|
New Project: Dantes View Restoration
|
|
At Dantes View in Death Valley National Park, the spectacular vista from a mile above Badwater sweeps over 30 miles across some of the most dramatic scenery in the park. Every year, over half a million visitors take in this iconic view.
Over the years, heavy use and the brutal desert environment have taken their toll on the site. The viewpoint has long been overdue for a complete restoration to improve visitor safety, access, and interpretation.
Partnering with Death Valley National Park and the Death Valley Natural History Association, the Fund seeks to raise $360,000 to provide one half the cost of construction and add a scale model of the region to enhance the visitor experience. A new extended viewing area, with a low barrier wall, new waysides, benches, and a bronze tactile model will transform the site.
|
|
|
|
|
OMG Fact!
In June 2017, Alex Honnold free soloed one of El Capitan’s 100+ climbing routes in less than four hours! His amazing achievement made him the first person to climb the 3,000 foot rock face without safety gear of any sort.
|
|
|
Rebecca Mills, chair of the board of directors of Great Basin National Park Foundation, is a volunteer, like almost everyone else involved in this 20 year-old organization. Former Superintendent of Great Basin, Rebecca grew up visiting the Yosemite high country and finds herself rewarded by Great Basin’s beauty, which she was surprised to find quite similar to the High Sierra.
Great Basin also offers the solitude of desert mountains, with some of the darkest and clearest night skies in the US. The Foundation recently raised private funds to establish the Great Basin Observatory. Opened in 2016, the research-grade, telescope is connected to the internet, enabling outreach to K-12 students, undergraduate and graduate students, and life-long learners.
The Fund for People in Parks is helping Rebecca and the park staff on an entirely different project: an unexpected opportunity to create an interpretive exhibit for the 130 year old pioneer Winchester rifle found in 2014 leaning against some junipers in the park. Rebecca has enjoyed working with the Fund and says "Bob Hansen doesn't broadcast his accomplishments. He’s warm and open-hearted, curious and interested in others. He's a friend and an insightful advisor.”
|
|
|
|
|
Fun Facts for People in Parks
Running down Eureka Dunes in
Death Valley National Park
you can have fun and hear the sand “sing” – a rare sound phenomenon.
Many
Great Basin National Monumen
t hikes are high and rugged, but visitors can enjoy Pole Canyon in most seasons. A four-mile round trip passes from sage brush to a wide valley with meadows, aspens and ponderosa pine in just 600 feet of elevation gain.
Oregon Cave
s offers a three-hour “off trail tour” which teaches caving techniques and includes tight squeezes through cave passages as small as 11 inches by 19 inches (somewhat less than the dimensions of a filing cabinet drawer!) It costs $45.
|
|
|
Less than 70,000 visitors per year take the 40 minute trip along a twisting 20 mile road to Oregon Caves National Monument. The park is a trove of hidden gems. Much of the treasure is underground in one of the most biologically and geologically diverse caves in the world but a recent addition to the park adds new riches above the caves: nine miles of trail in old growth forest.
|
|
|
|
|
Ranger Virginia Lautervach leads the hour-long Lantern Tour, which presents the caves as early visitors would have seen them.
Guided tours like this enable visitors to discover the fascinating marble formations created by the action of water on rock. Sections of the cave that are not on tour routes contain fossils of national importance that are the subject of ongoing scientific research. One striking find in 1995 was the fossilized remains of a jaguar, discovered to be 38,600 years old. Fossils of a nearby grizzly bear were carbon dated to 50,000 years. Read more
here
.
In the early 1900's Joaquin Miller, the "poet of the Sierras” published
Marble Halls of Oregon
in Sunset Magazine. He then advocated for protection of the site. Oregon Caves was designated as a National Monument in 1909. The Oregon Caves Chateau, opened in 1934, is one of the the great park lodges.
Above ground, the park was expanded to nearly 10 times its size by legislation signed in 2014 by President Obama. This incorporated the watershed that feeds the cave system: a large area of old growth forest and mountain. In 2016 the Fund produced a guide to this new section of the park.
|
|
|
|
|
Hi friends,
Thank you for your interest in and
support
for The Fund for People in Parks!
You
are
The Fund for People in Parks - partnering with the staff of the organization, pictured left to right below: Katie Wallace, Operations Manager, Velma Gentzch, former Operations Manager (and now volunteer), me, Karl Kroeber, Project Director, Sherrill Cook, Development Manager, and Sally Bolger, Project Manager.
Happy Trails!
Bob Hansen
|
|
|
Trailblazer editor: Bernadette Powell
The Fund receives its non-profit status by operating as a project of Community Initiatives, a 501(c)3 group based in San Francisco that provides fiscal sponsorship services to nearly 100 selected public benefit organizations. Community Initiatives was established by the San Francisco Foundation in 1996 to be “
In Service to Great Ideas
.”
Our mission is to provide private funding and professional services to complete inspirational projects that enhance the visitor experience in western National Parks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
