TagNational Parks

Channel Islands National Park stretches across 2,500 miles of the North American Pacific coast, encompassing five of the eight California Channel Islands. The park bridges two biogeographical provinces, resulting in high plant and animal diversity in a concentrated area. From microscopic plankton to the largest animal in the world, the blue whale, thousands of species

Located in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas, the Guadalupe Mountains National Park covers 135 square miles and features the highest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, at 8,749 feet. The rugged mountain is an uplifted marine fossil reef from the Permian period that formed beneath the ocean some 250 million years ago. Millions of years of

The unique landscape of Pinnacles National Park was born of multiple volcanic eruptions roughly 23 million years ago. The force of earthquakes along with water and wind erosion over millennia created these rock formations. Today, many species of plants and animals make the rocks their home. The elevation of Pinnacles ranges from 824 feet along

Known by the Cherokee people as Shaconage, meaning “place of the blue smoke,” and frequently referred to today as “the Smokies,” Great Smoky Mountains is the most visited national park in the country. World-renowned for its biodiversity, the beauty of its ancient mountains and quality of its remnants of Southern Appalachian culture, the park stretches

On March 1, 1872, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, making Yellowstone the world’s first federally protected park. Located in Wyoming and parts of Montana and Idaho, it features more than 10,000 hot springs, geysers and mudpots that are home to rare heat-loving microscopic organisms. The most well-known geyser,