#national parks and monuments

[goingplacesfarandnear]

Utah Adventure Day 3-4: Grand Staircase-Escalante Poses Challenge

Hiking Big Horn Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com By Karen Rubin, with Laini Miranda and Dave E. Leiberman Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is a Delaware-sized museum of sedimentary erosion that takes you down a 200-million-year-old “staircase” – a series of plateaus that descend from…

[lockvogel]

Sunset in White Sands National Park

New Mexico

Have a great weekend, everyone 😊!

[rateducates]

I won't stop sharing this. I simply can't. The American people need to know.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/open-for-business-the-trump-revolution-on-public-lands

[thomaswaynewolf]

[wandering-jana]

Sunset Crater

Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

Flagstaff, Arizona

2018

[housecow]

the acronym for carlsbad cavern national park is CAVE (hilarious) bc otherwise it’d be CACA which is even funnier

[fatchance]

Posts have been very infrequent, but I'm extending my break a little longer for a roadtrip north to Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii. Fresh photos will resume when I return.

[didnt-hear-cold-as-you-live]

oh god I hadn't even thought about this yet, but.... literally kiss the national parks goodbye. Lmao. Zion is going to make great apartment complexes, they're going to drill the fuck out of Gates Of The Arctic for oil. test nukes on White Sands National Park and Great Basin again. etc. The glaciers in Glacier are going to disappear.

[nudityandnerdery]

Our National Park service has some of the best goddamn social media out there.

[esteemed-excellency]

Hi guys i'm back, only relatively sunburned and really happy about the trip ✌️

Here's some pics from my beloved mountains:

[rabbitcruiser]

Clouds (No. 1035)

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park

[ladyaldhelm]

New Mexico Landscape (2012-2014)

[sennetrip]

Monument Valley ✨

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On May 17, the National Park Service officially determined that park rangers and other employees cannot attend Pride festivities and parades in uniform. This decision reverses a long history of allowing such participation and even having official delegation in Pride parades across the United States. Anonymous LGBTQ+ employees report feeling betrayed and note that official Pride participation in major cities is uncertain as multiple parades finalize and applications to participate in parades remain unprocessed. The move comes amid increasing crackdowns on Pride flags and LGBTQ+ people nationwide. In most cases, Republican legislators and appointees have been behind such bans, but this time, it appears the National Park Service, led by a Biden-approved director, is restricting park participation in LGBTQ+ celebrations.

The decision was first disclosed in a memo to NPS employees that did not directly address Pride but stated that “requests from employees asking to participate in uniform in a variety of events and activities, including events not organized by the NPS” conflict with National Park policy. The specific provision cited states that NPS employees cannot wear the uniform to events that would construe support for “a particular issue, position, or political party.” Applying this provision to bar Pride participation drew ire from LGBTQ+ employees who assert that LGBTQ+ Pride is not about an “issue, position, or political party,” but about identity and diversity. Employees also pointed out that the internal ERG guide allowed for participation in Pride events and that park employees had participated in Pride events with approval for years under the current set of rules.

[...] The determination that participation in Pride events could be too political is questionable. The founding documents for Stonewall National Monument relate directly to the “resources and values” of the LGBTQ+ community. Furthermore, National Park Service Resources currently live on the site call for people to “Celebrate Pride,” citing Stonewall National Monument to state that “The LGBTQ experience is a vital facet of America’s rich and diverse past.” This resource emphasizes the importance of not rendering LGBTQ people invisible, stating, “By recovering the voices that have been erased and marginalized, the NPS embarks on an important project to capture and celebrate our multi-vocal past.” By barring employees from wearing pins showing their identities and by pulling out of Pride festivals, the NPS ironically may appear to be erasing and marginalizing its LGBTQ+ employees. National Park Service employees have marched in uniform for years. According to the Bay Area Reporter, in 2014, Christine Lenhertz of the National Park Service requested that a group of LGBTQ+ park service employees be allowed to wear their uniforms in the Pride parade. They were initially banned from doing so, prompting the group to file a complaint. She then sought a ruling from the Office of the Solicitor for the Department of the Interior, who ruled that there was no reason to ban her and other LGBTQ+ people from participating in uniform. Since then, many National Park Service contingents have participated in Pride events.

Shame on you, National Park Service, for caving into anti-LGBTQ+ extremists with this cowardly move to bar their employees from attending Pride parades and events while in their NPS uniforms!

[thomaswaynewolf]

[wandering-jana]

Colorado National Monument, Colorado

April 2019