If you've stood before Old Faithful as it erupts against a golden sunset, or perhaps a frosty sunrise, you're likely going to carry that image with you for the rest of your life. Or maybe the profile of Half Dome, as seen from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park, leaps first to mind when you think of national parks.
Those are two bold, hard-to-forget images. But perhaps there's another setting in the National Park System that you hold most dear. It could be the sunset that softly backlights the sea stacks at Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park, the first rays of sunrise as spied from atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, or the waving sawgrass that sweeps to the horizon at Everglades National Park.
There are other images cast by the national parks -- the Gettysburg battlefield at dusk, the silent cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, the rippling waters of Voyageurs. Tell us what setting in the parks is burned forever into your memory.
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Ofcourse the Grand Canyon. It simiply takes your breath away at first sight. I will never forget that experience. You really cannot grasp the enormity of it until you are standing on the edge looking down at the Colorado River. Pictures of it and the shows on the travel channel don't do it justice. You must go there!!!!
Cades Cove in the morning when the sun starts to rise....just amazing!
C'mon. Nobody has said anything about the most obvious image one thinks of with the National Park Service.
It's not a place or view.
It's that felt or straw campaign hat with the leather band. With a special fitting plastic cover, it becomes a rain hat. It's something that one can see at any NPS unit and instantly turns the wearer into an expert guide. :)
Sequoia NP - Giant Forest - A trail moseying between giant sequoias and a carpet of ferns.
I also like the idea of the simple engraved 'trailhead' sign.
Of course, every view at the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone are forever in my head. But, as a young girl, I grew up in NJ and drove to the California desert and lived in 29 Palms. We would go to Joshua Tree every weekend and it took my breath away--so different from anything I had ever seen.
Like everyone else, I have a huge list. But I am going to stick with my very first one: driving Skyline drive in Shenandoah. I grew up right outside of DC and that was always my get-away in the summer. I remember sitting on the stonewalls on the overlooks looking into that beautiful expanse of forest, nothing I would have seen at home. And of course I can't ever forget my first sighting of a black bear. Even though it wasn't allowed I made my father stop in the middle of the road!
Ranger Holly
http://web.me.com/hollyberry
A smiling Gale Norton and smirking President George W. Bush sitting in front of an iconic NPS arrowhead at some function or another. I successfully fought off the wave of nausea that struck me and took it in stride. Now I have it pinned up in my office as a reminder of why my job is important.
James Watt was before my time, otherwise his photo would be posted too.
America the Beautiful....what more can anyone say. I've been blessed to have been to most of the sites mentioned and just recently, last week, cried again at the sight of the Grand Canyon...it's also a tear jerker when we we leave. THAT is forver in my heart.
But....has everyone forgotten....."Smokey the Bear".
God Bless America!
Seeing Denali from Talkeetna on a perfectly clear Sunday morning