Archive for the ‘Best of the National Parks’ Category

National Parks factoid of the day

Friday, April 23rd, 2010
What percentage of the U.S. surface area is designated as national park?

Answer: 3.5%

There are 58 U.S. national parks. The largest is the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska, which is two-and-a-half times the size of the country of Wales.

You can find a few other interesting factoids by clicking on this U.K. Independent article.


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, hiking gear store, and more.

Posted in Best of the National Parks, Wrangell-St Elias, alaska | Comments Off

In case you missed it the 1st time: America’s Best Idea

Thursday, January 14th, 2010
The National Park Service announced this morning that the Ken Burns’ series, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” will return for an encore broadcast on PBS this month, with the first episode airing on January 27th. It will then appear on consecutive Wednesdays through March 3rd.

The series, which premiered this past September, was the second most-watched series on PBS over the last decade. It reached a total audience of 33.4 million viewers. The most-watched series was “The War,” also produced by Burns, which attracted a total audience of 37.8 million viewers.

“The National Parks” had a huge online presence as well. Its web site was the most visited program page on PBS.org during the week of broadcast and had 544,000 unique visitors between September 1st and October 31st, with 2.5 million page views in the same period. The program’s Facebook fan page boasted more than 50,000 fans by the time of the broadcast. There were more than 185,000 streams of the episodes during the two weeks they were available, making it the most-watched program on the PBS Video Portal during the week of broadcast, with viewers watching on average at least 55 minutes of the full episodes online. In comparison, the average online viewer watches only six minutes per video of content on Hulu.

Since its release on October 6, the series’ DVD set has been a best-seller at many national retailers. “The National Parks” also launched PBS’ first general-audience iPhone application, which highlighted the series, behind-the-scenes information and more.

The companion book, written by Dayton Duncan, introduced by Ken Burns and published by Alfred A. Knopf, Burns’ longtime publisher, spent seven weeks on The New York Times best-seller list.


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, hiking gear store, and more.

Posted in America's Best Idea, Best of the National Parks, dayton duncan, ken burns, pbs | Comments Off

Mammoth Cave – A Way to Wonder

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
On Sunday, October 4, southcentral Kentuckians will have an opportunity to see Mammoth Cave National Park as they never have before, and they won’t have to leave home to do it. WKYU-PBS, Channel 24, will broadcast a virtual visit to the far reaches of the park in a one-hour high-definition documentary called Mammoth Cave: A Way to Wonder.

“The staff at WKYU-PBS presented the park with a rare opportunity and we jumped at it,” said Superintendent Patrick Reed. “The program reveals the story of the cave, and reminds us of why this place was set aside as a national park. We are very grateful to the Friends of Mammoth Cave National Park, Bluegrass Cellular, and the Kentucky Department of Tourism, all of whom provided funding for the project.”

The idea arose from conversations between the station’s Emmy Award winning-producer Cheryl Beckley and the park’s information officer, Vickie Carson in August 2008.

“Several things came together that led us to doing this documentary,” said Beckley, “like the convergence of the Ken Burns series on the National Park Service, the new six-mile lighting system in Mammoth Cave, the 20th anniversary of WKYU-PBS, and the advent of HD technology. It was the right time for a project like this to happen.”

“There is always a need to find a better way to explain the cave and share its beauty,” said Carson. “Even though the cave is the major feature of the park, it’s hidden and dark and mysterious. The cave is a delicate, foreign environment – connected to the surface world, but very different from it. Our task is to both protect and explain it.”

Beckley developed and directed the program, which contains four segments: history and prehistory; science and research; the park’s power to inspire; and compelling human stories of the cave and parkland. Each segment features interviews that together convey a holistic picture of the park.

The film crew traveled to the park repeatedly over 12 months to video-tape eyeless fish, delicate gypsum crystals, cave tours, kayakers, sunsets, spring wildflowers, fall color, endangered bats, and waterfalls both above and below ground – in all more than 60 hours of footage and interviews.

Mammoth Cave: A Way to Wonder will air on WKYU-PBS Channel 24 on October 4 at 8:00 p.m., and then again at 9:00 p.m. It will follow Ken Burns’ America’s Best Idea which will air during the prior week.

For those of you not in the WKYU viewing area, the DVD can be purchsed by clicking here.

Although not related to the film, you can get a pretty good overview of Mammoth Cave from this Youtube video:




Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, and more.

Smoky Mountain Day Hikers Store Quality gear and apparel from some of the best outdoor brands.

Posted in A Way to Wonder, Best of the National Parks, Kentucky, Mammoth Cave, WKYU-PBS | Comments Off