Research and Education
in the National Parks

National Park Service Research and Education in the National Parks

PART I
THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM IN THE NATIONAL PARKS

NATURE TRAILS

The nature trail, carefully selected and labeled, is proving an efficient method of helping visitors to get acquainted with interesting geologic and biologic features. There are many who prefer studying things quietly by themselves, and labeled rocks, trees, and plants fulfill this requisite. In Yosemite National Park short trails have been built and labels placed to indicate the best localities in which glacial polish and striae may be seen. In Mount Rainier National Park the former locations of the slowly retreating Nisqually Glacier have been marked. This has proved very interesting and instructive to the thousands of visitors.

While nature trails are very helpful and supplement the guided trips in an excellent manner, they will never gain the popularity which has come to the field trips conducted by ranger naturalists. The chief difficulty with the nature trail is that the animal life can not be labeled. For the naturalist there are few limitations as to what he may bring into his field trip talks, but the self-guiding trail will always be limited to stationary exhibits.

FIGURE 8.—Entrance to the Mammoth Nature Trail in Yellowstone National Park. Markers along the way contain short statements, frequently illustrated, regarding the trees, flowers, birds, and principal geologic phenomena.

The attractiveness of the label has much to do with the success of a trail. It has been necessary to experiment for several years before deciding on the best type of material to use and the amount of information to place on a single label. An attempt has been made to make the labels inconspicuous. Some trouble with collectors of labels was experienced in Yosemite, necessitating abandonment of one trail. This problem is not serious, however, and nature trails are increasing in number throughout the park system. At Mount Rainier National Park there are more than 600 metal labels used on trails.

Self-guiding nature trails are now available to the public in all of the major parks, including Crater Lake, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Mount Rainier, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, Sequoia, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, and Carlsbad Caverns. The actual number of visitors served by these trails is not known because of the difficulty in checking.

HISTORIC TRAILS

Comparable to the nature trail is the historic trail. The method used in marking the Yorktown battlefield in Colonial National Monument is much the same as is employed on nature trails in western parks. Information is supplied by attractive markers which give the visitor the knowledge necessary to understand the historic events which are associated with the terrain. In many national parks and monuments the nature and historic trails are often identical, for natural and historic phenomena frequently occur in the same setting.

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Last Modified: Sat, Feb 16 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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