Walking the Great Plains Trail. Plus, a proposed national ‘no-fly’ list for unruly passengers; First Americans Museum opens; timber tourism; stay in Winnie the Pooh’s cottage
|  | Friday, September 24, 2021 | | | | |
| In today’s newsletter, walking the Great Plains Trail, a move for a national ‘no-fly’ list for unruly passengers; the First Americans Museum opens; timber tourism … and stay in Winnie the Pooh’s cottage. | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY RICK SCIBELLI, JR., THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX | |
| By George Stone, TRAVEL Executive Editor
Long walks—and treks, trudges, slogs (but rarely traipses)—are encoded in our DNA. One of the most ambitious of these is happening now: National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek’s Out of Eden Walk is a 24,000-mile storytelling odyssey around the world in the footsteps of our ancestors (you can track his progress here).
Many epic ambles are closer to home. At 2,200 miles, the Great Plains Trail takes adventurers across the prairies of North America as it winds from Texas’ Guadalupe Mountains National Park (pictured above) up to Canada’s Grassland National Park. Along the way, the trail cuts across unmapped canyons and springs, forested ridges, vast desert, and abandoned outposts and ghost towns.
“It’s not cornfields,” explains Luke “Strider” Jordan, the only person known to have thru-hiked the trail. Indeed, it’s just barely a trail at all. In many areas, the route represents ambitions more than paths, as it links long-standing trails and existing roadways. Hikers must study maps and have reliable GPS. “It takes a lot of planning. If you don’t prepare, you can expect to get lost,” says Jordan.
To make it more accessible, the Great Plains Trail Alliance is focusing on a 350-mile Pilot Trail, winding from South Dakota’s Bear Butte State Park to Nebraska’s Scotts Bluff National Monument. For segment hikers, this trail contains wild (as well as tame) surprises. (Pictured below, South Dakota’s Black Hills region.)
“Cattle is definitely a thing,” Jordan tells writer Jacqueline Kehoe about the bossy bovines. Coyotes, prairie dogs, bighorn sheep, elk, pronghorn antelope, and even American bison can make an appearance.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY GREG VAUGHN, ALAMY | |
| There is a web of established long-distance regional trails in the U.S., but this epic trail marks a first for the Great Plains, bringing opportunity to a region often overlooked by outdoor enthusiasts. The path presents an alternative to trails suffering from overuse and mismanagement, as Nicholas Kristof reported for us. And it will “introduce hikers—and their wallets—to different communities and ecosystems,” says Kehoe.
“Could the Great Plains Trail become America’s next great long-distance trail?” our writer asks, pointing to highlights including the 9,000-foot summit in the Guadalupe national park, a 3,000-foot trek up above the Texas desert that opens to views of the world’s most extensive Permian fossil reef. “For now,” she says, “the trail remains a promise of both adventure and future conservation.”
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| Sitting tight: Travel guru Rick Steves thought 2020 would be the best yet for his multifaceted company. Instead, he wound up canceling 24,000 bookings for European tours and rethinking what he’d do during a lockdown. He talks to the New Yorker about his early days selling guidebooks out of the trunk of his car, and what he believes is next in pandemic travel.
Unruly passengers: Facing a rise in threats to its employees on flights, Delta Air Lines urged other airlines to share lists of unruly passengers for a new category of a “no fly” list. Delta alone has 1,600 passengers on its list for disruptive incidents, the New York Times reports.
Book a bearbnb: Winnie the Pooh’s cottage is available for booking on Airbnb, but only for one night. The tree-hollow cottage is located in the Ashdown Forest in Nutley, England. For $105 a night, guests can receive a tour of the original Hundred Acre Wood, enjoy hunny-inspired meals, and play Poohsticks on the Poohsticks Bridge, according to the booking site. The host is Winnie the Pooh illustrator Kim Raymond.
‘Tour guides are in danger’: After the Taliban’s recent takeover in Afghanistan, many tour guides fled the country in fear for their lives. These guides showed off the country’s striking natural beauty and an array of experiences from the snow-capped mountains to dazzling Islamic architecture, and historical monuments. As the travel community rallies around these operators, they’re working to adjust to their new lives from afar, Nat Geo reports.
A 100th birthday gift: Betty Reid Soskin, America’s oldest living national park ranger, cut the ribbon at a California middle school named to honor her on her 100th. She’s also overseer of Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Speaking of national parks, Saturday is National Public Lands Day, a free entrance day to all national parks.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY FIRST AMERICANS MUSEUM | | Finally open: After three decades of planning, the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City is open. A tribute to Native artists, architecture, and history, the museum celebrates Oklahoma’s 39 nations, which represent more than 60 percent of all Native Americans in the country, Nat Geo reports. (Pictured above, “Touch to Above,” by Cherokee artists Demos Glass and Bill Glass Jr., at the entrance.)
Subscriber exclusive: Native Americans are recasting views of Indigenous life to counter “invisibility”
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY DON CAMPBELL, THE HERALD-PALLADIUM/AP | | Timber tourism on a roll: There are many places to find out how and why earlier Americans harvested and processed trees. Travelers learn about both the science and the economics of forestry, whether it’s through museums about pioneer life or by watching lumberjacks—and jills—saw logs the old-fashioned way. You can even take photos with Paul Bunyan and his ox, Babe, at a logging camp. (Above, logrolling at the Great Lakes Timber Show in Berrien Springs, Michigan.)
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Correction: Last Friday’s newsletter gave the wrong location in Maine’s Acadia National Park for a stunning golden hour image. The image was from the cliffside Bass Harbor Head Light, on the southwestern part of Mount Desert Island. Here’s the story—and thanks to the sharp newsletter readers who noticed!
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard and Monica Williams, and Jen Tse selected the photographs. What are your fall travel plans? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. | | | |
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