If you want to visit some of Colorado’s most iconic and beautiful outdoor spots this summer, you’re likely going to need to make a reservation. Park officials say the reservations are needed to manage crowds that are growing bigger every year. “It improves their visitor experience because they’re able to find parking at the sites […]
National Parks
Posted inSunLit, SunLit Interviews
SunLit Interview: Megan Kate Nelson saw a natural jewel, and a metaphor, in “Saving Yellowstone”
Megan Kate Nelson, a Colorado-born graduate of Littleton High School, is a writer and historian living in Lincoln, Massachusetts. She has written about the Civil War, U.S. Western history and American culture for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine and others. She earned her B.A. in history and literature from Harvard University […]
Posted inNews, Outdoors
Interior secretary orders removal of racist terms, aims to change place names
By Susan Montoya Bran, The Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Friday formally declared “squaw” a derogatory term and said she is taking steps to remove it from federal government use and to replace other derogatory place names. Haaland is ordering a federal panel tasked with naming geographic places to […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Rocky Mountain has it. Here’s why more national parks need a reservation system to get in.
If you’re headed out into the wild this summer, you may need to jump online and book a reservation before you go. For the second consecutive year, reservations are required to visit Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, as well as California’s Yosemite and Montana’s Glacier national parks. Other popular sites, including Maine’s Acadia National Park, […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Energy, Environment, News, Politics and Government
Order to close three Colorado coal-fired power plants early reversed, regulators cite “incomplete” information
The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, at the urging of utility companies, did a regulatory two-step on Wednesday, rescinding the order for early closure of three coal-fired power plants that it issued last month. The November decision, made as part of the state’s plan to reduce regional haze at national parks, was based on incomplete […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Outdoors
National Park Service faces $270M wrongful death claim after gate decapitates Colorado woman
By Thomas Peipert, Associated Press The family of a women’s rights activist from Uganda has filed a more than $270 million wrongful death and personal injury claim against the National Park Service after she was decapitated by an unsecured gate at Utah’s Arches National Park. Newlyweds Esther “Essie” Nakajjigo, 25, and Ludovic “Ludo” Michaud, 27, […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Progress is slow on reducing Colorado’s air pollution, but there are signs of movement
A sparsely attended Zoom meeting does not seem the likeliest place in which major shifts in Colorado’s future take place. However, in September, that is exactly where the state adopted first-in-the-nation rules to reduce air pollution and marked a new approach in how this state confronts its air quality problems. For years, Coloradans have suffered […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Let’s celebrate passage of the Great American Outdoors Act. Now we need the CORE Act.
Just for fun, I decided to look up the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) projects in all the places I’ve lived in the United States. What I found is astonishing. From Connecticut to Vermont to New Jersey to D.C. to Avon, Colorado, each has a special place made possible by the LWCF, a bipartisan […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Colorado’s gateways to public lands need help from Congress
Like many parts of the country, Chaffee County has been hit hard by the economic downturn brought on by COVID-19. The spring is a busy time here as an influx of tourism and visitation to our incredible public lands buoy our economy as well as the county’s budget, but we’re missing out on much of […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment, News, Politics and Government
U.S. Senate passes measure to fully fund Land and Water Conservation Fund, tackle National Park maintenance
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a bipartisan bill that would achieve the long-held goal of fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund while also providing money to help tackle the $12 billion maintenance backlog at America’s national parks. Colorado, with its vast public lands and numerous national parks, recreation areas, historic sites and […]