Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve is the largest national park in the U.S. — 13.2 million acres that almost never got protected at all. In this episode, Susan and Monica dig into the Russian explorer the park is named after, the 1978 deadline that nearly opened the land to development, and the wild story of Kennicott: a copper mining town that made $200 million in ore and then vanished almost overnight. Plus: the infamous 60-mile, pothole-filled McCarthy Road, hiking the north side's Caribou Trail, and an honest debate about whether the trip out to Kennicott is actually worth it.

Featured: Kennicott Mining Town, McCarthy Road, Caribou Trail, Wrangell & St. Elias Mountain Ranges

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Chamizal National Memorial doesn't look like much — until you learn a flood moved a river, stranded a piece of Mexico inside U.S. territory, and kicked off a border dispute that took 99 years, two presidents, and a concrete channel to finally settle. In this episode, Susan and Monica dig into the 1864 flood that started it all, the human cost of relocating 5,000 El Paso residents to make the border permanent, and why Chamizal is one of only two NPS sites in the country honoring a peacefully resolved international boundary dispute (the other? Washington's "Pig War" island).

📍 Featured: Chamizal Visitor Center & Museum, the U.S.–Mexico border crossing, the only NPS site flying both flags together

🥾 Also mentioned: San Juan Island National Historical Park (WA)

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Denali National Park almost wasn't named for the mountain at all — the whole thing got saved because one guy in the early 1900s wouldn't stop fighting to protect the Dall sheep from overhunting. In this episode, we dig into how Denali became a national park in 1917 (as Mount McKinley National Park), how it tripled in size to over 6 million acres under Jimmy Carter in 1980, and the messy, ongoing fight over what to call the mountain itself.

We also cover the wild story of the Pretty Rocks Landslide — permafrost that was moving up to 14 inches a day and swallowing the park's only road — and the brand-new bridge engineers built to span it. Plus: how to actually plan a Denali trip (spoiler: you only need one day inside the park), where to go for the best mountain views, and what to do outside the park boundary when you're done.

🎒 Featured: Denali (the mountain), Denali Park Road, the Pretty Rocks Bridge, Dall sheep, sled dog kennels, George Parks Highway viewpoints

🥾 Also discussed: bus tours vs. driving limits, ATV wilderness runs, river rafting, guided nature hikes, and where to actually see the mountain from outside the park

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Two Chicks with Hiking Sticks head to Dayton, Ohio to explore the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park — the six-site park honoring Wilbur and Orville Wright AND poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.

We walk the Wright Cycle Company shop and discuss where the Wrights proved flight was practical. Come with us as we uncover how a bicycle shop, a poet, and a prairie changed the world.

📍 Featured: Wright Cycle Company | Huffman Prairie Flying Field | Paul Laurence Dunbar House | Wright Brothers Memorial Hill

🥾 Trails covered: Wright Brothers-Huffman Prairie Trail, Eastwood MetroPark Buckeye Trail, and more easy/moderate options great for 50+ hikers

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This week Susan and Monica cover White Sands National Park — our 62nd of 63 — and there's way more going on here than sand. We get into why it sat as a "national monument" for 86 years before finally becoming a national park in 2019 (spoiler: it involved a defense bill), why the park sometimes has to shut its only road down for active missile testing next door, and the 21,000–23,000-year-old human footprints that are rewriting what we know about the first people in North America.

Plus: the Mescalero Apache and early farming cultures who called this basin home, a ghost story called Pavla Blanca, and an honest-to-goodness unsolved 1896 disappearance.

📍 Featured: Dune Drive, the White Sands Missile Range, the fossil footprint fields

🥾 Good to know: check road closures before you go — missile testing can shut the only way in for hours

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This week we're at Tumacácori National Historical Park, a 360-acre National Historical Park protecting the ruins of three Spanish colonial missions along Arizona's Santa Cruz River. We dig into Padre Kino's 1691 mission and the Anza Trail's road to San Francisco.

📍 Featured: Mission San José de Tumacácori, Tumacácori Museum

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Two Chicks with Hiking Sticks heads to Lassen Volcanic National Park — and it turns out the story behind this "hidden gem" is way weirder than we expected. We dig into how a failed political fight only got resolved because the mountain literally erupted, how the devastating 2021 Dixie Fire reshaped huge parts of the park, and why the man the park is named after might not have deserved the honor at all.

🌋 In this episode:

• The political fight and eruption that created the park
• The lasting scars (and recovery) from the 2021 Dixie Fire
• The surprisingly shady history behind the park's namesake

👍 Like, subscribe, and tell us: should this park be renamed?

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