National Park Week Starts Saturday!

It’s here! National Park Week starts this weekend, giving you zero reasons to stay home instead of exploring what Wallace Stegner called America’s “best idea.” 

I bought my annual pass when I was at Joshua Tree, but from April 21 – 29 you can visit any of the 417 National Park sites for free. Yay!

Here’s the link if you want to learn more.

And here are just a few of my favorites (which are all in the West, but there are plenty of others to visit if that’s not where you live):

My favorite of the National Parks, so far at least, is the Grand Canyon. I first saw it when I was four years old, and my awe and love of it have never flagged.

Crater Lake in Oregon. (That’s Wizard Island in the middle.)

Yes, you should see as many of the big National Parks as you can, but the bulk of the National Parks system is made up of little treasures like this one in New Mexico, Salinas National Monument.

And this one, Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado. This is an early photograph for me, by the way, and it doesn’t do it justice, so I’ll have to go back and make better images of it some day.

And the most mystical park I’ve experienced, California’s Redwood National Park.

Get out there!

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