A Rainbow Pool, Congaree National Park / National Park Service
Sometimes, I need a little help thinking up quiz questions. I’m also apparently feeling my age because the majority of the questions come from a quiz piece by Lynn Addison of AARP. Thank you, AARP, for my hotel discount and these quiz questions. I also took a few questions from the National Parks Conservation Association’s quiz written by the NPCA’s Online Producer Beverley Stanton, and even the Traveler’s Founder and Editor-In-Chief Kurt Repanshek provided a few quiz tidbits for me. Thank you all for helping me jump that writer’s quiz block hurdle.
1. When conditions are right, waters in Congaree National Park can look like pools of melted tutti frutti ice cream. What causes this rainbow effect in the water?
a) Sunlight at just the right angle
b) A period of dry days
c) Oil produced by water-loving conifers in the genus Taxodium
d) All of the above
e) None of the above
Marguerite "Peg" Lindsley / National Park Service
2. Marguerite “Peg” Lindsley, who in 1925 became the first permanent female park ranger in the National Park System and who worked in Yellowstone National Park, earned some interesting nicknames, one of which was:
a) Paint Pot Peg
b) Pansy Peg
c) Pinecone Peg
d) Yellowstone Peg
3. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is so named for that blue haze hanging around the mountains and valleys. The Cherokee called it “place of the blue smoke.” From whence does that haze originate?
a) Cars
b) Vegetation
c) Fires
d) Weather
4. Which national park, during the 1920s, hosted spring training for some U.S. baseball teams?
5. Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch hung out in the canyons of which national park?
6. “All the adversity of hell without the conveniences,” is how an early 20th-century news article described this national park.
d) Great Sand Dunes National Park
7. Which of these sites was the first national park designated east of the Mississippi?
b) Great Smoky Mountains National Park
8. Which was the first national park established for the purpose of protecting man-made structures?
a) New River Gorge National River
c) National Mall and Memorial Parks
d) Fort Caroline National Memorial
9. Which national park was the only park bidding to host the Olympic games?
a) Rocky Mountain National Park
b) Mississippi National River and Recreation Area
10. Which national park site contains the most lighthouses?
a) Point Reyes National Seashore
d) Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
National Park Trivia
Captain Charles Young / Library Of Congress
“In the summer of 1903, Captain Charles Young would become the first African-American national park Superintendent when he and his troops were tasked to manage and maintain Sequoia National Park in northern California. Because the U.S. Army was tasked with protecting the national parks in these early years, the Army would send troops to manage, maintain and patrol them. Young and his troopers arrived in Sequoia National Park in the summer of 1903 and proceeded to construct roads and trails that other troops were unable to do in the years before them. As the leader of his troops, Young would inherit the title of Acting Superintendent of Sequoia National Park that year. He incorporated the local townsfolk to assist his troop's efforts and he and his troops' accomplishments from their summer of hard work were lauded by many throughout the area.” To read more about this extraordinary man, click here.
A View Of Crater Lake, Crater Lake National Park / Rebecca Latson
"Because Crater Lake has no outlets leading to other water sources, the changing water level of the lake presents an interesting scientific question. Precipitation rates are more than twice the evaporation rates, so there is a lot of water that seemingly goes unaccounted for. Scientists have discovered that steady seepage is what maintains the water balance. Water seeps out of the caldera’s walls at a rate of about 2 million gallons of water an hour! The mystery scientists are still studying is where all of that water goes -- no paths, springs or other water sources have been found to carry the same water as the lake. With complex dynamics, Crater Lake’s water level will remain a subject of wonder and study for years to come."
Painted Desert, Framed, Petrified Forest National Park / Rebecca Latson
If you’ve ever visited Petrified Forest National Park, then you’ve probably stopped to tour the Painted Desert Inn built by Herbert David Lore. “Using designs by National Park Service architect Lyle Bennett, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) reconstructed the Painted Desert Inn in the late 1930s. From 2004-2006 the building had an extensive rehabilitation, returning the inn to its 1949 appearance.” FYI, parts of the inn’s structure make great natural framing for the brilliant vistas of Painted Desert.
Quiz Answers
1d
That “melted sherbet” look occurs when several conditions are just right. The sheen “comes from water-loving conifers in the cypress family – which produce massive quantities of resin and oils … freed up through decay…then floating and coating the surface” to produce that iridescence. Of course, the sunlight has to be at just the right angle, too, and there also needs to be a period of dry days because rain drops would mix up the stuff in the water which would prevent that interesting colorful layered effect.
2a
“Marguerite Lindsley’s position as park ranger earned her some interesting nicknames like, ‘Geyser Peg’ and ‘Paint Pot Peg.’ On a three-week horseback park tour, she was leading a group of visitors through a thermal area when she fell through the crust into boiling mud. Although she suffered burns on her leg up to her knee, she still took the opportunity to teach the visitors about the dangers of thermal features. While we’re unsure of the date of this trip, the fact that she was asked to help lead it suggests that she had already been appointed a permanent park ranger, placing the trip somewhere between 1925 and 1928.” To read more about Ranger Lindsley, click here.
3b
Vegetation exhales volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals with high vapor pressures that form haze at room temperature. These same VOCs also give the haze its blue color because the gas molecules scatter blue light from the sky.
4d
“From the 1880s to the 1940s, the Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Red Sox, and several other teams made use of bathhouses in Hot Springs to sooth muscles after practice. The temperature of the water from local springs averages 143° F.
5b
Cassidy and his gang hid out in the maze of canyons in southwest Utah that became Capitol Reef National Park in 1971 (it was designated a national monument in 1937).
6b
“Death Valley is the driest, hottest place in North America, with less than 2 inches of rain per year and a record high temperature (thus far) of 134° Fahrenheit. Given the hot, dry weather this year, that record might be broken by the time this quiz is published.
7c
Ok, I suppose you could consider this a trick question. “Just three years after President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill creating Yellowstone National Park, he signed another bill establishing Mackinac National Park on northern Michigan’s Mackinac Island, though this site is no longer part of the National Park System.” To read more about this, click here.
8b
“In June 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill that established Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado to protect Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites.” To read more about this, click here.
9d
“In its early days, Yosemite National Park was a popular summer destination, but few visitors made the trip once the winter settled in. Don Tresidder, the concessionaire at the time, wanted to change that. After he and his wife visited Switzerland’s St. Moritz during the 1928 Olympic Games, he decided that Yosemite should compete to host the following edition of the Games in 1932. To read more about this, click here.
10d
“Nine of the 50 lighthouses cared for by the National Park Service are located within Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin, making it the national park site with the most lighthouses. All of them were built in the 19th century, and some are still in service today.” To read more about this, click here.
References
In addition to the information found at each NPS.gov national park website page, I also used the following as references:
https://www.nps.gov/yell/blogs/marguerite-lindsley-the-first-permanent-female-ranger.htm
https://www.filson.com/blog/profiles/the-people-behind-our-national-parks/
https://www.gsmnp.com/great-smoky-mountains-national-park/history/
https://www.visitmysmokies.com/blog/smoky-mountains/what-makes-the-smoky-mountains-smoky/
https://www.aarp.org/travel/vacation-ideas/outdoors/info-2016/national-parks-quiz.html#quest1
https://www.npca.org/articles/1670-test-your-national-park-knowledge
https://www.filson.com/blog/profiles/the-people-behind-our-national-parks/
https://www.doi.gov/blog/12-things-you-didnt-know-about-crater-lake-national-park
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