National Park Service Approaches 100 Years

Next year the National Park Service will have a centennial birthday. I dunno about you but I love going to our parks! Ken Burns really did a great job on PBS with "America's Best Idea", the story of John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, Stephen Mather and other great people who found the foresight to set aside our extraordinary landmarks from total destruction in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. NPS was established within the US Dept. of Interior in 1916 after several parks had already appeared on our map! Those parks include Yellowstone 1872, Yosemite 1890, Mt. Rainier 1899, Mesa Verde 1906, Glacier in MT 1910 and Colorado's own Rocky Mountain 1915 which I honored with a May visit to Bear Lake, still covered in slushy ice and a Mother's Day snowfall. Before there were park rangers the US Army cavalry and the Buffalo Soldiers kept the poachers and loggers away. As time went by not only the views were protected, but the wildlife such as bears, wolves, and exotic birds became the focus of the NPS mission. Some parks have bus/tram systems to cut down on vehicle congestion such as Zion, Grand Canyon and Cape Cod National Seashore. Unlike BLM and National Forests where disbursed camping is allowed, the national parks require developed campground use only-you can't just pull off the road and sleep in your car. That said, I can say they've done a great job in 100 years-saving beautiful places of unique grandeur like Acadia, Canyonlands, Grand Tetons, Death Valley, Capitol Reef and Great Basin-some of my favorites. Over my lifetime I've stopped to ponder NHP-national historic parks which also remind us of where we've come from as a nation, like Minuteman, Saratoga, Gettysburg, Antietam, Yorktown and Appomattox. For sure Washington DC comprises quite a few memorials which all are administered by the Park Service: Lincoln, Washington Monument, Jefferson, FDR, Vietnam Wall and so on. So as a single, retired senior with no real responsibilities beyond an aging parent (siblings help) & an art profession, I am going to Alaska at long last in 2016; going on a limited budget/ time with a nine day stay in Anchorage to explore the trail network in this small city next to Cook Inlet with views of volcanoes west, the Chugach mountains east, glaciers and Kenai NP south. The train will take me to Denali entrance for two nights base before the bus trip into 6 million acre Denali NP with Mt. McKinley the focus, if the rain clouds part for a peek at its two summits 18,000 feet vertical up from the valley! At 20,320' elevation, Denali is higher than Whitney, Elbert, Rainier and the Matterhorn. I'll have to forgo the Arctic portion, Brooks Range and North Slope as the cost skyrockets beyond $6000. Alaska here I come! Happy birthday again in 2016 to our park system.