When reporters explore National Parks, stories and trails abound

A hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from California through Oregon to Washington state. (Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management, Flickr Creative Commons via SEJ)

For journalists looking for a break from the grind, taking a National Park excursion might be an assignment worth requesting. "Tell your editor you have to do it for work," writes Joseph A. Davis for the Society of Environmental Journalists. "It doesn’t have to be a long hike, necessarily. But it’s a good way to meet other hikers to interview."

Before setting out, it's worth considering which kind of park your audience would find most interesting. Davis explains, "There are four kinds of national trails: scenic, historic, recreational and side trails. To be officially named historic or scenic, a specific stretch of trail must be designated by Congress."

Besides intriguing people stories that can be gleaned while hiking over hill and dale, regaling readers with the history of America's National Park system, which includes 1,300 trails, also provides good storytelling fodder. "It goes back to Daniel Boone, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, really. Read Thoreau’s essay, 'Walking.'" Davis adds. "President Lyndon B. Johnson gets big credit for the enactment in 1968 of the National Trails System Act."

For community journalists ready to don their hiking gear, sunscreen and EPA-approved insect repellent, an adventure and several stories await. Story ideas by Davis are shared below:

• The system includes some long-distance trails, like the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail. Spend some time on the trails (or at a good shelter). Talk to day hikers and through hikers. Explore their culture. You may need to get a trail name.
• The system doesn’t just include hiking trails. Some are also meant for biking, paddling or historical tourism. Talk to biking and paddling groups about their experiences. The Harriet Tubman trail network on Maryland’s Eastern Shore includes a fine museum on the Underground Railroad.
• Trails are often maintained by local or regional volunteer groups, like the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. Attend one of their maintenance events and talk to volunteers and organizers. Bring a shovel.
• Where the trail crosses a major road, there may be a handy grocery or ice cream store. Hang out there during the heat of the day and talk to hikers coming in. 
• Not all the great trails are in the system. Find the ones near you. For example, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa pulls in riders from all over the United States. It’s hot in July, but there’s great support. 
• The Anacostia Water Trail is an officially designated part of the trail system. It’s short. But if you look … beyond, you will find it’s just one of many other (often nonfederal) water trails, which are a great way of exploring stories in your ecoregion.

Davis suggests these resources:

• Rails to Trails Conservancy: A nonprofit membership group that advocates conversion of abandoned rail rights of way into hiker and biker trails.
• American Hiking Society: A nonprofit membership and advocacy group whose members like to hike.
• National Park Service: The main agency coordinating the National Trails System. It has maps.
• State parks and recreation agencies: These usually manage state trails. Find yours in this directory.

Blazing the 12,000-mile American Perimeter Trail has been a risky proposition for a hiker from Oregon

McKendrick (Photo by Ryan Brennecke, Bend Bulletin)

Creating the longest American hiking trail can be a risky proposition, as a 40-year-old man from Bend, Oregon, has discovered in 15 months of trying to blaze the American Perimeter Trail, which would be a route of 12,000 miles or so connecting the four corners (loosely defined) of the contiguous states.

"He had guns pulled on him twice in Texas. A tree fell on him in Michigan while he was sleeping in a hammock. In North Dakota, driving snowstorms and a severe illness finally brought Rue McKendrick’s 15-month long trek around the United States to an end," at least for the time being, reports Mark Morical of The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon.

APT coordinator Leilah Grace told Morical that the goal of the APT is “a protected corridor of land and natural resources available for recreational use roughly tracing the continental United States.”

The trail uses several existing trails, such as the Pacific Crest Trail and the Arizona Trail, and McKenrick used much of them, but in Texas there is little public land, and "Twice he had to talk his way out of confrontations as folks pulled guns on him for trespassing on their property."

In March, when McKenrick crossed the Mississippi River into Natchez, "He found it odd that the town was completely empty. Busy hiking and with little access to news, he had not heard about the pandemic. . . . The Appalachian Trail was closed due to the pandemic, so McKenrick followed his own route on the west side of the mountain range. . . . After slogging his way across Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, he eventually turned west into Ohio.

“Before I crossed into Michigan I had a tree fall on me and I broke a toe,” he said. “I was asleep in a hammock when it happened. It was a bad storm and the tree knocked me clean out. It hit me in the head and I also separated my shoulder.” He "nursed himself back to health in a hotel for four or five days," but "by the time he reached Duluth, Minnesota, he was extremely sick with a stomach ailment," Morical writes. :He went to a hospital where he got an IV and some medications. He headed back out yet again but as he got closer to Montana, the snow, the cold and his illness became too much."

McKendrick plans to complete the loop in the spring, again with the help of hiking-gear outfits that are sponsoring him. And he hopes the pandemic will have eased.

“It was more about the people before covid hit,” McKenrick told Morical. “After that it changed dramatically. I don’t look at backpacking as much as a sport as I do an art. When I was traveling through the South and Southeast before covid, I was running into all these microcultures, which were just fascinating. America is a lot more diverse culturally. It’s something that you can see when you’re traveling at the speed of walking. It’s easier to see these things and to meet these people.”

Supreme Court hears arguments about pipeline; justices in majority seem sympathetic to energy companies

Atlantic Coast Pipeline proposed route (Associated Press map)

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday about whether a lower court was right to toss a key permit needed for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross under the Appalachian Trail. The court seems poised to rule for the natural-gas pipeline developers; most justices expressed skepticism about the lower court's ruling, Denise Lavoie reports for The Associated Press.

In 2018, the Richmond-based Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "found the U.S. Forest Service did not have the authority to grant a right-of-way to allow the pipeline to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail in the George Washington National Forest" on the Virginia-West Virginia border, Lavoie reports. "The Fourth Circuit found that the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act allows rights-of-way for pipelines on federal land, except for land in the National Park System." The court found that the trail is a unit of the system, so the service has no the authority to approve a right-of-way. Only Congress can approve such a crossing, the environmental groups argued.

But conservative justices in the Supreme Court's 5-4 majority were hesitant about upholding the appeals court's ruling, and "expressed concern that concluding that no federal agency can grant easements for pipeline projects on lands crossed by the trail within national forests could erect a roadblock to energy infrastructure projects," Lavoie reports.

Attorney Michael Kellogg, who represents the environmental groups, noted that 55 pipelines run under the Appalachian Trail, 19 of them laid on federal land before the Appalachian Trail was designated as a national scenic trail under the National Trails System Act in 1968, Lavoie reports.

"The narrow question before the Supreme Court is whether the Forest Service has the authority to grant rights-of-way through lands crossed by the Appalachian Trail within national forests," Lavoie reports. Lead pipeline developer Dominion Energy and the federal government "say the Trails System Act did not transfer lands crossed by the trail to the National Park Service. They argue that although the Park Service is charged with overall administration of the trail, the actual lands crossed by the trail within national forests remain under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service."

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant helps Cumberland Plateau in Tenn.; Ky. adds to Pine Mtn. trail

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is giving $1.3 million to several nonprofits and a Tennessee state agency to restore habitat on the Cumberland Plateau.

“The grants will engage more than 1,400 private landowners through outreach and assistance and will be matched to bring the total to $2.6 million. The groups will largely work with landowners of large properties to teach proper land management skills,” Mark Pace reports for the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Image from Flickr.com; click on it to enlarge

Jay Jensen, the foundation's southern regional office director, said, "From our standpoint, for that whole region, the Cumberland Plateau is one amazing place for wildlife.”

The foundation's annual Cumberland Plateau Stewardship Fund works to “restore, enhance and protect shortleaf pine and riparian forests and in-stream habitats in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee.” Riparian refers to forested or woodland areas adjacent to a body of water such as a stream, river or pond.

The projects covered by the grants will focus on the plateau’s shortleaf pine and oak stands. “Their ecosystems have dwindled due to forest conversion, a lack of prescribed fire, disease and pest infestation. That loss converted much of the land to heavily forested area and contributed to the decline of bird species such as Bachman's sparrow, brown-headed nuthatch and prairie warbler,” the Times Free Press reported.

Appalachian plateaus (ImusGeographics.com)

The Cumberland Plateau is the southern portion of the Appalachian Plateaus and includes most of Eastern Kentucky (where it is more eroded, making it more mountainous), much of East Tennessee and parts of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia.

In a separate conservation project, the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund has acquired 2,040 forested acres to provide “hiking, birding and other passive recreation opportunities, as well as conserve a habitat for rare species, including the federally listed Northern long-eared bat and several state-listed plants,” the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet announced.

The acreage is part of the Pine Mountain State Scenic Trail in Bell County and provides the closest access from Pineville, where the Cumberland River cuts through Pine Mountain, on the western edge of the Ridge and Valley Belt of the Appalachian Mountains, just east of the plateaus.

“Pine Mountain is truly one of Kentucky’s natural treasures, and the Pine Mountain Trail plays an important role in helping folks experience and enjoy the mountain,” Zeb Weese, KHLCF chairman and executive director of the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves, said in a news release.