National Park System celebrates 100 years

In 1941, Ansel Adams took this photo of the Big Room in Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeast New Mexico. The natural limestone chamber is nearly 4,000 feet long, 625 feet wide, and 255 feet high at the highest point. Courtesy photo

Cabrillo National Monument, on the far end of San Diego’s Point Loma, includes the historic lighthouse (eventually replaced because the fog often occurs at a lower elevation), a visitor’s center, various former military installations and tide pools. On a clear day, the views of San Diego, Coronado Island, the mountains to the east and Mexico in the south is unmatched. The monument was named after Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo who, in 1542, was the first European to sail into San Diego Bay. (Photo by E’Louise Ondash)

Hikers enjoy the many trails in Cedar Breaks National Monument in Southern Utah. Though not nearly as well known as nearby Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks, Cedar Breaks provides lots of colorful scenery and quiet trails. (Photo by E’Louise Ondash)

Your life has been a good one if you’ve been lucky enough to take an early morning walk through towering sequoias; seen whales breeching in the frigid waters of an Alaskan fjord; heard the melodies of a backcountry mountain stream; surveyed the explosion of autumn color in an old-growth forest; or looked (from a safe distance) into the jaws of an Everglades alligator.

Hikers who reach the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park are rewarded with a spectacular view of the Maine coastline and Frenchman Bay. The pink granite summit is one of the first places in the country to see the sunrise. Acadia is the oldest national park east of the Mississippi. (Photo by Jerry Ondash)

The colorful rock formations in Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah provide an other-worldly experience for visitors and a lesson in the forces of nature. Because it is more isolated and elevated (the rim is at 9,000 feet), Bryce receives fewer visitors than nearby Zion National Park, but the extra effort to reach it is worth it. (Photo by Jerry Ondash)

These are the gifts of our glorious national parks, and I can’t let the 100th birthday of the National Park System pass without paying tribute.

In 1872, Yellowstone became the world’s first national park, but it wasn’t until 1916 that the park service was created. Its job is a bit schizophrenic; it must maintain the historic and environmental integrity of the lands we call America’s cathedrals, but also allow you and me to access these precious acres.

Through the years, the park service has steadily added to the number of its protected sites. Just two weeks ago, President Obama quadrupled the protected waters of Hawaii’s Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. It now encompasses more than 582,000 square miles of ocean that surrounds the uninhabited northwestern islands — an area larger than all the national parks combined.

The park service has learned that if you dedicate it, they will come.

More than 300 million people annually come to feel the spray of California’s Yosemite Falls, walk the black lava sands created by of Hawaii’s volcanoes, and marvel at the more than 1,500 dinosaur bones embedded in a Colorado sandbar.

Each time I’ve visited a national park, monument, historic site, battlefield site, trail, preserve or reserve, I have the same thought: It doesn’t get much better than this.