A love letter to America’s National Parks
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, which boasts five of the country’s 59 national parks (Rainier, North Cascades, Olympic, Crater Lake, and, yes, we claim Glacier). For the ten years I lived there, my family and I didn’t go to a single one of them.
My first park was Great Smoky Mountains NP, which we visited when I was 6. I visited the Smokies again with a college girlfriend on a summer road trip. Neither time did the park have any significant impact on me, because neither time did I pay any attention to the majesty that surrounded me.
It wasn’t until I moved to California after college that I truly began to appreciate what the parks were, protected, and stood for. Fresh off of an inopportune breakup, in a new city with no friends and no network, I needed an escape. I needed a place that was something new, a place where I wasn’t bothered by expectations and responsibilities, and a place where I could quite simply catch my breath.
I went and bought a Rand McNally atlas (too cool for Google), circled something that looked interesting, got in the car, and started driving.
Kings Canyon National Park became that place. On the night before Thanksgiving, when everyone else was on their way home to see families and friends, I was at a campsite in the Sierra Nevada, trying to figure out how to start a fire with only a box of matches and two bundles of firewood, at 11pm with no light and 15mph winds. When sparks finally ignited after a grueling 1.5 hours, I sighed with relief — having only just learned that not all sleeping bags are alike at 6,500 feet above sea level in late November.
That was almost three years ago, and I still remember that moment fondly, because that was the beginning of a passionate love affair with Americ’s national parks. Since that (long and cold) night, I have visited ten other parks on the West Coast, and each one brought its own set of vivid memories. I kayaked underneath the stars on a bay of bioluminescent plankton at Point Reyes National Seashore. I figured out the basics of astrophotography while hopping around rocks at Joshua Tree. I saw California condors at Pinnacles, saw incredible wildflowers at Rainier, and inhaled volcanic fumes at Lassen.
There was Glacier, which gave me a new definition for beauty (adj. 1. Glacier National Park; 2. a photo someone took at Glacier National Park). And there was Death Valley National Park, America’s attempted diorama of Dante’s Inferno, where a freak dawn accident during Thanksgiving weekend flipped and totaled my vehicle yet miraculously left me completely injury-less.
[I recognize that, for some folks, these sojourns are not remotely close enough to appreciating the national parks. I think that’s fine, and they are right: most of the national parks’ value can’t be accessed by convenient roads and ready-made campsites. But the glimpses I did have into the meditative, ethereal gardens of nature have given me more than enough motivation to expand my outdoors repertoire: from backpacking to climbing to trail running to extreme ironing.]
The point is: I owe these parks (and their proprietor, the National Park Service) everything. I sought them out in a time of hardship and confusion, and they welcomed me with open arms and fairly negligible service fees. They gave me rattlesnake alarm clocks, close brushes with death, and indescribably magnificent vistas. They gave me a new way of living that has left me happier, healthier, and even more passionate about my work in environmental policy. (They also taught me how to build a fire under duress. A useful skill. I’ve gotten better.)
So they have earned, and have always deserved, my love and respect. And it’s time I start giving back. In a critical time where the parks are being threatened by private sector encroachment and the effects of climate change, the NPS is more underfunded than it has been for the entire past century. Facing nearly $12 billion in maintenance backlogs, the NPS needs Congress to appropriate them the necessary funds to provide a safe, educational, and natural experience for everyone who seeks them out. Without sufficient action, we are robbing people of all ages and backgrounds of the opportunity to appreciate their humbling majesty, grace, and solitude. Over the next few months, I will be exploring the political, economic, and institutional nuances that affect how we manage and protect our parks, as well as highlighting what challenges the NPS faces in the future and what we can do to help ensure its continued success.
I hope my experiences inspire you to go out over the next few weeks, months, or even years to check out both a park in your neighborhood and one that’s in another place altogether. I will personally be revisiting Yosemite next month (first time not in the winter!), and hopefully hitting up Denali National Park in Alaska early next year.
Happy 100th birthday, NPS. You look as good as you did when I first saw you, and I’ll try my best to make sure you always do in the years to come.
Love,
David
