If you've stood before Old Faithful as it erupts against a golden sunset, or perhaps a frosty sunrise, you're likely going to carry that image with you for the rest of your life. Or maybe the profile of Half Dome, as seen from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, leaps first to mind when you think of national parks.
Those are two bold, hard-to-forget images. But perhaps there's another setting in the National Park System that you hold most dear. It could be the sunset that softly backlights the sea stacks at Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park, the first rays of sunrise as spied from atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, or the waving sawgrass that sweeps to the horizon at Everglades National Park.
There are other images cast by the national parks -- the Gettysburg battlefield at dusk, the silent cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, the rippling waters of Voyageurs. Tell us what setting in the parks is burned forever into your memory.
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Several parks and scenes come to mind:
1. Climbing a dune at Great Sands National Park in Colorado while admiring the snow-topped 14,000+ ft. peaks of the surrounding Sangre de Cristo Mountains and overlooking the natural lakes to the south and west. Where else will you see snowcapped mountains, 750 ft tall sand dunes and natural lakes all together??
2 Delicate Arch at Arches--as well as the Three Gossips.
3. The Upper Falls of the Yellowstone.
4. Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park.
There are so many iconic images that come to mind -- Hurricane Ridge in Olympic NP immediately comes to mind. But the one image that pops into my mind with some frequency is from the Everglades. I don't know where we got the nerve to walk amongst the gators, but there were so many within sight of the trail, it required a certain sense of Zen to take that little tour!
The iconic image of the Grand Tetons on the approach to the park is a fave of mine!
Also unforgettable is watching the sunset and sunrise from the Grand Canyon North Rim...our camping spot was maybe 50 yards back and I was scared I'd wake up in the middle of the night to take care of business and just whoops right over the edge.
We drove into Monument Valley one summer afternoon. As we got out of the car we observed the shadows that stretched out from the majestic rock formations as the summer clouds drifted slowly overhead. The quiet almost hurt our ears as we watched a lizard scurry under a dessert bush, with its glorious bloom.
As we stood motionless for a few moments we felt we were intruding in an almost holy place.
Monument Valley is impressive alright, TJ, but let's be clear on the fact that it isn't a national park. Monument Valley is on an Indian reservation (Navajo Tribal Trust land).
As a child my folks took me to Sequoia National Park and we stayed in a cabin at the now dismantled Giant Forest Village. Each cabin had a grill and a cabinet for temporary storage of supplies on the porch. We bought lots of supplies and put some of it in the cabinet before leaving for a day of exploration.
When we got back there was a hush in the village and some people were talking about a bear wandering through the area. Lighting was poor and we all had flashlights - just the common Eveready 2 D-cell types. I shined mine in the distance and could make out the side profile of a black bear walking away with a plastic bag hanging out of its mouth. That was the first (but not last) time I saw a bear without some sort of zoo enclosure between it and me.
Strangely enough, a park ranger took our report and the village handyman repaired the cabinet with glue and twine. We weren't fined for improper food storage and weren't even asked to pay for the repair. This was certainly a different time, when it was OK to store food in the trunk, although positive seal metal coolers (Coleman still sells some) to reduce odors were recommended. They were still using standard metal trash cans without any bear resistant features.
1. Like for some others, for me the image was standing down on the observation platform next the the Yellowstone Falls. It was snowing. The wind was pulling the snow down into the Canyon, and then wooshing up past us.
It was snowing UP. It was exhilarating. Only a week before I'd been gazing at the Tetons, with a night sky with such density of stars and colors, I'd never seen before or since. But the grand canyon of the Yellowstone in the snow topped it.
2. Much younger, as a kid in the back seat driving along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah NP in Virginia. This American landscape below was flowing by. I thought I had never seen such beauty, and it changed my idea of parks, and of America. The idea that "park makers" could have sculpted that landscaping inside the park to see the beauty of America beyond opened my imagination as well as my heart.
So many sights and memories come to mind:
1-Climbing the dunes and looking out at the Gulf of Mexico at Padre Island National Seashore
2-The view from Zabriskie Point down into the valley at Death Valley National Park
3-The view from the far side of Manzanita Lake looking up at Lassen Peak in Lassen Volcanic National Park
4-The expression on my husbands face the first time he ever saw a herd of cow elk and calves at Cunningham Cabin, Grand Teton National Park
5-Watching my kids look down into the breaks at Cedar Breaks National Monument as I had done 35 years before.
6-Looking up at the cliff dwellings from the canyon floor at Canyon De Chelly National Monument.
7-The sandpaining at the visitor center at Canyon De Chelly National Monument, the park service arrowhead surrounded by traditional Navajo symbols.
8-Most of all, any park service employee in green and gray, an image I saw daily as I was growing up.