Fighting bull elephant seals, NMFS Permit No. 21425, Point Reyes National Seashore / NPS-PRNSA-Aiko Goldston
A look back at some of the best National Parks Traveler podcasts from 2024.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 305 | The Elephant Seals of Point Reyes
Elephant seals are not your small, cuddly marine mammals. They are behemoths. Males, known as bulls, can reach 5,000 pounds, while females, known as cows, routinely clock in at around 1,000 pounds or so.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 301 | Red-Cockaded Woodpecker–A Decision Too Soon?
The vulnerable red-cockaded woodpecker is known to be found in national park units throughout the southeast. Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park in Florida, Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee are just a few of the parks that either are, or once were, home to the woodpecker.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 297 | Trail of the Lost
The National Trail System in the United States spans many thousands of miles of foot trail. The crown jewels of that system, of course, are the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail.
While the adventurous might look at those long trails and set their sights on hiking one end from end, not all manage to complete the journey. Many become disillusioned after days spent hiking in the rain, or because they become homesick, or because of the blisters that sprout on their feet.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 292 | Voyageurs Wolf Project
The National Park System is an incredible reservoir of wildlife, from charismatic animals such as grizzly bears, bison and wolves, to animals such as moose, and pronghorn and sea turtles that, while not usually labeled as charismatic, are indeed just that.
Wolves certainly fall under the charismatic megafauna classification. They’re majestic and mystifying, and perhaps even lend some romanticism to your backcountry adventures if you are lucky enough to hear a pack howling in chorus after sundown.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 290 | Miserable Mammoth Cave
Have you ever been to Mammoth Cave National Park? It’s really not that impressive, is it? Sure, it’s more than 425 miles long, but only about 10 miles are open to the public.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 286 | Save the Manatee
Manatees are some of the most unusual looking wildlife creatures that you’ll find in coastal units of the National Park System, places like Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park and Cumberland Island National Seashore.
They are huge – the largest on record reportedly tipped the scales at 3500 pounds and was 13 feet long – and rather bulbous looking.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 285 | Grizzly Confidential
What is it about grizzly bears that intrigues us, or scares us? They are magnificent apex predators that long have been vilified by some while admired by others.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 281 | Alaska’s Stained Rivers
In the remote wilderness of the Brooks Mountain Range in Alaska, where untamed rivers wind through vast expanses of tundra and towering mountains, a peculiar and alarming phenomenon is taking place. Since 2017 at least 75 pristine waterways, which once shimmered with crystalline clarity, have taken on a haunting hue of orange and now contain very concerning toxic metals and minerals.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 278 | Letters from the Smokies
There is so much rich history across the National Park System, from chapters of the Revolutionary War held in parks in the eastern half of the country to stories from the gold rush that stampeded through Alaska during the late 1890s. And when you look at parks in the eastern half of the country, the reservoir is so much deeper than in the western half if only for the reason that more was written down.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 276 | Underwater Photography with the Submerged Resources Center
Did you know that there are some five and a half million acres of our National Parks that are underwater? There are sunken ships and aircraft. There are remnants of industry and mining. There are coral reefs and underwater caverns.
The Submerged Resources Center of the National Park Service is where these water resources are explored and documented. Underwater photography is crucial in the understanding of what lies beneath the surface, and images taken by the SRC Staff are essential not only for mapping and documenting, but to help the parks address issues and solve problems.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 272 | Fossilized Parks
Have you ever closely inspected the landscape when you’re touring the National Park System, particularly in the West? You never know what you might find. Back in 2010 a 7-year-old attending a Junior Ranger program at Badlands National Park spied a partially exposed fossil that turned out to be the skull of a 32-million-year-old saber-toothed cat. We’ve invited Vince Santucci, the National Park Service’s senior paleontologist, to discuss the many fossil resources that exist across the National Park System, from coast to coast and north to south.Listen to the podcast.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 271 | Wolverine Recovery in Colorado
Wolverines, the largest land-dwelling members of the weasel family, once roamed across the northern tier of the United States, and as far south as New Mexico in the Rockies and southern California in the Sierra Nevada range. But after more than a century of trapping and habitat loss, wolverines in the lower 48 today exist only as small, fragmented populations in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, and northeast Oregon.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 262 | Vanishing Treasures
From the Rocky Mountains to the West Coast and up to Alaska, there are thousands of historic structures and archaeological sites on National Park System landscapes. They range in variety from homesteader cabins to pre-historic cave dwellings.
Listen to the podcast.
National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 256 | Golden Spike National Historical Park
As a young boy growing up in New Jersey, a year-end holiday treat was setting up our model railroad. It gave me and my two brothers hours of fun and an opportunity to learn a little about the steam age of railroads. Our first railroad featured Lionel O gauge locomotives and cars. Later we moved into HO gauge trains, and many years later I had an N gauge layout.
That boyhood love of model railroads drove me to visit Golden Spike National Historical Park in northern Utah not far from the Great Salt Lake. That’s where, on May 10th, 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad was completed when the Jupiter and No. 119 steam locomotives of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met head-on.
To learn more about those two locomotives, I headed north to Promontory Summit and caught up with Ranger Cole Chisam, who is the engineer who drives the two locomotives at the park.
Listen to the podcast.
Coming December 29: A conversation with Kevin Fedarko, best-selling author of The Emerald Mile, about his latest book, A Walk In The Park.
