Parks with Features Accessible to the Visually Impaired or Blind

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Parks with Features Accessible to the Visually Impaired or Blind
Florida

Gulf Islands National Seashore
Fort Barrancas Visitor Center on board Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida. Exhibits and the new film are audio described, narrated, and captioned. Tactile exhibits include a small scale model of Fort Barrancas and the Water Battery. Visitors can pull out drawers with tactile reproductions, listen to audio stations, lift a cannon ball or powder bags, try on Civil War uniforms, feel the outline of a fort builder, and use plastic Braille translations. The visitor center desk is fully accessible for visitors and employees; outside doors can be opened with buttons.

Naval Live Oaks Visitor Center in Gulf Breeze, Florida, has an Eastern National sales area that has a talking cash register. Volunteers who have vision impairments have been trained to work the front desk that is set up for employees with vision impairments.

Iowa

Herbert Hoover National Historic Site
Audio stations can be found at key locations throughout the site. A walking tour on audio tape is available at the visitor center information desk.

Maine

Acadia National Park
Orientation Video: Visitors can enjoy a 15-minute, captioned narrative about the park at Hulls Cove Visitor Center. Audio description is available. Visitors can check out audio receivers at the information desk.

Auto Tour: Visitors may purchase cassettes and CDs of the 56-mile audio tour of the Park Loop Road, Cadillac Summit, and Somes Sound at the visitor center.

Ranger-led Programs: Ranger-led activities are offered mid-May to mid-October. Check with the park’s staff regarding the details of specific programs. Accessible programs are listed in the park’s newspaper, the Beaver Log.

Service Animals: Service animals must be leashed at all times. They are allowed in all park facilities and on all park trails unless closed by order of the superintendent. However, there are some park trails that are very steep and require the use of iron rung ladders. These trails should be avoided:

Precipice

Beehive

Ladder Trail to Dorr Mountain

Cadillac Mountain - West Face (from Bubble Pond)

Beech Cliff (from Echo Lake)

Perpendicular Trail ( Mansell Mountain)

Massachusetts

John F. Kennedy National Historic Site
Visitors with visual impairments can ask to tour with a ranger individually so that the ranger can describe specific objects in each room.

Longfellow National Historic Site
The site allows visitors with visual impairments to put on gloves and touch various objects in the house while on a tour. A ranger will guide you to the selected items in the rooms. Mainly, sculptures and chairs are the designated objects.

Michigan

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
The park’s brochures are available in Braille.

Montana

Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area
The introductory movie at the Cal S. Taggart Bighorn Canyon Visitor Center, “The Land of the Bighorn,” has audio description that can be turned on and off. Members of the audience can use assistive listening devices (headphones that play the audio description).

Ohio

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park
The park’s film, "On Great White Wings," shown at the Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center and the Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center, has audio description.

Pennsylvania

Johnstown Flood National Memorial
The visitor center has an interpretive, tactile model of the South Fork Dam and lakebed, along with interpretive messages.

Steamtown National Historic Site
The visitor center has an interpretive, tactile model of a steam locomotive and tender, along with a “Touch and Feel” table with interpretive messages.

South Dakota

Mount Rushmore National Memorial
A 27-page Braille book is available to visitors upon request at the information desks in the Information Center and the Lincoln Borglum Museum.

Visitors can enjoy the narration of two different films highlighting the construction of the mountain sculpture and the ecology of the Black Hills, along with many other audio exhibits, in the Lincoln Borglum Museum.

The newest addition to the interpretive opportunities at Mount Rushmore National Memorial is an audio tour. Rented for a small charge, this wand provides visitors up to two hours of audio material about the mountain carving, the workers who carved the mountain, the surrounding ecology, and the presidents portrayed here.

During the summer months, visitors will find many ranger-led programs offered throughout the day and highlighting the many different aspects of the national memorial.

Tennessee/North Carolina

Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Most trails in the park are steep and rugged. However, an accessible trail made possible through a public-private partnership is located on Newfound Gap Road, just south of Sugarlands Visitor Center. Clay tactile exhibits, a large print brochure, and porcelain enamel wayside exhibits are available on-site. An audiotape tour is available from Sugarlands Visitor Center. The trail contains the tracks of a black bear that wandered across the freshly poured concrete when the trail was built.

Utah

Arches National Park
The visitor center has several touchable exhibits.

Wisconsin

St. Croix National Scenic Riverway
The St. Croix Visitor Center in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin has some exhibits that those with impaired sight can access.

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National Park Service Mediaroom Updated: August 13, 2008 - 02:05 p.m.