April 21, 2025 • 70 mins
Jennie and Jay kick off a week of celebrating Alaska's National Parks and public lands with Jay sharing his experience growing up in the National Park Service and working in Alaska's National Parks and both share their advice about visiting them.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennie Flaming (00:05):
Welcome to the Alaska uncovered podcast with
me, your host, Jennie ThwingFlaming, my occasional co host
and full time husband, Jennieand I bring you accurate,
helpful and entertaininginformation about Alaska, travel
and life in Alaska, before westart today's show, we'd like to
(00:27):
take a moment to thank ourPatreon subscribers for your
support and making this podcastpossible. Enjoy the show.
Unknown (00:37):
Hello, everyone. Jennie here, Happy National Parks week.
We are excited to celebrate USnational parks week again this
year, as we have for the lasttwo years, and as I'm sure you
know, you must know if you'reinterested in this topic at all,
(00:59):
that our public lands and thepeople who are taking care of
them are under a tremendousamount of threat and strain and
stress right now. So I want tostart this week by acknowledging
that and just letting you knowthat this is a serious
situation, and we are going tobe talking about some of those
(01:22):
things this week. So anotherthing that's kind of cool about
national parks week 2025,here on the Alaska uncovered
podcast is we are going to havedaily podcasts just for this
week. So we are not switching todaily podcasts long term, just
to celebrate and bring attentionto our national parks. So
(01:45):
today's episode is a remasteredversion of our Alaska parks
episode two years ago in Aprilof 2023
and so in this episode, you knowJay and I share our experience
and our advice and our thoughtsabout Alaska National Parks and
(02:09):
travel there, and this is stillreally good advice. And
listening to this episode againand re editing it, I really felt
again, like even though this wasrecorded two years ago, how
relevant it is. And one of thethings that Jay talks about
quite a bit in this episode ishis experience working in the
(02:33):
parks and with some of theunsung heroes and people who
work behind the scenes, who youmay not see but have a big
impact on your parks experienceif you didn't know. Jay was
raised in the National ParkService. He was raised in
Yellowstone National Park, andhe also worked for many years as
(02:55):
an adult, as an archeologist inthe National Park Service. So he
worked several seasons in Gatesof the Arctic National Park. He
also worked in the Seattleregional office on some other,
more behind the scenes, kind ofprojects. So the other episodes
(03:16):
we're going to have this week,we are going to talk a little
bit about kind of what's goingon and in national parks right
now, how that may impact or notyour trip this summer. And we're
also going to be hearing fromone of my former clients, who
was on a parks quest to visitevery national park in the US.
(03:39):
And we are going to talkspecifically about his national
parks in Alaska experience. SoI'm really excited to bring you
that interview with Al laterthis week tomorrow. I'm also
really excited to bring you anepisode that is all about
visiting all of Alaska'snational parks, something that I
(04:02):
know many of you are on a questto do or are curious about
doing, and I have a new workshopfor you as well, so I'll
introduce that tomorrow, alongwith that episode. So it's going
to be an exciting week here. I'mlooking forward to being in your
ears every day this week. And Iwant to give you a brief recap
(04:26):
of other episodes that we haveof this podcast that are
specifically about Alaska'snational parks. And of course,
there are many episodes where wetalk about them, but these are
the episodes that are veryspecifically about visiting
parks. I'm going to give them toyou in chronological order,
(04:46):
starting with one of the veryfirst episodes of the podcast,
Episode Four on March 8, 2023and that was about cat my now.
National Park with Ranger Cara.
That was a really fun episode.
Next we've got March 22 2023episode six, that was all about
(05:10):
Glacier Bay National Park withRanger Matt, and we covered so
many fun things in that episodetoo, including what it's like to
be a cruise ship Ranger. Thatwas pretty fun.
Then in May, May 17, 2023,Episode 14, we had an interview
with Tom and Donna habecker, whoare longtime friends of Jay's
(05:32):
and mine, and Tom is a retiredRanger from Denali National
Park. And that was one of ourfirst story episodes where they
really shared their story ofwhat it was like to live in
Denali National Park for manyyears, raise their children
there and a variety of otherthings. Then on July 12, 2023
(05:55):
episode 22 that was with Ryancross and we talked about
climbing Denali in that episode,January 17, 2024 episode number
47 was all about visiting DenaliNational Park on your own. So
most people visit Denali ingroups, and so this one is very
(06:18):
specifically about how tonavigate that if you're going to
visit Denali on your own.
February, 21 2024,Episode 54 was about flight
scene in Denali National Park.
May 15. 2024, Episode 66 wasabout visiting Rangel st Elias
(06:42):
National Park with Avery, who isa guide there. She also grew up
there in McCarthy. So we talkabout that as well. The next one
is October 23 2024that is episode 89 and that one
is about taking a day trip toLake Clark National Park from
(07:02):
Anchorage. And that's largelybased on my experience doing
that this past fall, December18, 2024
episode 97 that episode aboutvisiting Denali while the road
is closed, and whether or notthat's worth it. So that's that
episode. And then finally, march18, 2025 so just about a month
(07:27):
ago, Episode 111is about visiting can tissue
deep in denali's backcountry. Atone point in this episode, Jay
and I discuss the national parksin Alaska that we haven't been
to yet, and I wanted to providean update that in the last two
years, Jay and I have each beento one new national park in
(07:51):
Alaska. For him, that wasGlacier Bay. We went together,
but I had been before, and forme, it was Lake Clark.
In today's episode, Jay and Iare talking all about the
national parks in Alaska. Jayand I actually met in an Alaska
(08:13):
National Park, Klondike GoldRush National Historic Park,
which is in Skagway, whichbasically is the town of
Skagway. And Jay has also workedin Gates the Arctic National
Park as an archeologist forthree seasons. He also grew up
in Yellowstone, so he is a childof the National Park Service as
(08:33):
well. Today, we're going toshare about Alaska parks in
general, some tips aboutvisiting and about some of our
personal favorite spots. So tostart us off, Jay, can you share
a little bit about your personalhistory with the National Park
Service and the parks in Alaskathat you've been to?
(08:56):
Oh, I just realized this is myfirst experience as a guest on
this show. How fun. Um, it isfun. Yeah,
I actually feel a little bitmore on on, like I have to
perform a little better thanwhen I'm just the occasional co
host. So I would, I want tofirst say that, yes, I grew up
(09:18):
in the National Park Serviceand in the National Park
Service, I am what is called apark brat, which is a term for
any child who was raised in thePark Service, and in particular,
then went on to work at the ParkService themselves. And it's a,
it's a kind of a term ofendearment, but, you know, it
has alittle bit of a cutting edge to
(09:39):
do it too. But yes, it's a smallfraternity of us out there.
But yeah, so when I was inelementary school, my folks
moved into Yellowstone Park, andmy dad was a truck driver and
worked on the road crew andplowed snow, worked in May.
(10:00):
Maintenance in Yellowstone. So Idid live in the interior
of Yellowstone in Grant Village,and we had to leave for the
winters because there's noschool there. It's only one
other child under 18 in thewhole area. So we would go out
into Wyoming, and I would go toschool. And then when I was in
(10:20):
high school, my dad moved he Imoved he eventually got a job in
Mammoth that was year round,which is the north part of the
park, and I graduated from highschool up there,
and I went up to Alaska. Andeventually, after graduate
school, I'd worked in the cruiseindustry and a bunch of other
stuff. I ended up becoming anarcheologist and working in the
(10:42):
national parks up there,and then when we moved to
Seattle, I then did a stintworking for the regional office
here in the Pacific West andworked in a bunch of parks out
here. We should also add thatwhen I was in high school, I did
work in the visitor center inYellowstone too. So I don't work
for the park service now, but ithas actually been about, I don't
(11:04):
know, at least 10 years of mylife that I worked directly for
the park service. Yeah, that's along time. That's a lot of
history. It is. I don't evenknow how many years it's been,
because I've worked so manystints in one of the things
about a park service life isthat getting a permanent, full
time job is quite challenging.
(11:27):
There's a lot of barriers togetting hired for that, but a
lot of folks in the ParkService, the majority of park
employees, work out theircareers in lots of seasonal and
temporary appointments. And soit becomes kind of a it's a
flurry of leaves blowing by you.
And you can be like, wait, wait,when, when? Where was I? Know, I
worked in that park. When wasthat? What was my job there?
(11:48):
What? And so, yeah, the majorityof park employees are seasonals,
and that was, that was me aswell, until I worked here in the
region.
So how many parks have wevisited together in Alaska?
Because you've been to some Ihaven't. Yeah, so Okay, so I
(12:13):
visited you when you wereworking in gates. So we've both
been there, and we met inSkagway. So we both been there
to Klondike Gold Rush Nationaldesert Park. We shared the
coldest night of camping in mywife in Denali. Yes, real
chilly. It was in April. It waskind of awesome. But also we had
(12:38):
to go home at like five in themorning because it was so cold I
totally remember. Yeah, so we'vebeen to danelli together quite a
few times, been to wrangle, seena lot. Yeah, we also managed to
ride along on a friend who wonthe lottery to drive up the road
in your personal vehicle at theend of the year once. That was
really fun. That was really fun.
(13:00):
And we've been to wrangle stElias together, yes. And we've
been to Kenai Fjords together,yes. And Sitka
National Historical Park.
You have been to Glacier Bay? Inever have, yeah, I have Glacier
Bay is Glacier Bay is myfavorite.
(13:24):
It is. You're such a fan girl. Iknow, I know. I feel like I'm
not a very good Park brat inthat I've never been to several
of the of the quintessentialnational parks I've never been
to. But yeah, you've been toKatmai too, yes, and I've been
to Katmai, I think neither of ushave been to COVID Valley, and
(13:47):
neither of us have been insideLake Clark, no, but I believe
we've been to all the others,plus many other national park
units that don't necessarilyhave that National Park
designation, which you're goingto talk about in a few minutes.
But I think that's all of them.
Yeah, yeah.
(14:10):
So Jay, speaking of that, canyou tell us a little bit well,
actually, before we get intothat, I should mention that we
have several other episodes ofthe Alaska uncovered podcast
that are about specific nationalparks in Alaska. And today we're
really talking, we will talkabout some specifics, but we are
(14:32):
talking about Alaska NationalParks in general, which covers a
lot of territory. But just togive you a sense, if you want to
know more about Alaska NationalParks and you're new to the
podcast. In episode three, oneof the topics we talked about in
that episode was Denali, andspecifically visiting Denali in
(14:55):
2023 there are some changes in.
Denali because of the partialroad closure. So that we talked
about that. And Episode Four wasabout cat my, and all about
bears, but also more than bears,all the other things that are
cool about cat my. And episodesix, we talked about Glacier
Bay. And episode 10, which wasjust last week, was about
(15:20):
Skagway, and we talked about theNational Historical Park in
Skagway. And then we also havean episode coming in a couple
weeks, in three weeks, actually,that will be all about Denali.
And then there are some otherepisodes coming that we have
planned about parks. So thoseare that's just a little bit of
(15:41):
an overview of what we've doneand covered so far. So Jay, can
you tell us a little bit aboutkind of public land in Alaska in
general? Like, why is there somuch federal land in Alaska?
What places are the parks inAlaska? What? What is different
(16:02):
about it, maybe from the lower48 Yeah. So I mean, one of the
things that I actually, that Imiss about living in Alaska,
living down in in the lower 48now, is that two thirds of
Alaska is managed by the federalgovernment, and of the remaining
1/3 a big chunk of it is publicland owned by the state. So
(16:23):
there's a lot of open spaces tokind of have your, you know, a
lot of freedom to explore andand stuff in it where, you know,
the lower 48 is mostly privatelyowned, but it's kind of
interesting. You know, Alaska,first of all, I should just say
I'm not an expert on this topic,and so whatever I say, here is,
(16:45):
it's for your entertainmentvalue only. Yes, I know you're
not specifically speaking as arepresentative of the Park
Service or anything like that,just sharing your perspective.
Yeah, I no longer work for thepark service, but, you know,
it's funny, I I know a littlebit, but more probably mostly
just enough to get myself introuble with this. But this is
(17:07):
what I know of.
Alaska has a couple of oldernational parks, Glacier Bay and
Denali, which were, you know,they're 100 year old parks and
from the 1920sbut most of the Alaska National
park units were actually formedby a law passed in 1980 called
(17:29):
anilka, the Alaska NationalInterest Land Claims Settlement
Act. Oh, I think so. Anyway,it's anilka
and a little bit by the 1971law ANCSA, the Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act. You know,Alaska was purchased from the
(17:49):
Russian government, and a lot ofits public land was not settled
as to who owned it. You know,there were clear tribal
indigenous claims on the land.
There were a few private owners,but most of the land was was
fairly unsettled and fairlyinhospitable. So there wasn't a
(18:13):
lot of really well establishedownership outside of some of the
gold fields. And so the legalnature of all that was still up
in the air when people wanted todevelop the petroleum resources
on the North Slope. And so thatwas a big barrier to that. And
(18:34):
in order toallow the oil pipeline to be
built and that to happen. Thosetwo laws were critical to settle
who owned what pieces of land,and there's a lot of controversy
and a lot of history in thosetwo acts. You could spend your
whole life studying thosedefinitely, and still have room
(18:56):
so but a lot of national parkunits were set up in that period
of time. So Alaska also has somenon National Park Public Lands.
There'sa big, a two big national
forest, the Tongass and theChugiak,
(19:16):
and there's a bunch of wildliferefuges. Those are so national
forests are managed by theNational Forest Service, which
is part of the Department ofAgriculture, and then the
department interior includes theUS Fish and Wildlife Service,
and they have somenational wildlife refuges,
(19:36):
but the majority are managed bythe Park Service. And I want to
bring up here, a really commonmisconception that I see on
the internet in general. Jennie,you, I feel like we've you've
seen a lot of these articlestoo, where someone lists like,
what I don't even remember howmany are named National Parks in
(19:58):
Alaska or.
Uh, in the list, there's eight,yeah, national parks, yeah,
yeah. So, so here's the thing.
In having worked and lived inthe National Park Service almost
my whole career,there are there's no real
distinction between what is andisn't a national park within the
National Park Service Unit, andthat includes a lot of things
(20:21):
that aren't named National Park.
So I want to just take a momentto nerd out on public land types
for a second. I think it is kindof relevant. And yeah, I hear
folks who have, like, a bucketlist, and they have like, I'm
going to visit all the nationalparks. And then when I hear them
listening, they're missingthings that I think are really
(20:43):
important. I realize it'sbecause the name doesn't include
National Park.
I think of it like this, ifsomeone was telling you the best
peaks to climb in the country,and then you said, Oh, but what
about Denali? Or what aboutMount Rainier like? Well, those
aren't peaks. Those are mounts.
I'm talking about Pike's Peak,you know, like, those are just
(21:03):
naming differences, and notnecessarily they'll, they'll
have something to do with thehistory of that mountain, and
they might even tell you alittle something about it. But
they don't necessarily implysome sort of hierarchy, or that
they're even, you know, they'reall
(21:23):
things we call mountains. So inin Alaska in particular, this
gets a little complicated, butthere are national historic
areas, national monuments,national parks, national park
and preserves, nationalpreserves, but not National
Park.
So there's just a quick rattleoff a list. There's the
(21:45):
illusions national historicarea, the Antioch National
Monument, the Lagna and wildriver Cape cruise National
Monument, Denali National Park,Gates of the Arctic National
Park and Preserve Glacier BayNational Park. Cat nine is a
national park. United fjords isa national park. Klondike is a
(22:05):
National Historic Park.
COVID Valley is a national park.
Lake Clark is a national park,and then there is no attack,
National Preserve. Sitka,National Historic Park, Rangel
and you come Charlie, NationalPreserve, the Park Service would
consider all of those nationalparks. They would call them all
(22:27):
parks, right?
They wouldn't necessarily, inthe end, the thing about
national parks is each onethat's a is created by its own
act of Congress, except fornational monuments, which I'll
talk about in a second, butand those will govern a lot of
the rules, like, what is beingwhat is being called out as the
exceptional thing about thisarea? What are we prioritizing?
(22:50):
But they're all managed underthe larger rubric, the National
Park Service to preserveunimpeded
for the the benefit, enjoymentof the people, you know, these
areas, yeah,so I don't, I don't want people
to miss and say, like, I want togo to these eight national
parks, because those will be thebest thing,
(23:15):
and the other things, the othertypes of parks. A
lot of times it just means thatthey came later. So the original
national parks are, you know,100 years ago, when the National
Park Service was new, they wereall just called National Parks.
Pretty much as time went on,they got more creative with
(23:36):
naming. So calling something anational, you know, historic
landscape, or calling somethinga
National Seashore, or that kindof thing was really a later
development. The onlydistinction I want to make is
that national monuments are arequite different. They are
created byact of the president. They're
(23:57):
the the Antiquities Act 1906gives the the president the
right to, with the stroke of apen, create a national monument.
It also means that they're alittle more tenuous, because
another president could takethem away,
so they're not written into lawthe way that all the other park
(24:19):
units are. Yeah, sometimesnational monuments can also be
administered by another, youknow, like National
Mount St Helens is a nationalmonument after the volcano, but
it was a national forest before.
So it's run by the NationalForest Service. But almost all
the national monuments are aremanaged by the National Parks.
Yeah, so I know that's a lotabout my management titles, but
(24:43):
I just, I don't want people tothink that, you know, the
there's a only these eight greatplaces, and the rest are second
tiers. Yeah, I'm really glad youtalked about that, Jay. So if,
if I.
Were to from someone who doesn'thave the same deep knowledge
(25:04):
about those structures that youdo. Were to try to summarize
that, or you give an example ofit. Would it be like saying, for
example, Gates of the ArcticNational Park, which is does
have that National Parksdesignation and as a place we've
both been to, comparing that tosomething like UConn, Charlie
(25:28):
Rivers National Preserve, whichis another place we've been
that's very remote and hard toget to, but it isn't any less
interesting or unique, really.
Then gates to the Arctic, andit's in a similar, I mean, it's
very different, but also sort ofin a similar part of interior,
(25:51):
kind of this our sub Arctic,Arctic area with that, is that
kind of getting at what you'resaying. Maybe the best example
might be cobak and no attack. SoKobuk Valley, yeah, National
Preserve, very close to eachother along the no attack. And
Kobuk rivers there in the westpart of the Brooks Range really
(26:14):
remote places. I mean, reallyremote, no matter how back
country you think you've everbeen. This is, this is more so,
yeah, but to be honest, thereisn't really any, you know,
COVID is a national park. Noattack is a preserve.
They're not that different,right? It's just, it's just a
(26:34):
naming convention. It haspolitics and stuff. So I know
that's a small thing, but italways, it always it always
rankles me a little bit when Isee that. I'm like, I feel like
the some of the non named parksare getting disrespected,
yeah, I know what you mean.
Yeah. Like, what about noattack? No attack is so cool,
yeah.
(26:56):
And you know, some of these,like wild rivers and stuff too,
are really quite amazing. So,yeah, I think that's
that's probably enough detailabout national parks and their
names. Yeah, that's good,though. Thank you. I will just
add before we move on. I mean,thinking especially about
(27:18):
Skagway and Sitka that havenational historic parks that
we've both been to in Alaska andand those are some of the
coolest things that some of themost wonderful places I've been
to in Alaska, especially fromlike, a history kind of
standpoint. I mean, they'rejust, they're both really
different from each other, andsuper interesting. So
(27:41):
definitely, if you're going toSitka or Skyway, don't, don't
miss those places that reallycool. Yeah.
Oh. That also reminds me thatwhen I was mentioning the
previous episodes of the podcastwhere we talked about parks in
episode nine, which was just acouple weeks ago, in our episode
with Scott McMurray, he talkedquite a bit about Rangel st
(28:05):
Elias in that episode, eventhough that's not the title of
the episode. SoI wanted to make sure to mention
that also. Okay, so Jay,thinking about Alaska's national
parks,I was thinking it'd be fun for
us to talk a little bit aboutsome of the things that make
them really wonderful places tovisit in Alaska. And of course,
(28:29):
they're very different. Some ofthem are easier to get to you.
Some of them are harder to getto. But what would you say in
general, are some of thebenefits of visiting a national
park in Alaska?
Well, I'm biased. I'm gonna saythe National Park Service, yeah.
And the reason I'm gonna saythat is not just to butter up my
(28:51):
former co workers. It's becauseI think the the National Park
Service Alaska's public landsand Alaskan land in general,
it's pretty difficult to visit,and the Park Service has done a
really good job of providingsome things that visitors really
need without providing some thatthey don't. The National Park
(29:13):
Service doesn't feel it'snecessary to provide fudge
shops,really. I feel like NPS fudge
could be a really big hit. I'dbuy it. I'm not gonna. Yeah,
yeah. You know, a lot of thethings that that appear in
visitor areas that aren'tnecessarily required are not
necessarily but the Park Servicehas made sure that there are
good maps, relatively good maps,of all the national parks, and
(29:36):
information is availableonline@nps.gov
and the really excellent new NPSapp. Yeah,
feel like that makes a bigdifference. And the Park Service
has a missionabout getting that information
out there. So I think that'sreally and they're going to
provide structured hiking.
(30:01):
Hmm, what about you? What do youthink? Well, I definitely agree
with what you said about theresources and infrastructure of
the Park Service, around giving,you know, really excellent
information and being havingthat be their mission. Um, I
would say that, in addition tothat,
(30:25):
you sort of mentioned, likehaving hiking trails and in
there are some really amazinghikes in Alaska's national parks
there, there's lots of spacewhere there aren't hiking
trails, but where there arethose are some really wonderful
trails, and hiking is free. SoAlaska can be an expensive
(30:46):
destination, and going for ahike in a national park doesn't
cost anything, and that ispretty cool. Some Alaska parks
charge an entrance fee, but manyof them do not, actually. So
even that barrier is not therefor many parks. And I think the
(31:07):
other thing is, if you are goingto camp on your trip to Alaska,
Alaska's national parks havesome of the best tent camping
situations in Alaska, if you'rein an RV there are other places
that are also pretty amazing.
But when I think about the bestplaces to pitch a tent in Alaska
that I've personallyexperienced, they're nearly all
(31:29):
in national parks. So those are,those are some of the other
things that come come to mind?
Yeah, I will say that thecamping in national parks tends
to be a bargain always,yep, cheaper than state parks
(31:50):
nearby. Yes. You know, I feellike there that's a if you have
an option to tent camp in theNational Park, do it? Yes. So
like, for example, in Katmai,the lodge, which you have to win
a lottery to get into two yearsin advance, is $900 a night, and
(32:12):
the campground is $12 a night.
Just as an example of that,right, right, yeah. And also in
Glacier Bay and Rangel st, Eliascamping is free, so that's
pretty cool. Yeah, it's notcommon, actually. No, it's not.
(32:37):
I will say too that they'rehaving worked in fee collections
in national parks, I know that alot of folks are frustrated at
paying an admissions fee, or tocome to the gate or for some of
the fees, which is, again, asJennie said, a lot of national
parks don't charge any feewhatsoever. They actually have
to get permission from Congressto do so. Most of that money
does not go to the National ParkService. Actually, it goes into
(32:59):
the general fund of the of theUS government, and the fee, when
you do pay one doesn't even comeclose to paying for the cost of
most people's visit. So yeah,really, it is an amazing
bargain, and I know that itstill sucks to have to fork over
some moneyat the gate, but you know, yeah.
So yes, so let's talk aboutchallenges a little bit. What
(33:24):
are some of the biggestchallenges from your perspective
about visiting Alaska's parks?
There are a lot, actually, yeah,you vary a tremendous amount
based on the park itself. Andthis is one of the things that,
like folks who are doing bucketlists visits, for example,
(33:47):
they're like, I'm going to visitall the name national parks, and
you want to go to cob like, oh,I only have two left.
You could spend a majority ofyour summer getting to some of
the Alaska National Parks, justbasically, you know, getting
there. So getting there is notalways easy. Some of them, it's
very easy. Actually, Denali isvery easy to get to. You can
(34:11):
drive there on the on the roadsystem. You can take a train
there, take a bus into the park.
That's not too bad. Do you conCharlie? Not so easy.
You can take a boat up the riverfrom right Eagle. I guess I'm
trying to think of even, or mostlikely, you would fly in on a
(34:32):
float plane. Same with Gates ofthe Arctic, same with no attack
cobac, really. Those are airdependent hiking to some of
those parks from the nearestplace you can get on commercial
air service, for example, wouldtake your whole whole season or
more like it is not possible todo.
(34:54):
So that's a challenge.
Um, yeah, those are.
A challenge that I don't want tounderestimate.
Some of the parks have a veryshort season where the snow is
free and the the the BrooksRange. Northern Alaska parks can
have a six or eight week snowfree season, so that part of the
(35:19):
season will also be when themosquitos have to make their
entire living,and the mosquitoes will be
dense, yeah, absolutely. Like,if you think you know mosquitos,
you do not, I working up there.
Remember wiping over and over,wiping my head net with my
(35:39):
gloved hands to be able to seemy notebook to take notes. Yeah,
no, there i i will say, Jay,that when I spent that week with
you guys on your project inGates, that that forever changed
my perspective on bugs and whatare bad bucks.
(36:02):
So much. No, I've worked, I'veworked in Everglades, and I'll
tell you that it's nothing.
Yeah, it was, it was intense,not to be, you know, they're,
they're a serious,they're a serious barrier, and
they're completely manageable.
And you can make in most parksin Alaska, you can make a huge
(36:23):
difference, based on when youvisit, if you are not someone
and they're not that badeverywhere, by any means,
but there they can be. They canbe a real, a real issue anywhere
in Alaska. I mean, we had one ofthe weirdest nights of
mosquitoes with our friends ofours at a campground near
Anchorage, just out of nowhere.
Yeah, that was also reallybizarre, yeah. So, you know, it
(36:45):
can, it can happen anywhere, andand an early freeze can make a
glorious clearance of the skies.
And so, you know, late seasoncan be good, but you know,
you're not going to want to tryto try to visit some of these
more remote parks during thelate season for the mosquitos,
because the door can closeweather wise on you, and you
(37:07):
could be shut out.
So you know you're playing,yeah,
yeah, yeah. And you're way moreof an expert than I am on the
travel component. I mean, whatdo you think about the lodging
expense, yeah, sides of it. Whatdo you think? Do you have
(37:29):
anything you want to add aboutthat?
Yeah, I definitely agree witheverything that you said. I
think despite what I said beforeabout being able to find free or
very inexpensive camping inAlaska National Parks, lodging
that is not camping is realexpensive in places like
(37:56):
Denali and Seward, which is NearKenai Fjords and king salmon,
which is near cat myso that is, I think, a
challenge. I think it'simportant for people to be
prepared for that, for lodgingto be very expensive, especially
for what it is.
(38:20):
So that's one thing. And I thinkyou know, earlier, you were
talking about how the NationalPark name is really just a
naming convention, and from theperspective of an insider in the
Park Service, that isn'tnecessarily different from a
wild river or a NationalPreserve, but you know that I
(38:41):
help people plan their trips toAlaska, and I've had several
clients who were definitelywanting to go to the eight parks
with the National Parkdesignation to complete the list
of 63and I know there are way More,
but you know from from myclients perspective, and I think
the biggest challenge,especially for folks trying to
(39:05):
go to a lot of remote parks inone trip, is it, it really makes
the trip extremely complicatedand very dependent on weather.
So again, if that's somethingthat you want to do as a
traveler, just really thinkabout giving yourself as much
time as possible and lots ofextra time in between parks to
(39:29):
allow for things like weatherdelays, right? And I think what
I heard you saying too aboutlodging is that if you're going
to be a if you want to uselodging, like hotels, lodges,
etc, you should make that planfar in advance. Yes, yes, I
(39:50):
would say for national parks,except for Glacier Bay,
you really need to be planningyour trip. A.
Year ahead of time Denali, likelike, for example, we're, we are
recording this in April of 2023,and there are some dates where
there is still lodging availablein Denali, especially if you
(40:12):
drive there as opposed to takingthe train, because you can stay
a little further away from thepark if you do that, um, but
there are lots of days that arethat are completely booked up or
very close to that. So, um,yeah, I think planning and for
these remote parks, you reallyneed to plan a year in advance,
(40:34):
or at least six to nine months,kind of the more remote, the
earlier you need to plan, Ithink is what I would say. And
after the break, we'll get back,we'll get into kind of which
parks are the most remote, andand that kind of thing. But I
(40:54):
think that's what I would sayabout the the challenges with
planning.
I just want to take a moment tosay that I applaud anyone who
has a goal of visiting all thenational parks. I just want to
add on that for extra credit youshould think about including as
(41:15):
many of the other 340Yes, not named National Park in
the National Park System? Yes,there's over 400 units, and some
of them are absolutely mindblowing, and don't rule those
out just because of their name.
Totally agree with that. 63 namenational parks is a really great
(41:35):
life goal. Yes, I agree. I thinkit's really cool, and I
sometimes think I would like totake it on too, but I haven't
committed to that yet.
A little bit about Parkvisitation numbers and sort of
humans in national parks and andkind of what your perspective is
on that. Yeah, I have unpopularopinions. Maybe, I don't know,
(42:01):
but I do think there's no that'snot exactly true. But I do want
to take a moment to say firstthat I, first of all, am a huge
proponent of wild lands, ofwilderness, of protecting lands
from development. But sometimesI hear that being taken in a
direction that I think is alittle bit disrespectful. And
(42:22):
what I'm getting at about thatis that all of this great
wilderness in Alaska has a long,long human history, really long.
Yeah, all the sites in NorthAmerica, archeologically, are in
Alaska's national parks. Thereare a number of sites 13, 14,000
years old up there. And youknow, the oldest sites in North
(42:46):
America are only a little bitolder than that. So human
history is quite long. And I'veseen brochures and stuff that
talk about, you know, come walkin a valley where the mountains
have no names, and no one's everwalked before. And, yeah, that's
just not true. There's a deephuman history in this place. It
just didn't leave condos. And,you know, I just want to throw
(43:09):
out that. I think it'sthe idea of wilderness needs to
not exclude the fact that humanswere there and that they had an
impact. You know, the folks wholived there intentionally used
fire and their huntingtechniques and stuff to make the
landscape livable for them. Andthe landscape, like of Gates of
(43:30):
the Arctic, for example, or forone is the humans have been
living there since before thecurrent biological regime. So
black spruce have only beenthey're the most dominant tree
in northern central Alaska, andthey've only been around for
about 5000 years. Humans havebeen living in those places,
Swan point down in in the TananaValley. It's
(43:54):
almost 15,000 years old. So youknow, we're amazing. Yeah.
Humans have been here threetimes longer there than the
black spruce have been there.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it'sreally deep, and it's hard
sometimes to picture that peoplehave been living on this
landscape so long. I had theopportunity to work on a site
near Delta Junction in Alaska,and you know, we were excavating
(44:17):
these fires where and all thesebones, and then suddenly we
started getting into animalsthat have been extinct in North
America. And it just blew mymind, like there were people
here camping in this spotthat were eating like camel and
prehistoric antelope that don'texist on North America and
haven't since, really, since theend of the ice ages. So I think
(44:41):
that's just really cool. And Iwould love for people to include
that in their appreciation ofthe wild land, and not as
something the human history on aplace like somehow corrupts it.
You know, it's, yeah, it'sreally beautiful.
Part of it. So that's one thing.
Another one is another one ofthose sets of of I want to just
(45:03):
take on for a moment. You'll seea lot of things on the internet
where people talk about the mostand least visited national
parks, and your experience ofother people while you're there
may not track with what you seeon those there's a couple of
reasons. One, National Parkvisitation numbers are kind of
funny. So a national park likeYellowstone, for example, has a
(45:30):
pretty great number that peoplego through the gates, they count
them. People leave, they countthem. It's very like
other national parks, like gateto the Arctic, have numbers. I
don't remember what theirvisitation numbers say, but they
count every person who drives onthe whole road to Prudhoe Bay,
(45:51):
most of whom never enter thepark at all.
So they count because they gothrough a visitor center area at
the Yukon River Olympic NationalPark, for example, has also
really difficult numbers.
There's aWashington state has a there's a
US one on one highway runsthrough it, and they count the
(46:11):
folks who drive that highway asvisiting the parks. You don't
really know whether they did ornot, so it's not quite the same.
You know, they're not apples toapples.
And so when you see numbers fora place like Gates of the
Arctic, for example, they'reactually a lot higher than what
you would actually experiencegoing there. So if you want and
(46:34):
are looking for that reallyremote, distant thing, don't
really pay attention to thosenumbers. They don't necessarily
mean that much some parks thatpeople are crowded into very
small areas, and in everynational park in the entire
system, you can have solitude.
You just need to step away.
(46:55):
I would say Denali, we had greatconversations with Donna and Tom
habecker, which will be in aanother episode. Yeah, three
weeks, if they that episode willbe live.
And they really highlighted thatif you get off the bus in
Denali, you can have one of themost remote experiences you can
(47:18):
imagine in your life,all within a very easy, secure
way to experience it. And thesame with gates. There is
nothing like the realizationthat you are two or three weeks
hike from another human being.
Andbut then there's something like
Glacier Bay. And Jennie, Ihaven't been there, I know you
have, but you know the the mainway to visit Glacier Bay is on
(47:40):
board a cruise ship, which isnot an isolated No,
no. So the numbers there don'tnecessarily match up to your
experience if you went there andcamped. And what was your
experience of camping? As far aswell, there were two other
people staying in the campgroundwhen I was there. So yeah,
(48:01):
there. But what would you sayabout Katmai? About like, will
you it's my impression is thatyou would be around a lot of
other people all the time,because people are quite limited
in where they go. Yeah, cat mywas really different, say, from
Glacier Bay, because there werelots of people camping in
Katmai, I think there's 60people that can be in the
(48:24):
campground a night, um, and,yeah, in Glacier Bay, you know,
people are a little more spreadout, and there are just so few
people like we talked about inthe Glacier Bay episode, who are
traveling there, not on a cruiseship. Um, you know, it's really
(48:44):
just the other people staying atthe lodge and in the campground
that you see cat my is reallybusy with day trip visitors. Um,
when I was there, it wasn'tsuper busy, even though it was
high season, because it wasreally foggy and a lot of the
flights didn't a lot of theflights were canceled, but there
was one day where it wasit was raining, but it wasn't
(49:07):
foggy, and the flights were ableto get in. And yeah, there were
times when you had to wait for acouple hours to go out on the
platform to see the bears. Sothat definitely felt busy, even
though it's really not that manypeople. So I think those things
do kind of illustrate whatyou're talking about.
(49:28):
Yeah, I think that's a that'sanyway, that's just kind of all
I wanted to say about that, Ithink, is just that, that if you
are looking for solitude, it'sthere for you. It won't just
back with just sorting by, youknow, sort the list by
visitation number, pick thelowest. Yeah, really, it is a
choose your own adventure as tohow much or how little human
contact you want while you'rethere. Yes.
(49:54):
So you mentioned hiking, and I,you know, I'm not a hiker. I'm
always quite open about, hi.
Yeah, I hike for money, but Ithink hiking is obviously a way
to get you know, in Yellowstone,we used to say if you go 100
yards off the road, you willdrop 90% of the people. Yeah,
(50:17):
I definitely think that's evenmore so in Alaska.
So it's a great way to findsolitude. If you want what do
you think the best hike is inAlaska National Park?
Okay, it's a that's a reallytough question to answer,
because I'm just gonna say Jaysaid he's not a hiker unless
(50:39):
he's getting paid. I can vouchthat's totally true. I, however,
am a hiker, and if you're ahiker, you've got to do a hike
in an Alaskan National Park.
It's just fantastic on yourtrip. So I'm going to say the
Harding ice field trail in KenaiFjords National Park, which is
near Seward. It is a really hardhike, really hard, but you don't
(51:02):
have to go all the way to theend to see the amazing views. So
I think the views are what makethat hike truly spectacular. I
don't think it's worth it if youcan't see the view. It doesn't
have to be perfect weather, butthere does have to be good
visibility. So I think thatwould be my answer.
(51:29):
I'm going to show my ignorancefor a moment here. What about
Portage past? That's one of myfavorites, because that's
probably in the forest, isn'tit? Yeah, it's in Chicago
forest, but it is an awesomehike, and it's not as difficult
as partying ice field.
Totally.
Okay, so while we're on the thesuperlatives of yes Alaska
(51:54):
National Parks, yes, what do youthink is the best Visitor Center
in Alaska National Park?
Well, going back to what yousaid earlier, Jay Park Service
does a really good job ofsharing information and doing
anddoing interpretation. I mean,
that's part of what they do. SoI've never been to a I've been
(52:15):
to bad visitor centers, but notin Alaska. All the ones I've
been to there are amazing. Someof them are really tiny and,
like, kind of right next to theairport, like the one in king
salmon for Katmai, and the otherPark Service lands around king
salmon. But that's just becauseof the remote location. It's
(52:37):
still pretty amazing what theydid with, like a tiny little
corner of an airplane hangar,basically. So they're all really
good, but I think I'm gonna havetwo answers for this one. One is
kind of sassy, but the Rangel stElias National Park Visitor
Center that is located along theRichardson Highway in copper
centeris not only an excellent Visitor
(52:59):
Center, but it also has the bestbathrooms along the Richardson
Highway. So I feel like it needsto get some props for that minor
thing. Aside from that, I thinkI would really encourage you to
if you're going to Alaska, to goto one of the public lands
(53:20):
information centers. There'sfour of them in Alaska. There's
one in toke along the AlaskaHighway, one in Ketchikan, which
is a great one to go to ifyou're on a cruise, and one in
downtown Anchorage, and one indowntown Fairbanks. And even
though they are not in nationalparks. They really get at all of
these things Jay has beentalking about around like public
(53:44):
land in Alaska in general, andthey're good visitor centers,
and they have lots of free mapsand lots of great information.
So they're just a fantasticvisitor resource for pretty much
anyone.
Yes, I am really glad you gavethem a shout out. The public
(54:06):
info centers are unsung heroesfor sure, and totally under
utilized as resources, in myopinion. Yes, you're a map geek,
which I am, definitively a mapgeek, same amazing files of maps
and spread them out on a tableand, like, lay out. And it's
pretty beautiful. It warms myheart to spread out like 20 topo
(54:30):
maps. Yeah,super fun. One cool thing about
it too is that they can kind ofhelp guide you. There are
certain types of land use thatare not appropriate for national
parks. You know, hunting isgenerally not allowed in Indian
National Park property, right?
And you know, if you're a hunteror if you want to go for, you
(54:51):
know, riding dirt bikes or fourwheelers or that kind of thing,
National Parks are not reallywhere you want to go and riding
stock horseback.
Is, is or is not, depending onthe national park acceptable,
and they can really help guideyou and say like, oh, what you
want to do would be best suitedto this.
You know, State Park. A lot ofnational parks have a state park
(55:13):
ring around them. Yep, a lot oftimes that land is much more
open, rule wise, for better orfor worse, and Denali is
definitely that way. Yeah. Well,depending on what you want to do
the public lands info people canreally help guide you, you know,
and all the people that I've metat a public lands Info Center
have been rock stars. Justgreat.
(55:37):
Yeah, absolutely, I totallyagree. Okay, so what do you
think is the best tour, asopposed to a hike or a visitor
center? But like a best, thebest package tour from from a
park vendor in a national park?
This is a very easy one. Itwould be the day boat tour in
(55:58):
Glacier Bay National Park. It'sjust absolutely phenomenal.
Yeah, that's cool. I want togive a shout out to the cheapest
tour in a national park,the Denali bus system. Okay, the
Denali bus system is also reallycool, and it would be my number
(56:19):
two is any trip into Denali on abus, but the Glacier Bay day
boat takes the edge for me. ButI totally agree with you about
Denali. It's also very cool.
I'll just, I'm just saying thatthe cost is, yes, it's very
affordable, yeah. And by theway, if, since you gave me an
(56:43):
opening to talk about the Denalibus tour, whether you take the
narrated tour or the bus, thehiker bus, the like, hop on, hop
off, transit bus, if you aregoing to Denali, do not skip the
bus tour because you Think youdon't want to go on a bus. And
(57:03):
also make sure you listen to theepisode we have coming up with
Tom and Donna in three weeksabout Denali. If you're not, if
I'm not convincing you, that isthe way to get away from it all
in Denali. And you absolutelyhave to do it when you're there.
If you're into national parks atall. You should listen to that
episode, because Tom, first ofall, he's just written a memoir,
(57:25):
book that you should read. Andalso, he is an OG, the real deal
career Ranger. He's a, yeah,he's a great resource. We were
really lucky to get them on.
Mostly talk to them becauseJennie and Donna worked together
as school counselor. Yes?
So we, we're cashing in thatparticular chip. Yeah.
(57:50):
Okay, well, I am also going tothrow out for a I'm just going
to say that Iwant to give a shout out to
Brooks Range aviation inbattles. No business interests
or relationship with us, buttheir tour fly into near the air
gets peaks into Gates of theArctic, will explode your
(58:12):
frontal lobe as far yes, thatbeautiful landscape and rugged
could look like. So I'm going togive a shout out to that. But it
is not cheap,and it is very remote. Just
getting to battles itself iskind of a process. So yes, but I
just want to give those guys ashout out, because they do an
(58:32):
amazing job. Yes, and that wouldbe a flight scene tour of Gates
of the Arctic, correct? Yeah.
So,okay, last superlative I'm going
to ask you I thinkbest campsite,
okay, in a national park inAlaska, park in Alaska? Yes,
(58:56):
okay, I am going to allow, sincethis is the last question, I'm
going to allow myself threeanswers. So they have they're
good for different reasons. Sofirst of all, probably the best
campsite anywhere in Alaska'snational parks is definitely
jumbo Creek in rainbow orRainbow Range. What range Elias
(59:20):
National Park. Now this campsiteis a hassle to get to, so that's
why I'm not going to give it asmy only answer. It is It looks
like a campground when you readabout it on the internet, but it
is not. It is a back countrycamp. It's about two miles from
Kennecott, so to get there, youhave to drive or fly to
(59:42):
McCarthy, then you have to get aride out to Kennecott, get a
back country permit, and thenhike for two miles. But once you
do that, it's this beautifullocation with an amazing view of
the Rangel mountains and theroot glacier. So.
So it's super cool, if you canmake that happen. And then my
(01:00:05):
other answer, that's a littleout there, would be the Bartlett
Cove campground in Glacier Bay.
And it's kind of an amazingcampground, because not only is
it free, but they provide water,bear proof, storage you can pay
to take a shower in the lodge.
You can do your laundry in thelodge, and also when you're in
(01:00:29):
your tent at night, if you'resuper lucky, you might hear
whales like breathing inBartlett Cove. And that is just
reallyamazing. I don't really have
words for what that's like. Andhearing birds call and like,
you know, other sea other marinemammals splashing around out
(01:00:52):
there, it's really cool. Butthat's also hard to get to. So
to answer your question, Jay,for one that is easier to get
to, I'm going to say the savageriver campground in Denali.
You can drive to it, and I feellike one drive in, one has to be
on the list here.
It's a really nice alternativeto Riley Creek, which is at the
(01:01:15):
park entrance. It's much quieterand smaller, and it's right next
to the savage river. And thereis a beautiful hike you can do
there, especially in theevening, in the morning, the
light there is just stunning. Soabsolutely, that's going to be
probably my real, real answer,yeah. And I feel like that
savage river one is also, ithas, it just has a different
(01:01:40):
feel than Riley Creek, which,yes,
yep, and Riley Creek is alsogreat, but savage river is just
a really special place. I thinkriver opens and closes
10 jet tends to be open andclosed, later and earlier
respectively. Riley Creek is, isbroader available. Yes, that's
true. Yeah, smaller for it, butthe sites are and the sites are
(01:02:04):
less developed. And I like that.
I'm an off trail hiker and anoff site camper, so I like,
Yeah, but if you, you know,want, like, a perfectly groomed
spot for your tent or whatever,it's not necessarily as good,
but it is a spectacularcampground. Yeah, yes,
definitely,those are pretty good answers.
(01:02:25):
I'll let you I'll let you gowith that.
Thank you.
So as we move towards wrappingup this episode, you know, Jay,
a few minutes ago, you weretalking about the importance of
the human experience in thenational parks, and that these
vast, stunning wildernesslandscapes have also been home
(01:02:49):
to humans for 1000s of years.
And in addition to humans whohave lived in Alaska's parks for
1000s of years, there are alsolots of humans who live in
Alaska's parks now and live andwork there. So could you tell us
just a little bit about some ofthe types of jobs people have in
(01:03:11):
national parks that might not bevisible to a visitor, in the
same way that say Rangers arevisible. Yeah. You know, there's
a lot of cachet with being aranger and and I want to give
full props to those Rangers outthere. There's kind of two wings
of people that we wouldgenerally hear people refer to
(01:03:33):
as a ranger. One is a lawenforcement officer inside the
park service. Generally, that'swhat people mean. If they just
say Ranger, that's a person whohas a law enforcement
credential. They're a badged lawenforcement officer. They will
be carrying a weapon. They'llhave a they'll have training
from the federal government inlaw enforcement. And then
(01:03:54):
there's the Ranger, naturalist,which is the person who's often
working at avisitor center desk or or
leading hikes, that kind ofstuff. That's an interpretive
ranger or a ranger naturalist,but two thirds of the people in
the National Park Service Workin maintenance. It's and it's
(01:04:14):
the unsung. They're the unsungheroes, in my opinion, and then
I'm biased, because my fatherwas a career long maintenance
worker in a national park. Butthese guys work, you know, and
gals, they work hard. Their payis actually generally fairly
low. They, you know, you get thejoke is always you get paid in
(01:04:35):
sunsets. And a lot of folks areseasonal workers, and then they
have to put together work intheir off parts of the year. And
you know, that's that's a lot ofthe real work that gets done is
by these folks. And if you're aperson who has seasonal
availability, think about it.
It's a great way to serve thecountry and be in a beautiful
(01:04:58):
place. And.
And the environment of nationalpark employees, I like a lot.
And I think when, if you listento Donna and Tom's interview in
a few weeks, you'll get a betterfeel for it. And you know, they
can be a little bit likea small family in the better and
the worst ways, but, but, youknow, folks are are driving
trucks and cleaning thecampgrounds and collecting money
(01:05:22):
anddispatch operators and fixing
roads, cutting trees that areabout to fall on camps, like all
that kind of stuff. There's justa lot of work that has to be
done in a national park, and itgoes, it goes kind of unnoticed.
It's always a running joke that,like, people will want to add
(01:05:43):
ranger to their titles for thefor the public recognition,
like, you know, I'm a garbageRanger.
Yeah, I want to also add in justthe sheer number of scientists.
It's a huge mission of theNational Park Service to
understand the national parksbetter. And you know
(01:06:05):
ornithologists and and you knoweverything from the trees to the
birds to the archeologicalhistory, all this stuff, there
are scientists in all the in thenational parks who are doing
amazing research,in a fairly hidden way, really.
So just, I'd love, you know, ifyou when you see stuff in the
(01:06:27):
national parks, you know, justremember, there are a lot of
folks back there making ithappen for you. And and they,
they love it, they love theirwork. And but it's good for you
to to notice them. I thinksometimes, yes, absolutely, so
speaking of noticing andthinking people who have served
(01:06:49):
in the National Park Service, tobring this episode to a close,
Jay and I want to honor duringthis national parks week, the
friends and family that we knowpersonally who have served in
the National Park Service, and afew of these people are Rangers,
most of them have worked. Mostof them are people who've worked
(01:07:13):
in maintenance or inadministration, or are
scientists, or have beenscientists for the National Park
Service, yeah, and we're, yeah,I would love to to, and I, if I
miss anyone, it's notintentional. It's, I'm, I'm just
sometimes kind ofscatterbrained. But I'm gonna,
I'm gonna list off some folksthat that come to mind. Matt
(01:07:35):
enderly, he was just on, well,he will have his his episodes
already played, right? Yeah.
Glacier Bay, I'm and Donnahabecker, who will be on soon,
Dan Otis, who is in DC serving,and that is the most unsung
service in the National ParkService to work in the DC
(01:07:56):
offices. So unsung. Thank you,Dan
for all you do. And you know,maybe we'll have to get him on
the podcast sometime too. Yeah,I think so. Holly O'Dell, she'll
also be on the podcast sometime.
Jeff RAC and Julie isdale, greatarcheologists up in Fairbanks.
(01:08:17):
Natasha slobodina, who hasan absolute rugged woman of the
wild and archeologist, AaronWilson, Andy Tremaine, Christina
Jenson, who died in the fieldand 20 years ago, almost now,
Adam bird, Kirsty Hertel, my mylast boss in the National Park
(01:08:39):
Service,and fellow Park Brad, I want to
say she comes from adistinguished line of National
Park Service heroesand and last but not least,
George Monroe, who was my, sortof, my coach and and role model
when I was a Young Jay. He wasthe boat ranger in Yellowstone,
(01:09:00):
and it really meant a lot to me.
So you want to thank all folksfor the service. They do it. And
finally, Jay's family, Jay'sparents, Ray and Mary, who
raised him in the Park Service,and Jay's sister, Julie and Jay
himself, both Julie and Jay haveboth worked for the National
(01:09:24):
Park Service for many seasons asadults. Thank you so much to all
of you for your service to ourcountry,
and thanks to all of you outthere for listening to Alaska
uncovered. If you like what youheard today, we would love to
have you subscribe to thepodcast so you don't miss any
(01:09:45):
new episodes. You.
Welcome to the Alaska uncovered podcast with
me, your host, Jennie ThwingFlaming, my occasional co host
and full time husband, Jennieand I bring you accurate,
helpful and entertaininginformation about Alaska, travel
and life in Alaska, before westart today's show, we'd like to
(00:27):
take a moment to thank ourPatreon subscribers for your
support and making this podcastpossible. Enjoy the show.
Unknown (00:37):
Hello, everyone. Jennie here, Happy National Parks week.
We are excited to celebrate USnational parks week again this
year, as we have for the lasttwo years, and as I'm sure you
know, you must know if you'reinterested in this topic at all,
(00:59):
that our public lands and thepeople who are taking care of
them are under a tremendousamount of threat and strain and
stress right now. So I want tostart this week by acknowledging
that and just letting you knowthat this is a serious
situation, and we are going tobe talking about some of those
(01:22):
things this week. So anotherthing that's kind of cool about
national parks week 2025,here on the Alaska uncovered
podcast is we are going to havedaily podcasts just for this
week. So we are not switching todaily podcasts long term, just
to celebrate and bring attentionto our national parks. So
(01:45):
today's episode is a remasteredversion of our Alaska parks
episode two years ago in Aprilof 2023
and so in this episode, you knowJay and I share our experience
and our advice and our thoughtsabout Alaska National Parks and
(02:09):
travel there, and this is stillreally good advice. And
listening to this episode againand re editing it, I really felt
again, like even though this wasrecorded two years ago, how
relevant it is. And one of thethings that Jay talks about
quite a bit in this episode ishis experience working in the
(02:33):
parks and with some of theunsung heroes and people who
work behind the scenes, who youmay not see but have a big
impact on your parks experienceif you didn't know. Jay was
raised in the National ParkService. He was raised in
Yellowstone National Park, andhe also worked for many years as
(02:55):
an adult, as an archeologist inthe National Park Service. So he
worked several seasons in Gatesof the Arctic National Park. He
also worked in the Seattleregional office on some other,
more behind the scenes, kind ofprojects. So the other episodes
(03:16):
we're going to have this week,we are going to talk a little
bit about kind of what's goingon and in national parks right
now, how that may impact or notyour trip this summer. And we're
also going to be hearing fromone of my former clients, who
was on a parks quest to visitevery national park in the US.
(03:39):
And we are going to talkspecifically about his national
parks in Alaska experience. SoI'm really excited to bring you
that interview with Al laterthis week tomorrow. I'm also
really excited to bring you anepisode that is all about
visiting all of Alaska'snational parks, something that I
(04:02):
know many of you are on a questto do or are curious about
doing, and I have a new workshopfor you as well, so I'll
introduce that tomorrow, alongwith that episode. So it's going
to be an exciting week here. I'mlooking forward to being in your
ears every day this week. And Iwant to give you a brief recap
(04:26):
of other episodes that we haveof this podcast that are
specifically about Alaska'snational parks. And of course,
there are many episodes where wetalk about them, but these are
the episodes that are veryspecifically about visiting
parks. I'm going to give them toyou in chronological order,
(04:46):
starting with one of the veryfirst episodes of the podcast,
Episode Four on March 8, 2023and that was about cat my now.
National Park with Ranger Cara.
That was a really fun episode.
Next we've got March 22 2023episode six, that was all about
(05:10):
Glacier Bay National Park withRanger Matt, and we covered so
many fun things in that episodetoo, including what it's like to
be a cruise ship Ranger. Thatwas pretty fun.
Then in May, May 17, 2023,Episode 14, we had an interview
with Tom and Donna habecker, whoare longtime friends of Jay's
(05:32):
and mine, and Tom is a retiredRanger from Denali National
Park. And that was one of ourfirst story episodes where they
really shared their story ofwhat it was like to live in
Denali National Park for manyyears, raise their children
there and a variety of otherthings. Then on July 12, 2023
(05:55):
episode 22 that was with Ryancross and we talked about
climbing Denali in that episode,January 17, 2024 episode number
47 was all about visiting DenaliNational Park on your own. So
most people visit Denali ingroups, and so this one is very
(06:18):
specifically about how tonavigate that if you're going to
visit Denali on your own.
February, 21 2024,Episode 54 was about flight
scene in Denali National Park.
May 15. 2024, Episode 66 wasabout visiting Rangel st Elias
(06:42):
National Park with Avery, who isa guide there. She also grew up
there in McCarthy. So we talkabout that as well. The next one
is October 23 2024that is episode 89 and that one
is about taking a day trip toLake Clark National Park from
(07:02):
Anchorage. And that's largelybased on my experience doing
that this past fall, December18, 2024
episode 97 that episode aboutvisiting Denali while the road
is closed, and whether or notthat's worth it. So that's that
episode. And then finally, march18, 2025 so just about a month
(07:27):
ago, Episode 111is about visiting can tissue
deep in denali's backcountry. Atone point in this episode, Jay
and I discuss the national parksin Alaska that we haven't been
to yet, and I wanted to providean update that in the last two
years, Jay and I have each beento one new national park in
(07:51):
Alaska. For him, that wasGlacier Bay. We went together,
but I had been before, and forme, it was Lake Clark.
In today's episode, Jay and Iare talking all about the
national parks in Alaska. Jayand I actually met in an Alaska
(08:13):
National Park, Klondike GoldRush National Historic Park,
which is in Skagway, whichbasically is the town of
Skagway. And Jay has also workedin Gates the Arctic National
Park as an archeologist forthree seasons. He also grew up
in Yellowstone, so he is a childof the National Park Service as
(08:33):
well. Today, we're going toshare about Alaska parks in
general, some tips aboutvisiting and about some of our
personal favorite spots. So tostart us off, Jay, can you share
a little bit about your personalhistory with the National Park
Service and the parks in Alaskathat you've been to?
(08:56):
Oh, I just realized this is myfirst experience as a guest on
this show. How fun. Um, it isfun. Yeah,
I actually feel a little bitmore on on, like I have to
perform a little better thanwhen I'm just the occasional co
host. So I would, I want tofirst say that, yes, I grew up
(09:18):
in the National Park Serviceand in the National Park
Service, I am what is called apark brat, which is a term for
any child who was raised in thePark Service, and in particular,
then went on to work at the ParkService themselves. And it's a,
it's a kind of a term ofendearment, but, you know, it
has alittle bit of a cutting edge to
(09:39):
do it too. But yes, it's a smallfraternity of us out there.
But yeah, so when I was inelementary school, my folks
moved into Yellowstone Park, andmy dad was a truck driver and
worked on the road crew andplowed snow, worked in May.
(10:00):
Maintenance in Yellowstone. So Idid live in the interior
of Yellowstone in Grant Village,and we had to leave for the
winters because there's noschool there. It's only one
other child under 18 in thewhole area. So we would go out
into Wyoming, and I would go toschool. And then when I was in
(10:20):
high school, my dad moved he Imoved he eventually got a job in
Mammoth that was year round,which is the north part of the
park, and I graduated from highschool up there,
and I went up to Alaska. Andeventually, after graduate
school, I'd worked in the cruiseindustry and a bunch of other
stuff. I ended up becoming anarcheologist and working in the
(10:42):
national parks up there,and then when we moved to
Seattle, I then did a stintworking for the regional office
here in the Pacific West andworked in a bunch of parks out
here. We should also add thatwhen I was in high school, I did
work in the visitor center inYellowstone too. So I don't work
for the park service now, but ithas actually been about, I don't
(11:04):
know, at least 10 years of mylife that I worked directly for
the park service. Yeah, that's along time. That's a lot of
history. It is. I don't evenknow how many years it's been,
because I've worked so manystints in one of the things
about a park service life isthat getting a permanent, full
time job is quite challenging.
(11:27):
There's a lot of barriers togetting hired for that, but a
lot of folks in the ParkService, the majority of park
employees, work out theircareers in lots of seasonal and
temporary appointments. And soit becomes kind of a it's a
flurry of leaves blowing by you.
And you can be like, wait, wait,when, when? Where was I? Know, I
worked in that park. When wasthat? What was my job there?
(11:48):
What? And so, yeah, the majorityof park employees are seasonals,
and that was, that was me aswell, until I worked here in the
region.
So how many parks have wevisited together in Alaska?
Because you've been to some Ihaven't. Yeah, so Okay, so I
(12:13):
visited you when you wereworking in gates. So we've both
been there, and we met inSkagway. So we both been there
to Klondike Gold Rush Nationaldesert Park. We shared the
coldest night of camping in mywife in Denali. Yes, real
chilly. It was in April. It waskind of awesome. But also we had
(12:38):
to go home at like five in themorning because it was so cold I
totally remember. Yeah, so we'vebeen to danelli together quite a
few times, been to wrangle, seena lot. Yeah, we also managed to
ride along on a friend who wonthe lottery to drive up the road
in your personal vehicle at theend of the year once. That was
really fun. That was really fun.
(13:00):
And we've been to wrangle stElias together, yes. And we've
been to Kenai Fjords together,yes. And Sitka
National Historical Park.
You have been to Glacier Bay? Inever have, yeah, I have Glacier
Bay is Glacier Bay is myfavorite.
(13:24):
It is. You're such a fan girl. Iknow, I know. I feel like I'm
not a very good Park brat inthat I've never been to several
of the of the quintessentialnational parks I've never been
to. But yeah, you've been toKatmai too, yes, and I've been
to Katmai, I think neither of ushave been to COVID Valley, and
(13:47):
neither of us have been insideLake Clark, no, but I believe
we've been to all the others,plus many other national park
units that don't necessarilyhave that National Park
designation, which you're goingto talk about in a few minutes.
But I think that's all of them.
Yeah, yeah.
(14:10):
So Jay, speaking of that, canyou tell us a little bit well,
actually, before we get intothat, I should mention that we
have several other episodes ofthe Alaska uncovered podcast
that are about specific nationalparks in Alaska. And today we're
really talking, we will talkabout some specifics, but we are
(14:32):
talking about Alaska NationalParks in general, which covers a
lot of territory. But just togive you a sense, if you want to
know more about Alaska NationalParks and you're new to the
podcast. In episode three, oneof the topics we talked about in
that episode was Denali, andspecifically visiting Denali in
(14:55):
2023 there are some changes in.
Denali because of the partialroad closure. So that we talked
about that. And Episode Four wasabout cat my, and all about
bears, but also more than bears,all the other things that are
cool about cat my. And episodesix, we talked about Glacier
Bay. And episode 10, which wasjust last week, was about
(15:20):
Skagway, and we talked about theNational Historical Park in
Skagway. And then we also havean episode coming in a couple
weeks, in three weeks, actually,that will be all about Denali.
And then there are some otherepisodes coming that we have
planned about parks. So thoseare that's just a little bit of
(15:41):
an overview of what we've doneand covered so far. So Jay, can
you tell us a little bit aboutkind of public land in Alaska in
general? Like, why is there somuch federal land in Alaska?
What places are the parks inAlaska? What? What is different
(16:02):
about it, maybe from the lower48 Yeah. So I mean, one of the
things that I actually, that Imiss about living in Alaska,
living down in in the lower 48now, is that two thirds of
Alaska is managed by the federalgovernment, and of the remaining
1/3 a big chunk of it is publicland owned by the state. So
(16:23):
there's a lot of open spaces tokind of have your, you know, a
lot of freedom to explore andand stuff in it where, you know,
the lower 48 is mostly privatelyowned, but it's kind of
interesting. You know, Alaska,first of all, I should just say
I'm not an expert on this topic,and so whatever I say, here is,
(16:45):
it's for your entertainmentvalue only. Yes, I know you're
not specifically speaking as arepresentative of the Park
Service or anything like that,just sharing your perspective.
Yeah, I no longer work for thepark service, but, you know,
it's funny, I I know a littlebit, but more probably mostly
just enough to get myself introuble with this. But this is
(17:07):
what I know of.
Alaska has a couple of oldernational parks, Glacier Bay and
Denali, which were, you know,they're 100 year old parks and
from the 1920sbut most of the Alaska National
park units were actually formedby a law passed in 1980 called
(17:29):
anilka, the Alaska NationalInterest Land Claims Settlement
Act. Oh, I think so. Anyway,it's anilka
and a little bit by the 1971law ANCSA, the Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act. You know,Alaska was purchased from the
(17:49):
Russian government, and a lot ofits public land was not settled
as to who owned it. You know,there were clear tribal
indigenous claims on the land.
There were a few private owners,but most of the land was was
fairly unsettled and fairlyinhospitable. So there wasn't a
(18:13):
lot of really well establishedownership outside of some of the
gold fields. And so the legalnature of all that was still up
in the air when people wanted todevelop the petroleum resources
on the North Slope. And so thatwas a big barrier to that. And
(18:34):
in order toallow the oil pipeline to be
built and that to happen. Thosetwo laws were critical to settle
who owned what pieces of land,and there's a lot of controversy
and a lot of history in thosetwo acts. You could spend your
whole life studying thosedefinitely, and still have room
(18:56):
so but a lot of national parkunits were set up in that period
of time. So Alaska also has somenon National Park Public Lands.
There'sa big, a two big national
forest, the Tongass and theChugiak,
(19:16):
and there's a bunch of wildliferefuges. Those are so national
forests are managed by theNational Forest Service, which
is part of the Department ofAgriculture, and then the
department interior includes theUS Fish and Wildlife Service,
and they have somenational wildlife refuges,
(19:36):
but the majority are managed bythe Park Service. And I want to
bring up here, a really commonmisconception that I see on
the internet in general. Jennie,you, I feel like we've you've
seen a lot of these articlestoo, where someone lists like,
what I don't even remember howmany are named National Parks in
(19:58):
Alaska or.
Uh, in the list, there's eight,yeah, national parks, yeah,
yeah. So, so here's the thing.
In having worked and lived inthe National Park Service almost
my whole career,there are there's no real
distinction between what is andisn't a national park within the
National Park Service Unit, andthat includes a lot of things
(20:21):
that aren't named National Park.
So I want to just take a momentto nerd out on public land types
for a second. I think it is kindof relevant. And yeah, I hear
folks who have, like, a bucketlist, and they have like, I'm
going to visit all the nationalparks. And then when I hear them
listening, they're missingthings that I think are really
(20:43):
important. I realize it'sbecause the name doesn't include
National Park.
I think of it like this, ifsomeone was telling you the best
peaks to climb in the country,and then you said, Oh, but what
about Denali? Or what aboutMount Rainier like? Well, those
aren't peaks. Those are mounts.
I'm talking about Pike's Peak,you know, like, those are just
(21:03):
naming differences, and notnecessarily they'll, they'll
have something to do with thehistory of that mountain, and
they might even tell you alittle something about it. But
they don't necessarily implysome sort of hierarchy, or that
they're even, you know, they'reall
(21:23):
things we call mountains. So inin Alaska in particular, this
gets a little complicated, butthere are national historic
areas, national monuments,national parks, national park
and preserves, nationalpreserves, but not National
Park.
So there's just a quick rattleoff a list. There's the
(21:45):
illusions national historicarea, the Antioch National
Monument, the Lagna and wildriver Cape cruise National
Monument, Denali National Park,Gates of the Arctic National
Park and Preserve Glacier BayNational Park. Cat nine is a
national park. United fjords isa national park. Klondike is a
(22:05):
National Historic Park.
COVID Valley is a national park.
Lake Clark is a national park,and then there is no attack,
National Preserve. Sitka,National Historic Park, Rangel
and you come Charlie, NationalPreserve, the Park Service would
consider all of those nationalparks. They would call them all
(22:27):
parks, right?
They wouldn't necessarily, inthe end, the thing about
national parks is each onethat's a is created by its own
act of Congress, except fornational monuments, which I'll
talk about in a second, butand those will govern a lot of
the rules, like, what is beingwhat is being called out as the
exceptional thing about thisarea? What are we prioritizing?
(22:50):
But they're all managed underthe larger rubric, the National
Park Service to preserveunimpeded
for the the benefit, enjoymentof the people, you know, these
areas, yeah,so I don't, I don't want people
to miss and say, like, I want togo to these eight national
parks, because those will be thebest thing,
(23:15):
and the other things, the othertypes of parks. A
lot of times it just means thatthey came later. So the original
national parks are, you know,100 years ago, when the National
Park Service was new, they wereall just called National Parks.
Pretty much as time went on,they got more creative with
(23:36):
naming. So calling something anational, you know, historic
landscape, or calling somethinga
National Seashore, or that kindof thing was really a later
development. The onlydistinction I want to make is
that national monuments are arequite different. They are
created byact of the president. They're
(23:57):
the the Antiquities Act 1906gives the the president the
right to, with the stroke of apen, create a national monument.
It also means that they're alittle more tenuous, because
another president could takethem away,
so they're not written into lawthe way that all the other park
(24:19):
units are. Yeah, sometimesnational monuments can also be
administered by another, youknow, like National
Mount St Helens is a nationalmonument after the volcano, but
it was a national forest before.
So it's run by the NationalForest Service. But almost all
the national monuments are aremanaged by the National Parks.
Yeah, so I know that's a lotabout my management titles, but
(24:43):
I just, I don't want people tothink that, you know, the
there's a only these eight greatplaces, and the rest are second
tiers. Yeah, I'm really glad youtalked about that, Jay. So if,
if I.
Were to from someone who doesn'thave the same deep knowledge
(25:04):
about those structures that youdo. Were to try to summarize
that, or you give an example ofit. Would it be like saying, for
example, Gates of the ArcticNational Park, which is does
have that National Parksdesignation and as a place we've
both been to, comparing that tosomething like UConn, Charlie
(25:28):
Rivers National Preserve, whichis another place we've been
that's very remote and hard toget to, but it isn't any less
interesting or unique, really.
Then gates to the Arctic, andit's in a similar, I mean, it's
very different, but also sort ofin a similar part of interior,
(25:51):
kind of this our sub Arctic,Arctic area with that, is that
kind of getting at what you'resaying. Maybe the best example
might be cobak and no attack. SoKobuk Valley, yeah, National
Preserve, very close to eachother along the no attack. And
Kobuk rivers there in the westpart of the Brooks Range really
(26:14):
remote places. I mean, reallyremote, no matter how back
country you think you've everbeen. This is, this is more so,
yeah, but to be honest, thereisn't really any, you know,
COVID is a national park. Noattack is a preserve.
They're not that different,right? It's just, it's just a
(26:34):
naming convention. It haspolitics and stuff. So I know
that's a small thing, but italways, it always it always
rankles me a little bit when Isee that. I'm like, I feel like
the some of the non named parksare getting disrespected,
yeah, I know what you mean.
Yeah. Like, what about noattack? No attack is so cool,
yeah.
(26:56):
And you know, some of these,like wild rivers and stuff too,
are really quite amazing. So,yeah, I think that's
that's probably enough detailabout national parks and their
names. Yeah, that's good,though. Thank you. I will just
add before we move on. I mean,thinking especially about
(27:18):
Skagway and Sitka that havenational historic parks that
we've both been to in Alaska andand those are some of the
coolest things that some of themost wonderful places I've been
to in Alaska, especially fromlike, a history kind of
standpoint. I mean, they'rejust, they're both really
different from each other, andsuper interesting. So
(27:41):
definitely, if you're going toSitka or Skyway, don't, don't
miss those places that reallycool. Yeah.
Oh. That also reminds me thatwhen I was mentioning the
previous episodes of the podcastwhere we talked about parks in
episode nine, which was just acouple weeks ago, in our episode
with Scott McMurray, he talkedquite a bit about Rangel st
(28:05):
Elias in that episode, eventhough that's not the title of
the episode. SoI wanted to make sure to mention
that also. Okay, so Jay,thinking about Alaska's national
parks,I was thinking it'd be fun for
us to talk a little bit aboutsome of the things that make
them really wonderful places tovisit in Alaska. And of course,
(28:29):
they're very different. Some ofthem are easier to get to you.
Some of them are harder to getto. But what would you say in
general, are some of thebenefits of visiting a national
park in Alaska?
Well, I'm biased. I'm gonna saythe National Park Service, yeah.
And the reason I'm gonna saythat is not just to butter up my
(28:51):
former co workers. It's becauseI think the the National Park
Service Alaska's public landsand Alaskan land in general,
it's pretty difficult to visit,and the Park Service has done a
really good job of providingsome things that visitors really
need without providing some thatthey don't. The National Park
(29:13):
Service doesn't feel it'snecessary to provide fudge
shops,really. I feel like NPS fudge
could be a really big hit. I'dbuy it. I'm not gonna. Yeah,
yeah. You know, a lot of thethings that that appear in
visitor areas that aren'tnecessarily required are not
necessarily but the Park Servicehas made sure that there are
good maps, relatively good maps,of all the national parks, and
(29:36):
information is availableonline@nps.gov
and the really excellent new NPSapp. Yeah,
feel like that makes a bigdifference. And the Park Service
has a missionabout getting that information
out there. So I think that'sreally and they're going to
provide structured hiking.
(30:01):
Hmm, what about you? What do youthink? Well, I definitely agree
with what you said about theresources and infrastructure of
the Park Service, around giving,you know, really excellent
information and being havingthat be their mission. Um, I
would say that, in addition tothat,
(30:25):
you sort of mentioned, likehaving hiking trails and in
there are some really amazinghikes in Alaska's national parks
there, there's lots of spacewhere there aren't hiking
trails, but where there arethose are some really wonderful
trails, and hiking is free. SoAlaska can be an expensive
(30:46):
destination, and going for ahike in a national park doesn't
cost anything, and that ispretty cool. Some Alaska parks
charge an entrance fee, but manyof them do not, actually. So
even that barrier is not therefor many parks. And I think the
(31:07):
other thing is, if you are goingto camp on your trip to Alaska,
Alaska's national parks havesome of the best tent camping
situations in Alaska, if you'rein an RV there are other places
that are also pretty amazing.
But when I think about the bestplaces to pitch a tent in Alaska
that I've personallyexperienced, they're nearly all
(31:29):
in national parks. So those are,those are some of the other
things that come come to mind?
Yeah, I will say that thecamping in national parks tends
to be a bargain always,yep, cheaper than state parks
(31:50):
nearby. Yes. You know, I feellike there that's a if you have
an option to tent camp in theNational Park, do it? Yes. So
like, for example, in Katmai,the lodge, which you have to win
a lottery to get into two yearsin advance, is $900 a night, and
(32:12):
the campground is $12 a night.
Just as an example of that,right, right, yeah. And also in
Glacier Bay and Rangel st, Eliascamping is free, so that's
pretty cool. Yeah, it's notcommon, actually. No, it's not.
(32:37):
I will say too that they'rehaving worked in fee collections
in national parks, I know that alot of folks are frustrated at
paying an admissions fee, or tocome to the gate or for some of
the fees, which is, again, asJennie said, a lot of national
parks don't charge any feewhatsoever. They actually have
to get permission from Congressto do so. Most of that money
does not go to the National ParkService. Actually, it goes into
(32:59):
the general fund of the of theUS government, and the fee, when
you do pay one doesn't even comeclose to paying for the cost of
most people's visit. So yeah,really, it is an amazing
bargain, and I know that itstill sucks to have to fork over
some moneyat the gate, but you know, yeah.
So yes, so let's talk aboutchallenges a little bit. What
(33:24):
are some of the biggestchallenges from your perspective
about visiting Alaska's parks?
There are a lot, actually, yeah,you vary a tremendous amount
based on the park itself. Andthis is one of the things that,
like folks who are doing bucketlists visits, for example,
(33:47):
they're like, I'm going to visitall the name national parks, and
you want to go to cob like, oh,I only have two left.
You could spend a majority ofyour summer getting to some of
the Alaska National Parks, justbasically, you know, getting
there. So getting there is notalways easy. Some of them, it's
very easy. Actually, Denali isvery easy to get to. You can
(34:11):
drive there on the on the roadsystem. You can take a train
there, take a bus into the park.
That's not too bad. Do you conCharlie? Not so easy.
You can take a boat up the riverfrom right Eagle. I guess I'm
trying to think of even, or mostlikely, you would fly in on a
(34:32):
float plane. Same with Gates ofthe Arctic, same with no attack
cobac, really. Those are airdependent hiking to some of
those parks from the nearestplace you can get on commercial
air service, for example, wouldtake your whole whole season or
more like it is not possible todo.
(34:54):
So that's a challenge.
Um, yeah, those are.
A challenge that I don't want tounderestimate.
Some of the parks have a veryshort season where the snow is
free and the the the BrooksRange. Northern Alaska parks can
have a six or eight week snowfree season, so that part of the
(35:19):
season will also be when themosquitos have to make their
entire living,and the mosquitoes will be
dense, yeah, absolutely. Like,if you think you know mosquitos,
you do not, I working up there.
Remember wiping over and over,wiping my head net with my
(35:39):
gloved hands to be able to seemy notebook to take notes. Yeah,
no, there i i will say, Jay,that when I spent that week with
you guys on your project inGates, that that forever changed
my perspective on bugs and whatare bad bucks.
(36:02):
So much. No, I've worked, I'veworked in Everglades, and I'll
tell you that it's nothing.
Yeah, it was, it was intense,not to be, you know, they're,
they're a serious,they're a serious barrier, and
they're completely manageable.
And you can make in most parksin Alaska, you can make a huge
(36:23):
difference, based on when youvisit, if you are not someone
and they're not that badeverywhere, by any means,
but there they can be. They canbe a real, a real issue anywhere
in Alaska. I mean, we had one ofthe weirdest nights of
mosquitoes with our friends ofours at a campground near
Anchorage, just out of nowhere.
Yeah, that was also reallybizarre, yeah. So, you know, it
(36:45):
can, it can happen anywhere, andand an early freeze can make a
glorious clearance of the skies.
And so, you know, late seasoncan be good, but you know,
you're not going to want to tryto try to visit some of these
more remote parks during thelate season for the mosquitos,
because the door can closeweather wise on you, and you
(37:07):
could be shut out.
So you know you're playing,yeah,
yeah, yeah. And you're way moreof an expert than I am on the
travel component. I mean, whatdo you think about the lodging
expense, yeah, sides of it. Whatdo you think? Do you have
(37:29):
anything you want to add aboutthat?
Yeah, I definitely agree witheverything that you said. I
think despite what I said beforeabout being able to find free or
very inexpensive camping inAlaska National Parks, lodging
that is not camping is realexpensive in places like
(37:56):
Denali and Seward, which is NearKenai Fjords and king salmon,
which is near cat myso that is, I think, a
challenge. I think it'simportant for people to be
prepared for that, for lodgingto be very expensive, especially
for what it is.
(38:20):
So that's one thing. And I thinkyou know, earlier, you were
talking about how the NationalPark name is really just a
naming convention, and from theperspective of an insider in the
Park Service, that isn'tnecessarily different from a
wild river or a NationalPreserve, but you know that I
(38:41):
help people plan their trips toAlaska, and I've had several
clients who were definitelywanting to go to the eight parks
with the National Parkdesignation to complete the list
of 63and I know there are way More,
but you know from from myclients perspective, and I think
the biggest challenge,especially for folks trying to
(39:05):
go to a lot of remote parks inone trip, is it, it really makes
the trip extremely complicatedand very dependent on weather.
So again, if that's somethingthat you want to do as a
traveler, just really thinkabout giving yourself as much
time as possible and lots ofextra time in between parks to
(39:29):
allow for things like weatherdelays, right? And I think what
I heard you saying too aboutlodging is that if you're going
to be a if you want to uselodging, like hotels, lodges,
etc, you should make that planfar in advance. Yes, yes, I
(39:50):
would say for national parks,except for Glacier Bay,
you really need to be planningyour trip. A.
Year ahead of time Denali, likelike, for example, we're, we are
recording this in April of 2023,and there are some dates where
there is still lodging availablein Denali, especially if you
(40:12):
drive there as opposed to takingthe train, because you can stay
a little further away from thepark if you do that, um, but
there are lots of days that arethat are completely booked up or
very close to that. So, um,yeah, I think planning and for
these remote parks, you reallyneed to plan a year in advance,
(40:34):
or at least six to nine months,kind of the more remote, the
earlier you need to plan, Ithink is what I would say. And
after the break, we'll get back,we'll get into kind of which
parks are the most remote, andand that kind of thing. But I
(40:54):
think that's what I would sayabout the the challenges with
planning.
I just want to take a moment tosay that I applaud anyone who
has a goal of visiting all thenational parks. I just want to
add on that for extra credit youshould think about including as
(41:15):
many of the other 340Yes, not named National Park in
the National Park System? Yes,there's over 400 units, and some
of them are absolutely mindblowing, and don't rule those
out just because of their name.
Totally agree with that. 63 namenational parks is a really great
(41:35):
life goal. Yes, I agree. I thinkit's really cool, and I
sometimes think I would like totake it on too, but I haven't
committed to that yet.
A little bit about Parkvisitation numbers and sort of
humans in national parks and andkind of what your perspective is
on that. Yeah, I have unpopularopinions. Maybe, I don't know,
(42:01):
but I do think there's no that'snot exactly true. But I do want
to take a moment to say firstthat I, first of all, am a huge
proponent of wild lands, ofwilderness, of protecting lands
from development. But sometimesI hear that being taken in a
direction that I think is alittle bit disrespectful. And
(42:22):
what I'm getting at about thatis that all of this great
wilderness in Alaska has a long,long human history, really long.
Yeah, all the sites in NorthAmerica, archeologically, are in
Alaska's national parks. Thereare a number of sites 13, 14,000
years old up there. And youknow, the oldest sites in North
(42:46):
America are only a little bitolder than that. So human
history is quite long. And I'veseen brochures and stuff that
talk about, you know, come walkin a valley where the mountains
have no names, and no one's everwalked before. And, yeah, that's
just not true. There's a deephuman history in this place. It
just didn't leave condos. And,you know, I just want to throw
(43:09):
out that. I think it'sthe idea of wilderness needs to
not exclude the fact that humanswere there and that they had an
impact. You know, the folks wholived there intentionally used
fire and their huntingtechniques and stuff to make the
landscape livable for them. Andthe landscape, like of Gates of
(43:30):
the Arctic, for example, or forone is the humans have been
living there since before thecurrent biological regime. So
black spruce have only beenthey're the most dominant tree
in northern central Alaska, andthey've only been around for
about 5000 years. Humans havebeen living in those places,
Swan point down in in the TananaValley. It's
(43:54):
almost 15,000 years old. So youknow, we're amazing. Yeah.
Humans have been here threetimes longer there than the
black spruce have been there.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it'sreally deep, and it's hard
sometimes to picture that peoplehave been living on this
landscape so long. I had theopportunity to work on a site
near Delta Junction in Alaska,and you know, we were excavating
(44:17):
these fires where and all thesebones, and then suddenly we
started getting into animalsthat have been extinct in North
America. And it just blew mymind, like there were people
here camping in this spotthat were eating like camel and
prehistoric antelope that don'texist on North America and
haven't since, really, since theend of the ice ages. So I think
(44:41):
that's just really cool. And Iwould love for people to include
that in their appreciation ofthe wild land, and not as
something the human history on aplace like somehow corrupts it.
You know, it's, yeah, it'sreally beautiful.
Part of it. So that's one thing.
Another one is another one ofthose sets of of I want to just
(45:03):
take on for a moment. You'll seea lot of things on the internet
where people talk about the mostand least visited national
parks, and your experience ofother people while you're there
may not track with what you seeon those there's a couple of
reasons. One, National Parkvisitation numbers are kind of
funny. So a national park likeYellowstone, for example, has a
(45:30):
pretty great number that peoplego through the gates, they count
them. People leave, they countthem. It's very like
other national parks, like gateto the Arctic, have numbers. I
don't remember what theirvisitation numbers say, but they
count every person who drives onthe whole road to Prudhoe Bay,
(45:51):
most of whom never enter thepark at all.
So they count because they gothrough a visitor center area at
the Yukon River Olympic NationalPark, for example, has also
really difficult numbers.
There's aWashington state has a there's a
US one on one highway runsthrough it, and they count the
(46:11):
folks who drive that highway asvisiting the parks. You don't
really know whether they did ornot, so it's not quite the same.
You know, they're not apples toapples.
And so when you see numbers fora place like Gates of the
Arctic, for example, they'reactually a lot higher than what
you would actually experiencegoing there. So if you want and
(46:34):
are looking for that reallyremote, distant thing, don't
really pay attention to thosenumbers. They don't necessarily
mean that much some parks thatpeople are crowded into very
small areas, and in everynational park in the entire
system, you can have solitude.
You just need to step away.
(46:55):
I would say Denali, we had greatconversations with Donna and Tom
habecker, which will be in aanother episode. Yeah, three
weeks, if they that episode willbe live.
And they really highlighted thatif you get off the bus in
Denali, you can have one of themost remote experiences you can
(47:18):
imagine in your life,all within a very easy, secure
way to experience it. And thesame with gates. There is
nothing like the realizationthat you are two or three weeks
hike from another human being.
Andbut then there's something like
Glacier Bay. And Jennie, Ihaven't been there, I know you
have, but you know the the mainway to visit Glacier Bay is on
(47:40):
board a cruise ship, which isnot an isolated No,
no. So the numbers there don'tnecessarily match up to your
experience if you went there andcamped. And what was your
experience of camping? As far aswell, there were two other
people staying in the campgroundwhen I was there. So yeah,
(48:01):
there. But what would you sayabout Katmai? About like, will
you it's my impression is thatyou would be around a lot of
other people all the time,because people are quite limited
in where they go. Yeah, cat mywas really different, say, from
Glacier Bay, because there werelots of people camping in
Katmai, I think there's 60people that can be in the
(48:24):
campground a night, um, and,yeah, in Glacier Bay, you know,
people are a little more spreadout, and there are just so few
people like we talked about inthe Glacier Bay episode, who are
traveling there, not on a cruiseship. Um, you know, it's really
(48:44):
just the other people staying atthe lodge and in the campground
that you see cat my is reallybusy with day trip visitors. Um,
when I was there, it wasn'tsuper busy, even though it was
high season, because it wasreally foggy and a lot of the
flights didn't a lot of theflights were canceled, but there
was one day where it wasit was raining, but it wasn't
(49:07):
foggy, and the flights were ableto get in. And yeah, there were
times when you had to wait for acouple hours to go out on the
platform to see the bears. Sothat definitely felt busy, even
though it's really not that manypeople. So I think those things
do kind of illustrate whatyou're talking about.
(49:28):
Yeah, I think that's a that'sanyway, that's just kind of all
I wanted to say about that, Ithink, is just that, that if you
are looking for solitude, it'sthere for you. It won't just
back with just sorting by, youknow, sort the list by
visitation number, pick thelowest. Yeah, really, it is a
choose your own adventure as tohow much or how little human
contact you want while you'rethere. Yes.
(49:54):
So you mentioned hiking, and I,you know, I'm not a hiker. I'm
always quite open about, hi.
Yeah, I hike for money, but Ithink hiking is obviously a way
to get you know, in Yellowstone,we used to say if you go 100
yards off the road, you willdrop 90% of the people. Yeah,
(50:17):
I definitely think that's evenmore so in Alaska.
So it's a great way to findsolitude. If you want what do
you think the best hike is inAlaska National Park?
Okay, it's a that's a reallytough question to answer,
because I'm just gonna say Jaysaid he's not a hiker unless
(50:39):
he's getting paid. I can vouchthat's totally true. I, however,
am a hiker, and if you're ahiker, you've got to do a hike
in an Alaskan National Park.
It's just fantastic on yourtrip. So I'm going to say the
Harding ice field trail in KenaiFjords National Park, which is
near Seward. It is a really hardhike, really hard, but you don't
(51:02):
have to go all the way to theend to see the amazing views. So
I think the views are what makethat hike truly spectacular. I
don't think it's worth it if youcan't see the view. It doesn't
have to be perfect weather, butthere does have to be good
visibility. So I think thatwould be my answer.
(51:29):
I'm going to show my ignorancefor a moment here. What about
Portage past? That's one of myfavorites, because that's
probably in the forest, isn'tit? Yeah, it's in Chicago
forest, but it is an awesomehike, and it's not as difficult
as partying ice field.
Totally.
Okay, so while we're on the thesuperlatives of yes Alaska
(51:54):
National Parks, yes, what do youthink is the best Visitor Center
in Alaska National Park?
Well, going back to what yousaid earlier, Jay Park Service
does a really good job ofsharing information and doing
anddoing interpretation. I mean,
that's part of what they do. SoI've never been to a I've been
(52:15):
to bad visitor centers, but notin Alaska. All the ones I've
been to there are amazing. Someof them are really tiny and,
like, kind of right next to theairport, like the one in king
salmon for Katmai, and the otherPark Service lands around king
salmon. But that's just becauseof the remote location. It's
(52:37):
still pretty amazing what theydid with, like a tiny little
corner of an airplane hangar,basically. So they're all really
good, but I think I'm gonna havetwo answers for this one. One is
kind of sassy, but the Rangel stElias National Park Visitor
Center that is located along theRichardson Highway in copper
centeris not only an excellent Visitor
(52:59):
Center, but it also has the bestbathrooms along the Richardson
Highway. So I feel like it needsto get some props for that minor
thing. Aside from that, I thinkI would really encourage you to
if you're going to Alaska, to goto one of the public lands
(53:20):
information centers. There'sfour of them in Alaska. There's
one in toke along the AlaskaHighway, one in Ketchikan, which
is a great one to go to ifyou're on a cruise, and one in
downtown Anchorage, and one indowntown Fairbanks. And even
though they are not in nationalparks. They really get at all of
these things Jay has beentalking about around like public
(53:44):
land in Alaska in general, andthey're good visitor centers,
and they have lots of free mapsand lots of great information.
So they're just a fantasticvisitor resource for pretty much
anyone.
Yes, I am really glad you gavethem a shout out. The public
(54:06):
info centers are unsung heroesfor sure, and totally under
utilized as resources, in myopinion. Yes, you're a map geek,
which I am, definitively a mapgeek, same amazing files of maps
and spread them out on a tableand, like, lay out. And it's
pretty beautiful. It warms myheart to spread out like 20 topo
(54:30):
maps. Yeah,super fun. One cool thing about
it too is that they can kind ofhelp guide you. There are
certain types of land use thatare not appropriate for national
parks. You know, hunting isgenerally not allowed in Indian
National Park property, right?
And you know, if you're a hunteror if you want to go for, you
(54:51):
know, riding dirt bikes or fourwheelers or that kind of thing,
National Parks are not reallywhere you want to go and riding
stock horseback.
Is, is or is not, depending onthe national park acceptable,
and they can really help guideyou and say like, oh, what you
want to do would be best suitedto this.
You know, State Park. A lot ofnational parks have a state park
(55:13):
ring around them. Yep, a lot oftimes that land is much more
open, rule wise, for better orfor worse, and Denali is
definitely that way. Yeah. Well,depending on what you want to do
the public lands info people canreally help guide you, you know,
and all the people that I've metat a public lands Info Center
have been rock stars. Justgreat.
(55:37):
Yeah, absolutely, I totallyagree. Okay, so what do you
think is the best tour, asopposed to a hike or a visitor
center? But like a best, thebest package tour from from a
park vendor in a national park?
This is a very easy one. Itwould be the day boat tour in
(55:58):
Glacier Bay National Park. It'sjust absolutely phenomenal.
Yeah, that's cool. I want togive a shout out to the cheapest
tour in a national park,the Denali bus system. Okay, the
Denali bus system is also reallycool, and it would be my number
(56:19):
two is any trip into Denali on abus, but the Glacier Bay day
boat takes the edge for me. ButI totally agree with you about
Denali. It's also very cool.
I'll just, I'm just saying thatthe cost is, yes, it's very
affordable, yeah. And by theway, if, since you gave me an
(56:43):
opening to talk about the Denalibus tour, whether you take the
narrated tour or the bus, thehiker bus, the like, hop on, hop
off, transit bus, if you aregoing to Denali, do not skip the
bus tour because you Think youdon't want to go on a bus. And
(57:03):
also make sure you listen to theepisode we have coming up with
Tom and Donna in three weeksabout Denali. If you're not, if
I'm not convincing you, that isthe way to get away from it all
in Denali. And you absolutelyhave to do it when you're there.
If you're into national parks atall. You should listen to that
episode, because Tom, first ofall, he's just written a memoir,
(57:25):
book that you should read. Andalso, he is an OG, the real deal
career Ranger. He's a, yeah,he's a great resource. We were
really lucky to get them on.
Mostly talk to them becauseJennie and Donna worked together
as school counselor. Yes?
So we, we're cashing in thatparticular chip. Yeah.
(57:50):
Okay, well, I am also going tothrow out for a I'm just going
to say that Iwant to give a shout out to
Brooks Range aviation inbattles. No business interests
or relationship with us, buttheir tour fly into near the air
gets peaks into Gates of theArctic, will explode your
(58:12):
frontal lobe as far yes, thatbeautiful landscape and rugged
could look like. So I'm going togive a shout out to that. But it
is not cheap,and it is very remote. Just
getting to battles itself iskind of a process. So yes, but I
just want to give those guys ashout out, because they do an
(58:32):
amazing job. Yes, and that wouldbe a flight scene tour of Gates
of the Arctic, correct? Yeah.
So,okay, last superlative I'm going
to ask you I thinkbest campsite,
okay, in a national park inAlaska, park in Alaska? Yes,
(58:56):
okay, I am going to allow, sincethis is the last question, I'm
going to allow myself threeanswers. So they have they're
good for different reasons. Sofirst of all, probably the best
campsite anywhere in Alaska'snational parks is definitely
jumbo Creek in rainbow orRainbow Range. What range Elias
(59:20):
National Park. Now this campsiteis a hassle to get to, so that's
why I'm not going to give it asmy only answer. It is It looks
like a campground when you readabout it on the internet, but it
is not. It is a back countrycamp. It's about two miles from
Kennecott, so to get there, youhave to drive or fly to
(59:42):
McCarthy, then you have to get aride out to Kennecott, get a
back country permit, and thenhike for two miles. But once you
do that, it's this beautifullocation with an amazing view of
the Rangel mountains and theroot glacier. So.
So it's super cool, if you canmake that happen. And then my
(01:00:05):
other answer, that's a littleout there, would be the Bartlett
Cove campground in Glacier Bay.
And it's kind of an amazingcampground, because not only is
it free, but they provide water,bear proof, storage you can pay
to take a shower in the lodge.
You can do your laundry in thelodge, and also when you're in
(01:00:29):
your tent at night, if you'resuper lucky, you might hear
whales like breathing inBartlett Cove. And that is just
reallyamazing. I don't really have
words for what that's like. Andhearing birds call and like,
you know, other sea other marinemammals splashing around out
(01:00:52):
there, it's really cool. Butthat's also hard to get to. So
to answer your question, Jay,for one that is easier to get
to, I'm going to say the savageriver campground in Denali.
You can drive to it, and I feellike one drive in, one has to be
on the list here.
It's a really nice alternativeto Riley Creek, which is at the
(01:01:15):
park entrance. It's much quieterand smaller, and it's right next
to the savage river. And thereis a beautiful hike you can do
there, especially in theevening, in the morning, the
light there is just stunning. Soabsolutely, that's going to be
probably my real, real answer,yeah. And I feel like that
savage river one is also, ithas, it just has a different
(01:01:40):
feel than Riley Creek, which,yes,
yep, and Riley Creek is alsogreat, but savage river is just
a really special place. I thinkriver opens and closes
10 jet tends to be open andclosed, later and earlier
respectively. Riley Creek is, isbroader available. Yes, that's
true. Yeah, smaller for it, butthe sites are and the sites are
(01:02:04):
less developed. And I like that.
I'm an off trail hiker and anoff site camper, so I like,
Yeah, but if you, you know,want, like, a perfectly groomed
spot for your tent or whatever,it's not necessarily as good,
but it is a spectacularcampground. Yeah, yes,
definitely,those are pretty good answers.
(01:02:25):
I'll let you I'll let you gowith that.
Thank you.
So as we move towards wrappingup this episode, you know, Jay,
a few minutes ago, you weretalking about the importance of
the human experience in thenational parks, and that these
vast, stunning wildernesslandscapes have also been home
(01:02:49):
to humans for 1000s of years.
And in addition to humans whohave lived in Alaska's parks for
1000s of years, there are alsolots of humans who live in
Alaska's parks now and live andwork there. So could you tell us
just a little bit about some ofthe types of jobs people have in
(01:03:11):
national parks that might not bevisible to a visitor, in the
same way that say Rangers arevisible. Yeah. You know, there's
a lot of cachet with being aranger and and I want to give
full props to those Rangers outthere. There's kind of two wings
of people that we wouldgenerally hear people refer to
(01:03:33):
as a ranger. One is a lawenforcement officer inside the
park service. Generally, that'swhat people mean. If they just
say Ranger, that's a person whohas a law enforcement
credential. They're a badged lawenforcement officer. They will
be carrying a weapon. They'llhave a they'll have training
from the federal government inlaw enforcement. And then
(01:03:54):
there's the Ranger, naturalist,which is the person who's often
working at avisitor center desk or or
leading hikes, that kind ofstuff. That's an interpretive
ranger or a ranger naturalist,but two thirds of the people in
the National Park Service Workin maintenance. It's and it's
(01:04:14):
the unsung. They're the unsungheroes, in my opinion, and then
I'm biased, because my fatherwas a career long maintenance
worker in a national park. Butthese guys work, you know, and
gals, they work hard. Their payis actually generally fairly
low. They, you know, you get thejoke is always you get paid in
(01:04:35):
sunsets. And a lot of folks areseasonal workers, and then they
have to put together work intheir off parts of the year. And
you know, that's that's a lot ofthe real work that gets done is
by these folks. And if you're aperson who has seasonal
availability, think about it.
It's a great way to serve thecountry and be in a beautiful
(01:04:58):
place. And.
And the environment of nationalpark employees, I like a lot.
And I think when, if you listento Donna and Tom's interview in
a few weeks, you'll get a betterfeel for it. And you know, they
can be a little bit likea small family in the better and
the worst ways, but, but, youknow, folks are are driving
trucks and cleaning thecampgrounds and collecting money
(01:05:22):
anddispatch operators and fixing
roads, cutting trees that areabout to fall on camps, like all
that kind of stuff. There's justa lot of work that has to be
done in a national park, and itgoes, it goes kind of unnoticed.
It's always a running joke that,like, people will want to add
(01:05:43):
ranger to their titles for thefor the public recognition,
like, you know, I'm a garbageRanger.
Yeah, I want to also add in justthe sheer number of scientists.
It's a huge mission of theNational Park Service to
understand the national parksbetter. And you know
(01:06:05):
ornithologists and and you knoweverything from the trees to the
birds to the archeologicalhistory, all this stuff, there
are scientists in all the in thenational parks who are doing
amazing research,in a fairly hidden way, really.
So just, I'd love, you know, ifyou when you see stuff in the
(01:06:27):
national parks, you know, justremember, there are a lot of
folks back there making ithappen for you. And and they,
they love it, they love theirwork. And but it's good for you
to to notice them. I thinksometimes, yes, absolutely, so
speaking of noticing andthinking people who have served
(01:06:49):
in the National Park Service, tobring this episode to a close,
Jay and I want to honor duringthis national parks week, the
friends and family that we knowpersonally who have served in
the National Park Service, and afew of these people are Rangers,
most of them have worked. Mostof them are people who've worked
(01:07:13):
in maintenance or inadministration, or are
scientists, or have beenscientists for the National Park
Service, yeah, and we're, yeah,I would love to to, and I, if I
miss anyone, it's notintentional. It's, I'm, I'm just
sometimes kind ofscatterbrained. But I'm gonna,
I'm gonna list off some folksthat that come to mind. Matt
(01:07:35):
enderly, he was just on, well,he will have his his episodes
already played, right? Yeah.
Glacier Bay, I'm and Donnahabecker, who will be on soon,
Dan Otis, who is in DC serving,and that is the most unsung
service in the National ParkService to work in the DC
(01:07:56):
offices. So unsung. Thank you,Dan
for all you do. And you know,maybe we'll have to get him on
the podcast sometime too. Yeah,I think so. Holly O'Dell, she'll
also be on the podcast sometime.
Jeff RAC and Julie isdale, greatarcheologists up in Fairbanks.
(01:08:17):
Natasha slobodina, who hasan absolute rugged woman of the
wild and archeologist, AaronWilson, Andy Tremaine, Christina
Jenson, who died in the fieldand 20 years ago, almost now,
Adam bird, Kirsty Hertel, my mylast boss in the National Park
(01:08:39):
Service,and fellow Park Brad, I want to
say she comes from adistinguished line of National
Park Service heroesand and last but not least,
George Monroe, who was my, sortof, my coach and and role model
when I was a Young Jay. He wasthe boat ranger in Yellowstone,
(01:09:00):
and it really meant a lot to me.
So you want to thank all folksfor the service. They do it. And
finally, Jay's family, Jay'sparents, Ray and Mary, who
raised him in the Park Service,and Jay's sister, Julie and Jay
himself, both Julie and Jay haveboth worked for the National
(01:09:24):
Park Service for many seasons asadults. Thank you so much to all
of you for your service to ourcountry,
and thanks to all of you outthere for listening to Alaska
uncovered. If you like what youheard today, we would love to
have you subscribe to thepodcast so you don't miss any
(01:09:45):
new episodes. You.
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