– Ry Cooder –
Stepping down into the lava tubes is like entering another world. Illuminated by ceiling collapse portals where you can view the outside world from within, go even deeper and you can both lose, and find yourself in the 7,000-foot underground catacombs.
– Animal Collective –
The lush trees that make up the Congaree floodplain forest form one of the highest forest canopies in the world, with cypress trees over 500 years old. Beneath it, the Congaree River runs placidly, forming a magical world ruled by fireflies.
– Rising Appalachia –
Legend has it that when the Cherokee, who had their ancestral home in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, foresaw the coming persecution they turned to the mountains to keep them safe. A whole mountain side opened up to shelter the believers and ever since you can hear their laughter through the craggy ranges.
– Jacob Montague & John Brazell –
Like desert eyes the sandstone arches dot the landscape as if creations in a Dali painting. Sprung from degrading rock over thousands of years, they will eventually be destroyed by the same forces that birthed them, representing the eternal yin-yang we see in nature, and ourselves.
– Stefanie Joyce –
Lady Isabella Bird, the fearless explorer who traveled the world, hired local guide “Mountain Jim” to help her climb Long’s Peak. He was a ruffian and a killer, his face pockmarked from a fight with a bear, but his love of poetry united them, and Lady Bird fell in love.
– Matt Griffith –
Once every couple of years, when the sun hits it just right, Horsetail Fall glows red like a river of lustrous embers. Back in the 60’s and 70’s, the resort hotel in the park recreated this every night by dumping a barrel of glowing coals over the ledge of the mountain with the dramatic exclamation, “Let the fire fall!”
Inspired by the writings of John Muir, AKA “The father of our national parks”, it exemplifies the unparallel beauty of wild nature.
– Joseph DeNatale –
It’s crazy to think that what begins as a drop of water in La Poudre Pass has, over thousands of years, carved the gigantic Grand Canyon.
– Lynz –
Ten inches from the ground up the Roadrunner has a unique vantage point of the dreamy, Seuss-like desert landscape that makes up Joshua Tree.
– Jeff Kightly –
Truman Everts was part of the first Presidential expedition sent to explore “Wonderland”, as Yellowstone was called in 1870. Straying from the pack, he was suddenly lost and forced to survive in the wilderness all alone. He wandered aimlessly for 37 days before being found barely alive, starved, and burnt by geysers.
– Jessica Allossery –
Cadillac Mountain, in Acadia, sits on the edge of the sea and it’s where the day, literally, begins. This most Eastern point on the US mainland, greets the first daylight rays of the sun.
– Jerry Popei –
Zion, a garden of Eden situated amidst a harsh, desert landscape, is a utopia. When the first westerners arrived there, after travelling through an arid wasteland, they entered the valley nearly dead from dehydration, with streams and lush grass and trees, they named it after the Promised Land.
– Allison Preisinger –
One thing about our National Parks, besides their grandeur and beauty, is the peril of visiting them. Every year people venture into the wilderness of the parks, never to return. Olympic’s history is filled with these mysterious disappearances, some say due to the fickleness of the Gods.
– Josh Gold ft. Crushboys –
The Paiute people, who occupied Bryce Canyon as early as 1200 A.D., considered the hoodoo rock towers to be the petrified remains of ancient beings, punished by Coyote by turning them into forever rocks.
– James Worton –
The oldest family in America, the giant redwood trees, are an astonishing several thousands of years old and have literally seen the birth of our Nation. Standing tall and silent like wise, noble giants they extend through the foggy banks of the West.
– David Karsten Daniels –
Not for nothing, the US National Parks have been referred to as “America’s Best Idea”. They came about in a time when people increasingly were living in big cities with hectic lives and the antidote to this unavoidable stress was to head into the wild and let nature heal our bodies and minds. Today, this search for balance is more important than ever.
