National Parks Traveler

According to the National Park Service, "Due to its exceptional night skies and efforts to mitigate light pollution, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was designated as an International Dark Sky Park in 2015."

According to the National Park Service, "Pegmatite refers to igneous rock with very coarse texture and unusually large, intergrown crystals. It consists mostly of quartz, feldspar, and mica. As magma cools and solidifies, water becomes concentrated. This concentration makes the magma more fluid and easier to squeeze, like toothpaste out of the tube, into the surrounding rock. The crystals can be very large—up to 6 feet (2 m) in length." To read more about Black Canyon of the Gunnison's geology, click here.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park's diverse landscape provides habitat for about 250 species of birds, including this quirky least bittern pictured here.

Twenty-five miles (40 km) of the river’s 100 miles (161 km) run the length of the park from south to north, so it’s a no-brainer to want to paddle a canoe or kayak through the park on this waterway. Click here to read more about paddling the Cuyahoga River.

According to the National Park Service, "Black Canyon is the result of multiple episodes of uplift and erosion and the carving power of the Gunnison River. The canyon displays a wide variety of rock types - including igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary."

This first month of the 2025 New Year is all about throwback in the National Park System, with a little added trivia.

When driving the Chisos Basin Road toward the Chisos Mountains and the Chisos Mountains Lodge, think about the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). They built the road. 

According to park staff:

"In May 1933, Texas Canyons State Park was established; it was later renamed Big Bend State Park. Roads and trails were needed for the new park, and the CCC provided an ideal workforce. A year after the park was established, 200 young men, 80 percent of whom were Hispanic, arrived to work in the Chisos Mountains. The CCC's first job was to set up camp and develop a reliable water supply. The CCC boys faced many challenges, living in tents 85 miles from the nearest town, and facing extreme temperatures and weather. Eventually barracks replaced tents in the area of today’s Basin Campground."

"The CCC built an all-weather access road into the Chisos Mountains Basin. They surveyed and built the seven-mile road using only picks, shovels, rakes, and a dump truck, which they loaded by hand. They scraped, dug, and blasted 10,000 truck loads of earth and rock and constructed 17 stone culverts, still in use today along the Basin road."

This first month of the 2025 New Year is all about throwback in the National Park System, along with a little added trivia.

According to Padre Island National Seashore staff, "When Colonel Sam Robertson bought out Pat Dunn's interests (except for grazing and mineral rights) on the island, he envisioned developing Padre Island into the Miami Beach of the Texas coast. To that end he developed several projects to bring people to the island and which still exist, although not in their original form."

"In 1927 Colonel Robertson built the first causeway from the island's northern end to Flour Bluff on the mainland. He named it the Don Patricio causeway in honor of Patrick Dunn. The construction was very simple: four wooden troughs supported by a trestle. The troughs were spaced so that a standard automobile could place it tires in them and drive across. One pair of troughs was for eastbound traffic and one was for westbound. In the first month of its operation, 1,800 cars used the causeway and 2,500 used it the second month. After that use dropped."

Looks like the Don Patricio Causeway in this 1930 image was more popular as a spot for saltwater fishing.

"In about anything they needed as extra manpower, they always relied on the CCC…. I mean, you can just see the results. I don’t think they would have a lot of things today if they hadn’t had the CCC working on these, you know a lot of this rock cribbing and river work and the trail work and just things like that. They got a lot done. It makes the park…I’ll say."
 

- Fred Brueck, Zion and Bryce National Park Ranger 1934-1941 and Zion National Park Chief Ranger 1953-1973. Interviewed September 18, 1989.

This week park's photos are all about a little throwback to start the New Year off, with a little bit of trivia included.

Before the first African American military pilots became known as the "Red Tails" they wore striped tails as they began their flight training in the Army's PT-17 Stearman bi-plane.  Their flying adventure started at Moton Field, in Tuskegee, Alabama, where the Army Air Corps conducted a military test to determine if African Americans could be trained to fly combat aircraft. At the far left is Captain Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., the squadron commander, who went on to a long, successful career in the U.S. Airforce.