2 New NPS Units, Lost in Death Valley, Plane Crash in Denali

Here's a game-changing tip for the beach. Bring a fitted sheet. As nice as a nap in the sun is, the sheet isn't for making up the bed.

It's a smart way to keep sand off your beach towels. Since the corners of a fitted sheet naturally lift, all you need to do is add weighted objects to each corner

and you'll have a nifty pocket of space you can hang out in, sand-free.

For more fun ideas, easy how-tos, and inspiring stories, visit LLBean.com slash guide.

14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched on August 28, 1955, for allegedly whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi.

Mamie Till Mobley's decision to hold an open-casket funeral for her son rocked the nation and helped spur the modern civil rights movement.

Efforts by the NAACP, the black press, and others to help Till Mobley investigate and amplify her son's story caused the world to bear witness to the racially-motivated violence and injustice that many black people endured in the Jim Crow South.

An all-white, all-male jury was selected and ultimately acquitted the killers, who later confessed to their crimes in a paid interview with a magazine.

No one was ever held legally accountable for Till's death.

On July 25, the Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley National Monument became the country's 425th National Park Service unit, on the 82nd anniversary of Till's birth.

Designated by President Biden, the new National Monument includes sites in the Mississippi Delta and Chicago that were central to Emmett Till's lynching and funeral, the acquittal of his murderers, and the subsequent activism by his mother.

Grey Bull Landing in Glendora, Mississippi, is the area that's believed to be where Till's brutalized body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River.

Roberts Temple Church of God and Christ in Chicago is the site of Till's widely attended open casket visitation and funeral, and the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, is where Till's murderers were tried and acquitted.

Visitor services will be provided by park rangers at Pullman National Historical Park in Chicago and in partnership with the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Mississippi.

On August 8, the White House also established a new National Monument surrounding the Grand Canyon, conserving nearly one million acres of the greater Grand Canyon landscape that's sacred to tribal nations and indigenous peoples.

It's called Bajnawabjo Itakukveni, the ancestral footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.

Bajnawabjo means where indigenous peoples roam in the Havasupai language, and Itakukveni means our ancestral footprints in the Hopi language.

The new monument's made up of three distinct areas to the south, northeast, and northwest of Grand Canyon National Park.

It's bordered by the Kanab Watershed Boundary and Kanab Creek Drainage in the northwestern area and the Havasupai Indian Reservation and Navajo Nation in the south, and stretches from Marble Canyon to the edge of the Kaibab Plateau in the northeastern part.

The area contains over 3,000 known cultural and historic sites, including 12 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, among its sweeping plateaus and deep canyons and creeks and streams that ultimately flow into the Colorado River, providing water to millions of people across the southwest.

That's one of the major concerns the White House says it's addressing with the monument's designation, keeping the water supply clean by cutting off mining in the area.

Existing mining claims will remain in place and the two mining operations within the boundaries of the monument will still be able to operate.

The National Monument only includes already designated federal lands and does not include state and private lands within the boundary or affect the property rights of the state and private landowners nearby.

The ability of presidents to establish national monuments has been hotly contested in recent years.

President Theodore Roosevelt first used the Antiquities Act back in 1906 to designate Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming.

Since then, 18 presidents of both parties have used this authority to protect unique natural and historic features in America.

President Clinton established the 1.9 million acre Grand Staircase Escalante in 1996, and President Obama established the 1.3 million acre Bears Ears National Monument in 2016.

Those two Utah monuments were seen as an overreach by many Republicans, and President Trump dramatically reduced their size.

In 2021, President Biden then restored them to their original boundaries, and the state of Utah sued last August,

arguing that the boundaries were not, quote, combined to qualify any historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, or other objects of historical or scientific interest, as required by the Antiquities Act.

That case has now been decided, and a federal judge just ruled that President Biden's judgment in drafting and issuing the proclamations as he sees fit is not an action reviewable by a district court.

The Biden administration has a goal to permanently conserve and restore 30% of federal lands and waters by 2030.

Denali National Park and Preserve officials were informed by Alaska Air National Guard Rescue Coordination Center

that they had initiated a search for an overdue aircraft in the park's southwest preserve.

Using coordinates from a personal locator beacon associated with the overdue pilot, the initial search flight was underway last Wednesday night, August 9th.

However, the flight was turned around due to weather.

A second flight located the aircraft wreckage in a narrow ravine.

The search crew was unable to land at the accident site due to the steep terrain, but they observed that survivability of the crash was unlikely.

Pilot Jason Tucker, age 45, and passenger Nicholas Blase, age 44, are presumed to have perished in the crash.

Two Denali National Park mountaineering rangers flew to the site in order to assess the likelihood of reaching the downed aircraft via a helicopter short-haul line.

The rangers conducted an on-site risk assessment and determined that a short-haul mission to the wreckage was not feasible

due to inadequate helicopter rotor clearance in the canyon, loose rock lining both walls of the ravine,

and the lack of shoreline for miles above and below the rapidly flowing creek at the base of the ravine.

A recovery of the bodies and aircraft, if even possible at all, will involve a complex and potentially high-risk ground operation.

Further investigation of the site by Denali mountaineering rangers is required and will be conducted in the upcoming days as weather allows.

Two people got lost driving in Death Valley National Park last month, resulting in one of them being transported to a hospital for heat illness.

The two men were navigating by GPS when they took a wrong turn onto West Side Road and drove back and forth on the gravel road for about three hours.

Around midnight, they became concerned about running out of gas and decided to drive directly across the salt flat to Badwater Road.

Driving off-road is illegal in Death Valley National Park. In this case, it could have cost their lives.

Their vehicle got stuck in mud about a mile in.

They then walked 12 miles until they split up around 3 in the morning.

One man walked another 6 miles and was picked up by other park visitors around 8 o'clock.

They drove him to the visitor center, then drove back to rescue the second man, who was eventually transported by ambulance to a hospital.

The lowest temperature that evening was 90 degrees.

The vehicle remained stuck in the salt flat for three weeks until two-star towing used a skid steer to remove it on July 27.

The men were issued a mandatory court appearance for driving off-road and the resulting damage to the park, which could last for decades.

Charges and fines are pending.

Cave tours at Wind Cave National Park have been suspended pending elevator repairs.

Replacement parts are on order and tours could resume in early September.

Officials believe this current repair will get the park back up and running until there's a total replacement of the elevator system in 2024.

The elevators have been plaguing Wind Cave for a while now.

There's still plenty to do at the park, though.

It's one of the best places to see bison, elk, and prairie dogs without the crowds of places like Yellowstone.

The park also has 30 miles of hiking trails and lots of scenic roadway.

Finally, the National Park Service has announced $3.4 million in grants to 16 Indian tribes and 28 museums

to assist in the consultation, documentation, and repatriation of ancestral remains and cultural items

as part of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

This is the largest amount of funding appropriated since the act was passed in 1990.

The program provides systematic processes for returning human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects,

or objects of cultural significance to Native American and Alaska Native tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.

A total of 21 grants to 7 Indian tribes and 7 museums will fund the transportation and return of human remains

comprising of 11,354 ancestors, more than 10,400 funerary objects, and 39 cultural items.

That's it for this month's National Park News Roundup. Thanks a lot for being here. Bye, everybody.