is not your thing for business reasons, I totally understand that. But if you’re the type of photographer who picks, say, one organization to help out, then a park foundation or association is a worthy one to consider. A place like Yellowstone doesn’t need the photo help, but smaller parks with minimal budgets, staff and infrastructure may appreciate the gesture, as would nonprofits that genuinely try to reserve their cash for their causes.

I read something recently that encouraged people to think of the parks not as "federal lands," but rather as shared resources, as national treasures. I further that sentiment by suggesting that because we co-own these places, we're all responsible for helping to sustain them.

Chris Nicholson is the author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

National Parks To Celebrate Night Skies With Upcoming Festivals

The National Park Service is 100 percent on-board with the idea of preserving dark skies for all who wish to see them—from astronomy buffs to night photographers and everyone in between. It even maintains a Night Sky page on its website, and offers access to a Night Sky Monitoring Database of the entire U.S.

But not only does the NPS protect and promote the night skies, it also creates opportunities to explore and learn about them.

Lassen Dark Sky Festival, NPS Photo

Lassen Dark Sky Festival, NPS Photo

Many of the parks offer ranger-led programs for visitors to experience night the way it once appeared everywhere, before the dawn of electrically lit cities and civilizations. For example, Pinnacles National Park offers night hikes, and Shenandoah National Park in Virginia offers an Evening Meadow Walk (in Big Meadows, no less, one of my favorites spaces in the entire park system!). Even New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns National Park, whose star attraction is underground, shows off the night skies with its recurring Star Parties and Moon Walks.

But several of the parks go even bigger, hosting full-scale festivals that celebrate the night. They feature all sorts of spectator and interactive programs, including lectures by astronomers, telescope usage, photography workshops and more.

Photo by NPS/Brad Sutton

Photo by NPS/Brad Sutton

These are all excellent opportunities to get into the parks to learn and explore the night with like-minded people.

This year’s Death Valley Star Party is already behind us (it was in February), but there are plenty of park-hosted night-sky festivals on the horizon for summer and early fall. To help you find one (or more!) to attend, we’ve compiled the list below. If you attend, let us know how it goes—and send photos!

 

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

Black Canyon Astronomy Festival

June 1-4, Colorado

Highlights: Constellation tours, Tyler Nordgren presentation and book signing, telescope observations, "Nightscape Photography Workshop"

 

Bryce Canyon National Park

Annual Astronomy Festival

June 1-4, Utah

Highlights: hosted by Bryce Canyon's astronomy rangers and the Salt Lake Astronomical Society; keynote speaker Seth Jarvis from the Clark Planetarium

 

Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon Star Party

June 4–11, Arizona

Highlights: access to multiple telescopes on both rims of the canyon, nightly presentations and slide shows; assistance from the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association and the Saguaro Astronomy Club of Phoenix

 

Badlands National Park

Badlands National Park Astronomy Festival

July 8-10, South Dakota

Highlights: family-friendly activities and evening presentations with special guest speakers; nightly telescope viewing sponsored by the NPS Night Sky Program and Celestron

 

Rocky Mountain National Park

Night Sky Festival

July 28-30, Colorado

Highlights: activities, speakers, programs and night sky viewing

 

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

Dark Sky Festival

August 5-7, California

Highlights: astronaut speakers; special Crystal Cave tours; audio-visual and photography presentations

 

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen Dark Sky Festival

August 12-14, California

Highlights: constellation tours; solar scope viewing; discussions and demonstrations by National Park Dark Sky rangers, NASA, International Dark Sky Association, RECON, Astronomical Society of Nevada and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

 

Acadia National Park

Acadia Night Sky Festival

September 22-25, Maine

Highlights: workshops; internationally recognized speakers; hands-on experiences

 

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Dakota Nights Astronomy Festival

September 23-25, North Dakota

Highlights: star viewing; presentations by nationally recognized speakers; rocket building and launching; solar system hikes

 

Great Basin National Park

Great Basin Astronomy Festival

September 29 - October 1, Nevada

Highlights: viewing through over 30 telescopes (some as tall as 20 feet); "Astronomy 101" presentation; Night Sky Photography Workshop by the "Dark Rangers"

 

Joshua Tree National Park

Night Sky Festival

October 28-30, California

Highlights: astronomers, scientists, cultural speakers and artists

 
Chris Nicholson is the author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

Upcoming workshops from National Parks at Night

Finding Our Parks: How We Participated in National Parks Week

Click to experience the map!

Click to experience the map!

In late April, we hit the road NPAN style. We chose to celebrate the National Parks Service's free entrance days for National Park Week by taking a whirlwind tour of Southern Utah.

Gabe, Matt and Chris were joined by our friend Sean in Las Vegas and we hit the road in a car and on two motorcycles. Our trip led us through three national parks (including Zion, which wasn't a destination, but how could we not at least drive through?) and two national monuments. It was epic, and awe-inspiring.

Our routine was great! Eat a substantial breakfast, hit the road, drive through some amazing landscapes, grab some food and head out into the park to go shooting for the late afternoon and evening (often until 2 or 3 a.m.).

Here are individual highlights from the adventurers:


Bryce Canyon National Park - by Matt Hill

Love them hoodoos.
— Matt

My first impression was a gasp when I viewed Bryce Canyon under a full moon. A massive canyon filled with hoodoos and trees. And gorgeous shadows. It was brutally cold, even for late April, and we withstood the wind on the canyon rim to enjoy the view and make some images.

Upon descending into the canyon, the wind died, as well as my hopes for avoiding aerobic exercise for the day. ;-) What goes down, must come up! That canyon is deeeeeep and steeeeeep. Nonetheless, we hiked into the hoodoo field and I spent a lot of time playing with the relationship between eroded sandstone rock and living wood. What a gorgeous juxtaposition of colors, textures and shapes.

We're fortunate the skies cooperated in a big way. Very happy with our experience there, despite hiking back up the canyon with 30+ lbs. in my backpack at altitude.

Visit the Bryce Canyon Official NPS Website to plan your visit! 


Capitol Reef National Park - by Chris Nicholson

Capitol Reef simply shines in the dark!
— Chris

Capitol Reef has been on my bucket list for a couple of years, so I was thrilled we were including it on our road trip.

But to get there, first we drove through the big shocker of the trip: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. None of us knew much about it, other than that it exists. And it's beautiful! We stopped about four or five times, mesmerized by both its size and its amazing landscapes. We didn't have time to linger, but we will be back there someday for sure.

We arrived at Capitol Reef with just enough time to scout some locations in daylight, which is important in a place with such dark night skies. (Capitol Reef is one of only three national parks designated as Gold Tier by the International Dark-Sky Association.) Checking our Photo Pills app, we knew we would have one hour of utter darkness before the moon rose, so we planned to start our evening photographing star trails at Chimney Rock.

From there we went to the orchards in Fruita, a remnant of the vibrant agricultural community in that area more than a century ago. The orchard proved difficult to photograph, primarily because it’s the one spot we did not scout well; instead of shooting right away, we spent 45 minutes walking around in the dark trying to imagine some compositions.

We ended the night near Panorama Point. We’d scouted a nice location with a road S-curving in front of a distant mountain. We each set up a composition, and Gabe manned our intervalometers while Matt drove the car and I held a Pixelstick out the sunroof, creating light trails along the road. The creativity was fun, but the wind was brutal and cold, so as soon as we felt we nailed the shot, we packed things in for the night.

On our second night in Capitol Reef, we were joined by our friend Steve Ryan, a sports photographer from New York City. He was very gracious in agreeing to drive us out to Cathedral Valley, an area filled with wonderfully photogenic rock formations accessible only by primitive roads. Unfortunately, a quick storm a few hours before departure made those roads impassable.

So instead we night-hiked to The Tanks, a series of natural water holes a short (but steep) climb up from Capitol Gorge. It was a gorgeous hike (ha! see what I did there?), a challenging (but fun) shoot, followed by a photograph-slowed hike back out of the gorge.

We are all eager to run a night-photography workshop in Capitol Reef some year soon. Stay tuned!

Visit the Capitol Reef Official NPS Website to plan your visit! 


Natural Bridges National Monument - by Gabriel Biderman

Bridges that lead you to the darkest of skies.
— Gabe

Our quest for the darkest skies leads us to some very remote locations. But the opportunity to work with no light pollution and crystal-clear skies with thousands of stars is an experience no one will forget.

Natural Bridges National Monument is one of those special places. Located 40 miles from the nearest town in Southeast Utah, Natural Bridges is the oldest National Park Service site in Utah (1908) and was the first “Dark Sky Park” to be certified by the International Dark-Sky Association.

We arrived a few hours before sunset and had the most amazing conversation with Ranger Ted Hodson as he shared his stories, photographs and advice for how we could make the most of our one evening. Imagine three bridges that lie at the bottom of a deep canyon, formed from an ancient river over 260 million years ago.

You can do the 8-mile loop drive (in 20 minutes) and get little peeks of two of the three bridges, but the real adventure lies when you walk down the canyon and see the bridges act like windows to the stars.

So that’s what we did. With overcast weather looming we chose the path to Owachoma—probably the most photographed of the three bridges. We had seen the images at the visitor center and were focused on looking for new angles. I put myself right under the bridge and Matt and Chris found an oblique angle to start brushing light under the bridge. The three of us worked together on a few more angles and group light painting until the clouds enveloped the stars.

They say you can see 15,000 stars on a clear night at Natural Bridges. I stopped counting after 500.

Visit the Natural Bridges Official NPS Website to plan your visit! 


Thanks for reading. Tell us if you participated, and how, in National Park Week. Did you #findyourpark? We'd love to hear more!

Job well done.

Job well done.


Upcoming workshops from National Parks at Night

National Park Service Centennial Rife With Events for Photographers

National Park Service Centennial Rife With Events for Photographers

You may have heard … 2016 is the centennial of the National Park Service.

To celebrate, pretty much every park is planning special events and activities, many of which will be of interest to photographers. A few examples that were announced before the end of last year: