Photo by filo

– Doug McConnell

It’s very hard for me to believe, still feeling pretty darn young, that I moved to Alaska 35 years ago this coming June. Wow. Where did the time go? Too busy enjoying life, I guess.

I lived in Alaska 9 years before finally heading back to the lower ‘48. I get back quite a bit and have had the chance to travel far and wide in the state. Over the years, I’ve come to identify Sitka as one of my favorite towns. Its history is very present, its setting is spectacular, and its modern sophistication may surprise you. I’ve had the chance to visit Sikta many times and could easily imagine living there full-time.

One of my trips was with our terrific TV crew and a dear old friend, Bill Wheaton, some years back. I hope you enjoy our Sitka, Alaska’s Russian & Tlingit Heritage and please send us descriptions of yours whenever you can. Then see some of our other OpenRoad.TV adventures in Alaska including Alaska’s Denali National Park and Alaska’s Kenai Fjords and plan your next trip right away.

Photo by angeal

– Doug McConnell

One of my favorite regions on earth is the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. It embraces a huge and magnificent territory including Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. I’ve been traveling there since I was very little. I’ve been there in every season and never tire of the landscape, its history and its wildness.

Some years ago, it got a little wilder when wolves, once exterminated in the region, were reintroduced after years of contention and controversy. The return of the wolves has not been cheered by one and all. Their return has been challenged by local ranchers and others. Emotions have run high on all sides and legitimate debates about the fate of the wolves have ensued over the years.

I suppose it’s easy for an outsider to say, but I’ve favored bringing the wolves back home to Yellowstone for a very long time. They belong in these mountains and they help complete the ecosystem. I’ve lived in wild places around the West, and the presence of wolves has always moved and inspired me. The first time I ever saw a wolf was on a lonely road late one night many years ago in Alberta, Canada. I was driving to Alaska and the wolf, in a sense, welcomed me to the wildness ahead before loping off into its dark domain. That moment remains etched in my memory.

We human beings have initiated the earth’s greatest extinction episode in 65 million years. It heartens me to see us try, here and there, to reverse the tide. We’ve taken so much of nature out, it’s good to see us put at least one piece back where we found it.

I hope you enjoy a journey we took, early one morning, to YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK AND WOLVES. Then check out another of our other stories about the region: GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK.

Photo by Utyf

– Doug McConnell

I gave a talk recently at a California Heritage Tourism Conference in Monterey, and was told by one of the attendees that Moaning Caverns in California’s Gold Country near Columbia State Historic Park and Sonora, has added a new and very fast feature to its offerings. You can see me and my son, Patrick, repelling into the Moaning Caverns but now we’ll have to get back try out a zip line that apparently rockets from the hill directly above the Caverns down towards a canyon far below. It sounds like a heck of a lot of fun. Here’s a link to the Moaning Caverns website.

Photo by Stacy Geiken

–Doug McConnell

Yosemite National Park is one of my favorite places and I’ve been there hundreds of times since I was a little kid. I camped out there and stayed in hotels, motels and trailers. I like to spend the night inside the Park whenever I can, but there are some excellent accommodations just outside of Yosemite’s boundary, too.

Down Highway 120 back towards San Francisco half an hour or so The Groveland Hotel is an historic spot, just look out for the ghosts. Closer to the Park and just off of Highway 120 near the Hetch-Hetchy Reservoir, the Evergreen Lodge is a terrific base camp for exploring Yosemite and its surrounds. Just beyond the Park’s southern edge on Highway 41, the Tenaya Lodge is a comfortable retreat to hunker down in between forays in Yosemite. On the east side of the Park, at the foot of Tioga Pass and by the shore of Mono Lake, the town of Lee Vining has a variety of good overnight options as does El Portal on the Park’s west side along Highway 140.

Our good friend and my colleague at KRON TV in San Francisco, Stanley Roberts, has written an excellent piece about a lodge in El Portal. Thanks, Stanley, and stay tuned here because we’ll soon be posting a story we shot with Stanley back in San Francisco. He takes us to some of his favorite eateries in the City, places he found working on his own terrific website, www.we8there.com. Check it out, take a look at Stanley’s hotel tip in El Portal and then get to Yosemite as quickly and as often as you possibly can. Tell us where you stay and what you like.

– Doug McConnell

Photo: Big Basin Scenery by Dylan Duverge

California’s first state park was Big Basin established in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 1902. In the 106 years since, California has assembled an extraordinary collection of parks, recreational areas, historic sites and open spaces of all kinds. We feature many of California’s State Parks right here (for example, Bodie and the Wild West, Glen Ellen’s Heart and Wine, Mt. Tamalpais’ Land and Legends, Hearst Castle and Ranch) and we’ll add many more in the weeks to come.

When I was growing up in California in the decades right after World War II, Californians seemed to me to be united on a couple of major issues almost regardless of their political affiliations. Time-after-time Republicans and Democrats alike voted to add new parks to California’s growing system and take good care of the ones we had. My parents, for instance, were very conservative Republicans, but they were proud of our world-class public park system and our best-in-the-nation public schools.

Now, unfortunately, California finds its public schools far from the top of the national heap and its parks in deep financial trouble. Some parks face (more…)

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See our Glen Ellen Heart and Wine video.