Shows / Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival
Wildlands Podcast is an audio field guide to America's wild places, national parks, forests, monuments, and the public lands most shows overlook. Hosted by a former Army officer, Shawn Spainhour brings the discipline of someone trained where preparation was life-or-death and the curiosity of someone who explores these places for the love of it.
Every marquee park gets a multi-part series: the history that shaped it, the visit that prepares you for it, and where to stay when you get there…
Episodes
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#020 - Field Skills: Navigation | Map, Compass & When the Phone Dies
At some point on a ridgeline in the cloud, or in dense forest where the terrain stopped matching your memory of the map twenty minutes ago, the phone in your…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#019 - Great Smoky Mountains, Part 3: Where to Stay | LeConte Lodge, Campgrounds & the Gateway Towns
There's exactly one place to sleep inside this park that isn't a tent or a trail shelter — and you can't drive to it, can't even take a shuttle. LeConte Lodge…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#018 - Great Smoky Mountains, Part 2: The Visit | Cades Cove, Kuwohi & the Synchronous Fireflies
In September 2024, the highest peak in the park got its name back — Kuwohi, mulberry place, the sacred Cherokee summit renamed after a Confederate general in…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#017 - Great Smoky Mountains, Part 1: The History | The Cherokee, Tsali & the Park That Was Bought
Twelve million people visit the Smokies every year — more than Grand Canyon and Yellowstone combined. But unlike almost every other major park, the federal…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#016 - Field Skills: Desert Heat | Water, Electrolytes & Hiking Down First
Some of the sickest heat-illness patients ever studied at the Grand Canyon weren't dehydrated — they had drunk so much plain water without replacing salt that…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#015 - Grand Canyon, Part 3: Where to Stay | El Tovar, Phantom Ranch & South Rim Camping
At the Grand Canyon, the where-to-sleep question has real range — from a National Historic Landmark on the rim where you can watch the sunset light the canyon…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#014 - Grand Canyon, Part 2: The Visit | South Rim vs. North Rim, Inner-Canyon Hikes & the Heat
Every year the Grand Canyon rescues hikers who made the same mistake: they went down feeling strong in the cool morning, then discovered the canyon's brutal…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#013 - Grand Canyon, Part 1: The History | Deep Time, Eleven Tribes & the Fight to Protect It
Stand on the South Rim and you're looking at close to two billion years of Earth's history, stacked in visible layers — almost half the age of the planet…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#012 - Field Skills: Wildlife Distance | Bison, Bears & Keeping the Margin
Ask most people the most dangerous animal in Yellowstone and they'll say grizzly. They're wrong — it's the bison, by a wide margin, and 80% of the people it…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#011 - Yellowstone, Part 3: Where to Stay | The Old Faithful Inn, Lamar Lodges & Camping
Yellowstone has nine in-park lodges, more than two thousand rooms, and twelve campgrounds — and it still runs out of beds in July. This closes out the…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#010 - Yellowstone, Part 2: The Visit | Lamar Valley, Grand Prismatic & the Geyser Basins
Yellowstone covers two and a half million acres — bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined — and most visitors see a fraction of it from the Old Faithful…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#009 - Yellowstone, Part 1: The History | The Supervolcano, the Nez Perce & the Wolves
Underneath Yellowstone sits one of the largest volcanic systems on Earth — a magma chamber the size of a small state. This is the longest history episode in…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#008 - Field Skills: Flash Floods | Reading Water, Weather & Slot Canyons
Flash floods kill more people in the U.S. in an average year than lightning, tornadoes, or hurricanes — each one individually. This Field Skills episode is the…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#007 - Zion, Part 3: Where to Stay | Zion Lodge, Watchman & Free BLM Camping
Where to sleep, eat, and camp at Zion — the only park where your lodging choice ranges from a historic 1920s cabin inside the canyon to free dispersed camping…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#006 - Zion, Part 2: The Visit | Angels Landing Permits, the Narrows & Beating the Crowds
Four and a half million people visit Zion a year, almost all of them packed into six miles of canyon with one road in and one road out. This is how to actually…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#005 - Zion, Part 1: The History | The Virgin River, Navajo Sandstone & the Fight Over the Name
How a thin silver thread of a river carved a canyon 2,600 feet deep through solid sandstone — and how that canyon went from an unknown monument with an…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#004 - Field Skills: Altitude | Reading Your Body Above 10,000 Feet
The thin air on a high summit is the single thing most likely to turn a great day into a dangerous one — and fitness won't save you from it. This Field Skills…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#003 - Great Basin, Part 3: Where to Stay | Campgrounds, Baker & Dark-Sky Lodging
Where to actually sleep at Great Basin National Park — the park with no lodge, no hotel inside the gates, and one of the darkest night skies in the country…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#002 - Great Basin, Part 2: The Visit | Lehman Caves Tours, Wheeler Peak & Dark Skies
Everything you need to actually visit Great Basin National Park — one of the most remote and least-crowded parks in the country. This is the practical guide…
Wildlands Podcast — National Parks, Public Lands & Survival#001 - Great Basin, Part 1: The History | Lehman Caves & the Oldest Trees on Earth
The story of Great Basin National Park — how a remote Nevada mountain came to hold a cave, a glacier, and the oldest living things on Earth. From the tropical…