Service in Virgin Islands National Park

Earlier this month, I checked off an item on my bucket list and went on my first service/volunteer trip. I went to Virgin Islands National Park ("VINP") as part of a national trip organized by the Sierra Club, and I helped restore hiking trails and uncover historic plantation ruins. We also had plenty of free time for hiking and snorkeling. Needless to say, it was the trip of a lifetime.

I first visited VINP in August 2016, and as I wrote in my blog post then, I did not have high hopes for the Virgin Islands. It had been my first "beach" trip, and I had been skeptical. However, I discovered how much I loved snorkeling, and the park took up a special place in my heart.

In September 2017, the Virgin Islands were devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and VINP shut down for three months. Much of the islands lost electricity and basic services, including communication. The Sierra Club had a service trip planned for early 2018, but it had to be cancelled because there was not enough infrastructure in the park to support any short-term volunteers. So in August 2018, when the Sierra Club opened registration for their March 2019 trip, I signed up right away. I even convinced my friend, Hannah, to join me. And six months later, I returned to the Virgin Islands.

"99 Steps" in Charlotte Amalie

We arrived to St. John by ferry, and then we drove to our campsite inside VINP. The campsite had been built specifically for service groups to use by the Friends of the VINP, a non-profit organization. Camp consisted of about eight 12'x12' tents with cots inside them. Each tent was set up on a raised platform and had a tarp "roof" over it. There was a kitchen with a small stove and plenty of coolers. There were also three of the cleanest port-a-potties I had ever seen and a gravity-powered shower and sink. For a camp, it was nice. Lastly, I did not have cell phone service in the park. Only people with AT&T seemed to get any service.

Service Camp near Cinnamon Bay

We worked on the trails four out of the five days we were in the park. On our first day, we worked on the Lameshur Bay Trail to Europa Bay on the southeast side of the island. Our work consisted of opening up the trails by cutting back overgrown plants, bushes, and trees. We ate lunch at Europa Bay before finishing up for the day.

Europa Bay

For our next two days of service, we worked on uncovering the Murphy Estate House ruins near Leinster Point on the north side of the island. The ruins were covered in weeds and ivy when we arrived, but by the end of our second day, much of the stone had been uncovered. The best part was looking back toward the ruins as we hiked back to the trailhead, and we could see the uncovered stone from afar. Before, they had been covered in vines and blended in with the green hillside.

Working on the Murphy Estate House Ruins

On our last day of service, we worked on the Brown Bay Trail from Hermitage on the northeast side of the island. I really enjoyed getting to see some of the less-visited parts of the island, which I had missed during my last visit.

On our day off, we went snorkeling at Haulover Bay, and it was awesome! There was lots of coral reef on the north side of the island, and I saw so many different kinds of fish. I also snorkeled at Maho Bay and Waterlemon Bay on our afternoons off. Maho Bay was great for seeing sea turtles, but that was about it. In Waterlemon Bay, I saw Southern Stingrays, a giant porcupinefish, and more fish. And lots of sea urchins with very pointy spikes.

We also hiked the Cinnamon Bay Trail, which was very steep, and visited the ruins on America Hill, which was worth the hike.

Ruins at America Hill

Working and camping inside the park for a week allowed me to get to the know the park at a deeper level. I do not know any other parks this well at this point. I also learned a lot about the park's origins and recovery efforts from the Friends organization staff. I feel even more connected to the park now than I did after my first trip. And I hope the park continues to recover, as well as the rest of the Virgin Islands.

Overlooking Leinster Bay

2018 NPS Visitor Use Statistics

The National Park System recently released their Visitor Use Statistics for 2018 (party time for me). Here are some of my observations and comments.

Overall, the NPS (with 379 units reporting) saw a 3.8% decrease in visitation from 2017 to 2018. One contributing factor may have been the U.S. government shutdown, which began on December 22, 2018 and caused inaccurate data for December 2018. However, December tends to be a slow month for the majority of parks, so I doubt that this was the primary factor. My impression is that environmental events caused most of the decrease in visitation; I will discuss some of these possible factors below.

I will focus on National Parks here, but I wanted to highlight how important National Parks are within the National Park System. While only 61 out of 417 national park system units are designated as National Parks, they account for over one-quarter of visitation.

The top 10 most-visited parks did not see any newcomers or any major changes in rankings. Here are the top 10 most-visited national parks of 2018:

Contrast this with the bottom 10 least-visited parks (note the scale):

Within the top 10, notable decreases in visitation included:

• Zion (-4%)
• Yosemite (-8%)
• Olympic (-9%)
• Glacier (-10%)

Zion may have suffered from flooding and mudslides that caused road closures and also the closure of the Angels Landing trail, one of the most popular trails in the park. The trail closed in early July and re-opened in late September.

Yosemite closed due to major fires and suffered from heavy smoke from nearby fire for much of July and August.

Olympic may have also been impacted by smoke from nearby fires, although I haven't been able to find exact records of this, and Glacier was also impacted by fires and smoke.

Outside of the top 10, notable decreases in visitation included:

• Virgin Islands (63%)
• Hawaii Volcanoes (45%)
• Everglades (41%)

Virgin Islands continued to rebuild after the devastation of Hurricane Irma in 2017. For the last quarter of 2017 (green bars) and for most of 2018 (orange bars), rangers were unable to get accurate visitor counts at the park.

Hawaii Volcanoes closed when Kilauea Volcano erupted in late April 2018.

Not all parks saw decreases in 2018, however. Notable increases in visitation included:

• Death Valley (30%)
• Wrangell-St. Elias (16%)
• Glacier Bay (9%)
• Arches (8%)
• Mount Rainier (7%)
• Capitol Reef (7%)

Death Valley saw large increases in many months in 2018, and they also noted being directly impacted by Yosemite's closure, as diverted visitors opted for Death Valley instead.

Overall, I see the effects of the 2016 "Find Your Park" campaign wearing off as well as environmental factors impacting some of our most popular parks. Still, the most popular parks continue to stay on top.

My travel plans for 2019 include trips to Virgin Islands National Park (second time!) and Voyageurs National Park (first time!). These are two of the least visited parks in the system (ranked 51 and 46 in visitation, respectively), but I am excited to experience these "hidden gems."

I also have plans to re-visit the newly re-designated Indiana Dunes National Park, which is now the closest national park to Chicago. I know its re-designation had its opponents, but I am all for more national parks and more protections against development, mining, and pollution. And northwest Indiana could certainly use these. I will post another article about Indiana Dunes, more about its re-designation, soon.

Gateway Arch National Park: A Discussion

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial was re-designated as Gateway Arch National Park in February 2018. From the perspective of someone who stays well-informed about national park news, this re-designation was extremely downplayed and frankly, felt under the table. Most national park "purists" deemed the arch and its surrounding urban memorial to be unworthy of the "National Park" moniker, which places it in the company of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon, among others (61 total now).

To clarify, the U.S. National Park System has over 400 units, including memorials, monuments, lake shores, and historic sites. Some of these units are designated to protect exceptional natural beauty and resources, while others are designated to commemorate historic achievements. National Parks are the most esteemed among this group, as they are the most difficult to designated and also the most difficult to dissolve. Due to this distinction, National Parks, as opposed to National Monuments or National Memorials, receive more fame, more visitors, and more funding (in general).

Not all National Parks are on the same level as Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon. For example, Great Smoky Mountains National Park receives over 11 million visitors annually, and on the other end of the spectrum, six national parks located in Alaska receive fewer than 500,000 visitors annually - combined. Even so, these Alaskan units provide protections to 32 million acres of important natural resources.

Gateway Arch, on the other hand, provides no such protections. It is a man-made structure surrounded by about 90 acres of made-man park in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. The memorial was built to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase and the subsequent exploration west of the Mississippi River.

The general consensus (again, among the purists) was that Gateway Arch was re-designated solely as an attempt by local politicians to boost tourism ($) in St. Louis. They worry that politicians are trying to take advantage of the "National Park" name to lure otherwise uninterested visitors.

My personal opinion is that National Parks are, overall, a good thing, and the more, the merrier. Even if this means tarnishing or "cheapening" the National Park name. I worry about the idea that national parks are being created/designated more often based on political lobbying as opposed to environmental urgency. I also warn all the "patch-collectors" of the Instagram world to open their minds to a different type of National Park when checking Gateway Arch off their bucket-lists.

Now, how has the re-designation of Gateway Arch impacted its visitation? Let's take a look below:

On average, monthly visitation increased by about 36% from 2017 to 2018. But that included a large uptick in July 2018, when Fair St. Louis returned to the Gateway Arch grounds after a four-year absence.

Before Gateway Arch, there were already a handful of national parks that seemed to top the list of "most undeserving national parks," including Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas and Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. Granted, if these parks were located in any western state, they would be at the level of a state park, not a national one. The Midwest is severely lacking in natural marvels, so standards are noticeably lower. In my next post, I will discuss the recent re-designation of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, which became the 61st National Park in February 2019.