Top National Park Stories of 2018

Twenty Eighteen was an interesting year for national parks and public lands.  The year saw massive fires, resignations and restructurings, massive visitation, death, idiots, and two government shutdowns.

10. Government Shutdown. No we are not talking about our current shutdown.  It's hard to believe but a year ago at this time, the government was also shutdown, closing parks and public lands. Parks like the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell were completely closed, while other parks like Yellowstone were semi-open.
  
9. Advisory Panel Members Resign  The past year saw politics significantly impact park management.  In January 10 of the 12 members of the federally charged National Parks Advisory Board resigned in protest. Former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles, Board Chair wrote the president in protest stating the committee members "have stood by waiting for the chance to meet and continue the partnership . . . as prescribed by law."  Knowles went on writing "We understand the complexity of transition but our requests to engage have been ignored and the matters on which we wanted to brief the new Department team are clearly not part of its agenda."

8. Record Visitation The National Park System saw nearly record breaking visitation in 2017 with 330,882,751 visitors.  This number was nearly identical to 2016 numbers and show that American's love affair with their national parks continues.

7. Park Leadership Restructured Along with advisory panel members resigning, several high profile park officials were reassigned causing some to tender their resignation.  Several park experts speculate Trump Administration officials were trying to remove park leaders that would oppose the the president's attempts to loosen restrictions on hunting, access, and resource extraction.

6. Summer of Fire Fires across the country burned millions of acres this past year.  National Parks were not immune from these infernos including Yosemite and Glacier.  Meanwhile, Santa Monica Mountains national recreation area saw nearly 80 percent of its landmass consumed by fire this past year.

5. Grizzly Bears back under federal protection  A federal judge threw out the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's plan to delist Yellowstone bears and permit Grizzly bear hunts in Idaho and Wyoming. The judge questioned the FWS' Grizzly bear population estimates stating the rejected plan limited the federal government's used of best available science.

4. Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park reopens Hawaii Volcanoes closed in May after initial eruptions from Kilauea volcano.  These were followed over the next several months by several earthquakes and continued eruptions which cause significant damage to park roads and trails.

3. Death and missing hikers The national park system appeared to see a rash of deaths and people going missing this past year. The death toll included a couple who plunged to their death while taking a selfie on top of Yosemites' half dome. Meanwhile Yellowstone seemed to see the lion's share of visiting idiots who taunted bison,  walked on Grand Prismatic, and looked into Old Faithful.

2. Zinke Resigns Amid scandal and investigation the two year tenure of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke came to an end. According to the Washington Post "During his tenure, Zinke came under at least 15 investigations, including: inquiries into his connection to a real estate deal involving a company that Interior regulates; whether he bent government rules to allow his wife to ride in government vehicles; and allowing a security detail to travel with him on a vacation to Turkey at considerable taxpayer cost."

1. Government Shutdown Take 2 In a case of bad deja vu, the federal government and national parks closed for the second time in twelve months.  However, several parks remain open to the public despite a lack of staff and closed facilities.  This has lead to a rash of vandalism, trash, trespassing, and other and human waste.

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.

All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith

Another Great Book Reading

This past month I had the honor of speaking to members of the Sunrise HOA in Puyallup 
Washington.  It was a great evening, with great questions.

Thanks again to everyone who turned out.

Check out the evening here.

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.

All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith

Mount Rainier Book Reading

Thanks to everyone who turned up on August 25th for my book reading at Mount Rainier's Paradise Inn.  It was a great day with an engaged audience and thoughtful conversation.  The video of the event can be found here.

Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.

All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith

 

 

 

Need to Know Book Reading: Join Me

On August 25th from 3:30 to 5:00pm, I'll be in the lobby of Mount Rainier's historic Paradise Inn reading from my latest thriller Need to Know.  JOIN ME!  Set in Mount Rainier, the thriller tells the gripping story of an object that's been buried high on the mountain's slopes for more than 70 years.  People will kill to keep it secret.

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.

All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith

Forbidden Places I've Been

I recently read an article about ten places the public is not allowed to visit.  Sorry to say, I haven' been to any of them.  However, reading the article got me wondering about the places I've been that the public is not generally allowed to visit.

Here's my list of five places I've been that are usually off-limits to the public.  Unfortunately, because most of these places have restricted public access either because of safety or security reasons, I have very few pictures of these sites.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

5. The Fire line
Back in 1996 I served as a wild land fighter for the National Park Service.  I was part of the Stehekin hotshots and fought fire on the Wenatchee national forest.  We fought fire high up on the steep banks of Lake Chelan, far removed from any road or trail.  It was hard, dirty, dangerous work, which gave me a deeper appreciation for all wild land fire fighters.

4. Hanford Plutonium processing plant
During World War II, the United States authorized the research and development of an atomic bomb.  The bomb's top secret development was called the Manhattan Project and lead to the building of the bombs that were dropped on Japan.  The plutonium that was used as the fuel for the Nagasaki bomb was processed at the Hanford Nuclear facility in central Washington State.  Allow nuclear fuel processing at Hanford ended decades ago, the clean up on the 640 acre site continues to this day.  Due to national security and public safety issues, public access to the Hanford site is strictly regulated.  I have been fortunate to have visited the site for work on a couple of occasions.


3. Crater of Mount St. Helens
In the mid nineties, I worked for the Forest Service at Mount St. Helens.  It was a mere 15 years after the mountains eruption of 1980 and the volcano's crater was steaming and its central dome growing with an active lava flow.  With several of my Forest Service colleagues, I was granted access to the actual crater and got a scramble up the central lava dome.  It was a very humbling experience to stand on earth that had been extruded from the planet's core mere days before.

2. Wolf Rendezvous Site
In 1997, I was a Park Ranger with the National Park Service at Yellowstone.  Being a Yellowstone Ranger meant I sometimes had the opportunity to do things and go places off limits to the public.  One such opportunity was to accompany park wildlife biologist on wolf management expeditions.  On one expedition, I assisted a wolf biologist to a remote backcountry site that the park knew to be a wolf rendezvous site.  Rendezvous sites are places where wolf packs leave that years pups with a younger pack member, and head off to hunt. For obvious reason, the location of rendezvous sites are strictly guarded by the Park Service. For several hours until sunset, the two of us watched several cubs and a single juvenile wolf pass the time, while the older wolves hunted.  It reminded me of a teenager babysitting while the adults went out for dinner.  One could almost sense the juvenile wolf was not happy being left behind to entertain a half dozen pups who appeared to have endless energy.

1. Oval Office
In 1991, I worked as an intern for a Washington D.C. based environmental non-profit.  During that time, I met and became friends with an intern that worked in the White House.  During one weekend, the President was out of the city, which meant the intern was allowed to invite colleagues to tour the West Wing of the Executive Mansion.  We started our tour in the press briefing room, visited the Roosevelt and Cabinet rooms, the rose garden, and finally the threshold of the Oval Office.  We weren't allowed to enter the country's center of political power, but standing in the doorway one couldn't help but think of the history that had and would take place in that room.

How about you?  Have you been to any forbidden places?

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Sean Smith is an award winning conservationist and author. He is a former National Park Ranger at Yellowstone, Glacier, and the North Cascades. He is a TEDx speaker, and private pilot. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in Political Science. He got his master's in Natural Resources Management from Central Washington University in 1996. He currently runs Washington State's efforts to reduce and eliminate toxic chemicals from consumer products and serves as the Mayor Pro Tem of Covington.

He has been writing stories and books since he was a child and currently writes national park thrillers from the shadow of Mount Rainier.

All his novels can be found here: Mr. Sean D Smith