Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wy. – Standing still in a mountain meadow as snowflakes begin to fall on a herd of bison along Beartooth Pass, you get the feeling of arriving in an ancient and distant land before human civilization began to eat away at nature and churn the…
By Walter Simon – CUSTER, S.D. – Fortuitous Mojo granted us the luck of landing in Custer, South Dakota, where we planned a stop-over on the way to Yellowstone. We had no idea until yesterday that today, Sunday, would be one of only two times a year the public are allowed to scale the mountain…
“Art at its highest and nature at its truest are one.” — Knute E. Westerlind, the architect of Municipal Auditorium in Sioux City, Iowa, designed in 1938 and finished in 1950 By Glynn Wilson – CHAMBERLAIN, S.D. — From this vantage point looking out from the American Creek Campground, the Missouri River looks as blue…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – It’s Sunday morning in the deep South, so my thoughts inevitably turn to breakfast. How do you like your eggs? Hard boiled or soft? Sunny side up or scrambled? It’s not clear why this is the case, exactly, this thing I have with Sunday breakfast. It has…
By Glynn Wilson – Reading the national press coverage on the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, even listening to the reporting on National Public Radio, you would think the biggest problem the parks face is a lack of visitors. The entire story is framed as if the parks were just another capitalist tourist…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, President Obama bypassed the inaction of the Republican Congress and used the power of the presidential pen to create the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, the first national monument to preserve the landscape and honor…
By Bob Wells – STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Co. — After Randy and his group left Leadville for Salida, Colorado, I knew we had a record-setting heat wave coming so I liked the idea of staying up at high elevation. I decided to start working my way north so my next stop was Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I…
President Barack Obama took a few days to go on a working vacation this week and, to help celebrate the 100th anniverrsary of the National Park Service, the first family visited Yosemite National Park, one of the nation’s most popular national parks. In a brief speech on Saturday at Sentinel Bridge with the 2,425 feet…
By Bob Wells – One of the more confusing parts of being a Nomad is, if you have no permanent home, what state should you live in, what do you use for an address and how do you get mail? That’s always been fairly difficult but after 911 the heightened security around identification has made…
A leaf, a flower, a stone – the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Born April 21, 1838, Muir has become America’s most famous naturalist and conservationist. He shared his love of the outdoors through writing and inspired people to protect our country’s wild places like Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Sequoia and…
Experience Nature in the Wild on the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service – America’s national parks, monuments and lands are uniquely different — in their make-up and their locale — but they all seek to tell a part of America’s story. National Park Week is coming up April 16-24 in one of the…
Click here to help save America’s National Parks From Privatization By Glynn Wilson – The National Park Service is escalating its legal battle with private contractor Delaware North over Yosemite National Park historic, trademark names. The Park Service, under the Department of the Interior, has taken the offensive by formally urging the Trademark Trial and…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – MARION, Va. – Listening to a babbling brook running behind the campground in this state park just as the sun went down on Halloween, I could have sworn I heard a small female child crying off in the distance, moaning “hungry mother, hungry mother.” Back during the pioneer…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – My eyes and my soul are drawn to one event in nature more than any other. Autumn color. I could play the innocent and talk about this natural beauty like describing playing in mud puddles as a youth and wax eloquent about the uniqueness of…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – After realizing it was the 14th anniversary of 9/11 on Friday, I rode the mountain bike to the College Park Metro station and took the train downtown. I decided to ride around the White House and see what new vantage points I could find to photograph. After hanging…
By Bob Wells – After a few days at the Grand Tetons it was time to move on. Because Judy and I had spent so much time here last year I had most of the photos I wanted, this trip was all about the wildflowers that were in bloom. Next up on my agenda was…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, Va. – It’s cool in the mountains this Sunday morning at first light. The birds are singing and the does and fawns are starting to move around. A few drops of water are still dripping down on the canopy from the trees, remnants of…
By Glynn Wilson – HOGBACK MOUNTAIN, Va. – It’s officially summer now in the Shenandoah National Park, although you wouldn’t know it from the cool nighttime temperatures in the mountains, compared to the rest of the South. But it’s true. The summer solstice occurred Sunday, the longest day of the year. For a few weeks…
Secret Vistas – By Glynn Wilson – Who knew Herbert Hoover was such a great guy? About the only thing most Americans know about former President Hoover is that he was in office when the stock market crashed in 1929, leading to the worst Great Depression in U.S. history. He was defeated when seeking reelection…
Photos by Jane Cappe – There’s an ancient Native American legend of dubious history about a Great Spirit which allegedly made the world and gathered the morning stars together on the shores of a quiet, silver lake bordered with blue mountains, the most beautiful place on Earth. Hovering above the quiet waters and lighting the…
