North Cascades National Park reduces permit fee, Yeti acquires Mystery Ranch

Home to Mt. Shuksan, Ross Lake, and Lake Chelan, North Cascades National Park sits just south of the border between Canada and Washington state, some three-ish hours east of Seattle. Almost all of its 500,000 acres are protected as wilderness, so it’s one of the least developed parks in the country – its glaciers, peaks, and forests therefore a backpacker’s paradise when the snow’s not too deep.

Accessing North Cascades just got a little cheaper, too. Whereas backcountry permits used to cost $20 (with a non-refundable $6 fee), the system has been overhauled completely. Now, it’s just a $10 charge per person (with the same $6 fee), though kids 15 years of age and younger can now access the backcountry for free.

(Did I say ‘cheaper?’ I suppose it’s now cheaper to backpack by yourself, but if you’re heading out with 3 others in your group, the cost just doubled. I wonder if North Cascades ever heard of the concept of Venmo? I digress.)

In other news of note within the outdoor industry, cooler titan Yeti just acquired backpack manufacturer Mystery Ranch in a deal that has yet to disclose its overall cost. While I have never personally toted a Mystery Ranch pack on a trip, they’ve been almost universally well reviewed, and they’ve got specific lines that have become favorites of both firefighters and certain portions of the military. What I do also know is that Mystery Ranch’s co-founders were also the co-founders of OG backpack company Dana Design, who produced some of the earliest well-made internal frame packs a generation ago.

(Disclaimer: I’m an RTIC cooler owner, not a Yeti cooler owner.)

Also from the National Park Service: two ‘new-to-science’ species of extinct shark species were recently discovered at Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park. Let us welcome Troglocladodus trimblei and Glikmanius careforum to the nomenclature!

Today, February 1st, is the official birthday of the US Forest Service!

On this day in 1905, President Roosevelt signed the act that created the US Forest Service. Go enjoy the beauty of your public lands! pic.twitter.com/o8LpknERI6

— Forest Service NW (@ForestServiceNW) February 1, 2024

I’m just about finished reading Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn, a book about the first big-time forest fire dealt with by the nascent Forest Service. In 1910, a lightning strike ignited a super-dry northern Idaho, and you may recall this was a time in US history when every single building out west was slapped together out of wood. Bad things happened, the Forest Service – which was horribly underfunded by a congress that hated the idea of conservation in the face of Big Business – was outmanned, and the way in which we attempt to live next to the forests changed forever. It’s a great read, and I’d highly recommend!

Finally, today’s the first day that Grand Canyon National Park will begin to accept non-commercial applications to raft the Colorado River through the park in calendar year 2025. This won’t impact you if you’re simply interested in calling a licensed guide service and telling them you want to float through the most gorgeous stretch of river in the American southwest, but if you’ve got your own boat and want to navigate it yourself, you’ve got to go through the system and hope you land one of the 482 permits they’ll give out all year.

(Feet courtesy of me.)

I was lucky enough to raft through a portion of the canyon with my dad when I was 17, camping along the sandy shores of the Colorado each night. I also spent a week backpacking through the canyon with several nights spent riverside along the Escalante Route, and can vouch for the fact that it’s one of the more spectacular spots to camp on the planet. I am no super-experienced boatsman, but I can only imagine this trip is one for the bucket list of everyone with a paddle.