That is the Schuylkill River at three feet above flood stage and rising.

Our unfinished basement has flooded each of the last three days. Not too bad, just a few inches. Today might be our lucky day. The sun was actually shining.

(moved my flooding images to Quality Images where they should be, sorry for the threadjack)

A friend and I watched "An Inconvenient Truth" Sunday night in Shirlington, VA. 395N was underwater at the Shirlington exit, and full of stalled cars in all lanes. It was sort of surreal looking. We took some back roads, and saw a cab driver on the side of the road, scooping water out of his cab. Luckily, we found our way to another 395N exit, and it was mostly clear the rest of the way.

Shirlington is pretty low-lying. I've been amazed at the seeming randomness of the flooding. The Potomac hasn't really flooded, but many creeks have. I guess the rain has been really heavy in localized areas. Or maybe it just wasn't raining up in the mountains enough to make the big river swell.

I've known for a while that my gutters need attention, but the last few days have really driven that point home.

The obvious question is did you draw any conclusions after just having seen that movie, and then encountering record breaking rainfall in DC?

Record rain in the East. Katrina did a number on our Gulf Coast and New Orleans parks.


http://www.wildfreshness.com/brian/a.../sharknice.jpg
This is in the Everglades

The subject did come up in conversation...

Because it's the terminus of the Appalachian Trail which is managed by the NPS. ;)

I got ya.

There's a lot of blurring of what is a National Park and what isn't. Lots of things that aren't National Parks are administered by the NPS. The urban park across the street from my last office building was administered by the NPS. The guys who emptied the trash cans and mowed the lawn wore NPS uniforms. But I wouldn't call that urine soaked, pigeon infested urban park a national park. To me, a park isn't a National Park unless it has "National Park" as part of its name.

National This, National That
 

National Scenic Riverways
National Seashores
National Scenic Trails
National River And Recreation Areas
National Military Parks
National Historical Parks
Ecological Preserves
National Monuments
National Memorials
National Preservation Areas
National Historic Sites

All administered by by the NPS.

And there are probably other types I don't know about.:neutral:

I heart the NPS. Some years ago while exploring the North Georgia Mountains, I stumbled across a very tiny spot of land under NPS management. The trail was barely noticeable off the side of the road, but once you hiked into the woods for several minutes, you came across this sight.

And, unlike the majority of other waterfalls in the area, you could actually get close enough to cool off in the water. One of the great beauties of the NPS is that you're free to explore most areas without handrails or walkways, meaning that you can really enjoy the area as long as you are careful and respectful. (Hey -- you're also free to die doing incredibly stupid things, too! Nothing prevents you from taking a tumble off the edge.)

Oops, I Slipped
 

You got that right, Kit. Perhaps the most notable cliff incident is when a base jumper, protesting our new rule to prohibit base jumping in our parks, jumped off El Capitan in Yosemite (to her death). So much for that argument.

This Summer is looking to be notable for NPS death::neutral:


On the morning of Thursday, June 22nd, 43-year-old Juanita Richardson of McBain, Michigan, fell from a cliff above Lake Superior about a half mile southwest of Miners Castle. Richardson was picnicking along the cliffs with her husband when the incident occurred. He ran to the visitor information center at Miners Castle to report the incident to park staff. Personnel from the park, the Alger County Sheriff's Department, the Michigan State Police, and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources extricated Richardson from a rock ledge near Lake Superior. She was transported by Alger County Ambulance to Munising Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival. The investigation is continuing.

A visitor from Michigan slipped and fell to her death north of the Tower Fall area around 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. The 52-year-old woman, her husband, and their two children had stopped at an overlook along the road about three-quarters of a mile north of the Tower Fall area. The woman stepped over a small rock retaining wall to take a photo, lost her footing, slipped down an embankment, then went over a cliff. She fell about 500 feet, coming to rest near the Yellowstone River. The woman’s husband flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911 for help. Responding rangers could see the woman through a spotting scope lying immobile on the canyon floor. High, fast-moving water prevented rescuers from reaching the woman by raft, so a ranger rappelled down the canyon wall to reach the woman. She was declared dead at the scene. Her body was then placed in a litter suspended by cable from a helicopter and flown out of the area on Saturday afternoon.

On the afternoon of June 8th, rangers and members of the Mesa County technical rescue team recovered a body near a wrecked vehicle approximately 200 feet below Rim Rock Drive in Red Canyon. The suicide most likely occurred on May 18th. On that day, rangers received notice that a 49-year-old Grand Junction man was threatening to drive off a cliff near Cold Shivers Point. An immediate search was conducted in the Cold Shivers Point area and along Rim Rock Drive, but rangers found no signs of a vehicle going over the edge. On the morning of June 8th, a park volunteer was picking up litter near Rim Rock Drive when he noticed a white vehicle in Red Canyon. Rangers, Mesa County Sheriff’s Office deputies, and the Colorado State Patrol officers are investigating.

Red Rock Canyon, just outside Las Vegas, was astounding in terms of how easy it was to take a fall and meet your death. Living in the southeast for so long, I've become accustomed to gauging distance through visual cues that are assisted through humidity: for me, it's easy to see something is far away by how faded it appears and how obscured it is by the heavy air. In the desert, however, that doesn't exist, so stepping off a trail along the canyon wall seemed like it would be a nasty fall to the next ledge below, but probably not a big one.

...until I squinted and saw dots.
Tiny, tiny dots.
Dots that were trees.
Huge trees.
Down there. Waaay down there.

No fence, no rail, no safety guides to prevent anyone from taking one step down, down, down. NPS won't yell at you for taking risks on the trails, won't put up barriers preventing people from climbing loose rock walls or plunging down a waterfall. In our age of warning labels declaring hot coffee and lawsuits over people attempting stupid stunts they see on TV, I find it amazing that places like this still exist. It's also comforting, in a way, that I can trek out into the wilderness and enjoy it the way it really is. People that abuse the areas and do stupid things get what is coming to them.

Death Valley was originally a National Monument and not a National Park. As a NM it was still open to mining -- both corporate and individual prospecting. And to livestock. As a NP (~1990) it is now offlimits to mining but also offlimits to 'open' camping. I used to go there alot and camp -- zero impact camping (no fires, no offroading) -- off any established road. You can't do that any more. You must camp in established, parkinglot campgrounds (ugh).

But, on the other hand, it is now more protected from the 'maximum' impact offroading types. So, fo me it's a mixed blessing.