A 76-year-old California man died at Denali National Park of what appears to be natural causes.
National Park Service officials say Gerald Focha of Danville, California, died at the Alaska Railroad Denali Depot on Wednesday. He was in full cardiac arrest when rangers arrived at the scene. Park rangers and the local fire department tried to revive him for 40 minutes. They say it appears he suffered a heart attack.
Our condolences to the man and his family. But if one has to die, there are few places in the world as close to heaven as the beautiful and majestic Denali National Park.
Antigua Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer and his government is seeking to name its highest peak after President Barack Obama. They wish to create Mount Obama Monument and National Park with hiking trails and a museum with entertainment and educational facilities. Spencer says Mount Obama will be a “beacon of hope for all people.”
Spencer outlined his plan Monday but did not say how much it would cost or how the government of the dual-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda would pay for it. The 1,319-foot mountain is currently known as Boggy Peak. It will be renamed on Obama’s birthday August 4. Spencer says the U.S. president will be invited to the ceremony.
A recent swarm of earthquakes is one sign that a volcanic eruption may be brewing in Yellowstone National Park. “There were over a thousand earthquakes in about one week,” said Park Geologist Hank Heasler. “That isn’t unprecedented in the parks history, but it is unusual.”
“It was one of the largest swarms in the past 20 years,” said USGS Volcanologist Dr. Jake Lowenstern. “It certainly got a lot of people’s attention, including ours.”
The park sits on a massive caldera from the last major eruption 640,000 years ago that experts say was destructive on a scale like we have never seen before. “This put out about a thousand times more volcanic material than Mount St. Helens,” said Heasler.
“In a worse case scenario, the big super eruption, is very destructive and would cause a world of hurt to anybody living in the region around Yellowstone and surrounding states,” said Lowenstern. “However, the big eruption is not what’s most likely to happen here if we do get a volcanic eruption. Much more likely is some localized lava flows that will have an affect within the park. People will need to move out of the way. There will be fires. But people living hundreds of miles away, or even tens of miles outside the park are very unlikely to be affected.”
See more about the potential eruption in this news video:
Yellowstone National Park wildlife officials have killed a wolf that chased people on bicycles and motorcycles on several occasions. The yearling male killed Tuesday was the first wolf killed deliberately since wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone Park in 1995-6. Previous attempts to drive it away from park facilities were unsuccessful.
Wildlife officials said the wolf had lost its fear of people, showing up in the Old Faithful area frequently, and posed a safety risk to park visitors. Officials said the wolf was probably fed by people.
Thanks to some dedicated scientists, modern technology and newly established measurement standards, Landscape Arch in Arches National Park is officially the world’s longest arch. Measuring 290 feet long, Landscape Arch heads the Top 10 Arches of the World, a list that includes six arches in Utah.
It took geologists nearly three decades to settle the argument. A group of professional and amateur geologists formed the Natural Arch and Bridge Society and defined exactly how arches should be measured. The group concluded that the span of an arch — the maximum horizontal length of its opening — defined “biggest.”
Traditionally, geologists have used tape measures, survey transits, slide rules and plumb bobs to calculate arch size. Many of those devices are still used, but lasers and Google Earth are now “the instruments of choice.”
Using modern technology and the new standards, the society’s geologists measured the spans of arches found in some of the world’s most difficult-to-reach places. The world’s longest arches are in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Kentucky, as well as in China and 66 other nations. But the only non-American arch to make the Top 10 list is Aloba Arch in the Saharan Ennedit Range of Chad in north-central Africa.
A webcam for the Old Faithful Geyser in Yellowstone National Park captured six men vandalizing the geyser while the world looked on. The group of trespassers stepped off the visitor boardwalk and walked up to the geyser. Two of the men apparently urinated and one dropped a rock into the iconic hole.
Viewers of the Old Faithful webcam were outraged by what they saw, so many of them contacted park officials, who were able to apprehend the trespassers as they returned to the boardwalk twenty minutes later. The six men were employees of the park concessionaire. Park officials cited the men, who must appear before a magistrate on May 19th and face possible fines and jail time.
This is believed to be the first time a national park webcam has been used to report a crime.
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, acclaimed for his popular studies of World War II, the Civil War, baseball and jazz, hopes to rekindle public appreciation for our national parks and the people who fought to create them in his latest series, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
On Tuesday, Burns will visit the University of Miami’s Gusman Concert Hall to preview and discuss the six-part, 12-hour series, scheduled to air in September on PBS. The special one-hour screening, already booked to capacity, will highlight the stories of South Florida’s parks: Everglades and Biscayne.
Burns said the series’ larger theme is the will of the people — quite often everyday people — to preserve the natural landscape and triumph over powerful desires to exploit it for profit. “There is nothing more American than national parks,” Burns said. “For the first time in human history, land was set aside for the people, not the kings or the nobles or the rich.”
A pack of wolves conditioned to humans has taken up residence near Yellowstone National Park’s headquarters in Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming.
Park wolf biologist Doug Smith said the three black males and one gray female have denned just a quarter-mile east of the community. There are daily sightings of the three males, and Smith said he believes the female has given birth to pups. The den site has been posted as off-limits to the public.
Steady rain over the last two days has resulted in minor flooding at Yosemite National Park.
This photo shows the Merced River rising almost up to the swinging bridge in Yosemite Valley. Water levels are also high at the El Capitan Bridge in Yosemite Valley.
Park rangers have moved campers in the Lower and North Pines Campgrounds to higher ground.
