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LIFE Explores America's National Parks

LIFE Explores America's National Parks
Magazine
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America’s national parks are more popular than ever, drawing record numbers of visitors every year. This special issue is a celebration of these parks, representing the best of the geographic and biological diversity of the far-flung U.S. park system. Packed with extraordinary photographs (as well as intriguing data and detailed descriptions), these pages serve not only as a guide to the parks’ individual charms, but also as an appreciation of their unmatched—and fragile—natural splendor.

America’s National Parks

This Land Is Your Land • America’s national parks are something all citizens can agree on: They are an inarguable treasure, the happy result of the prescience of our predecessors

EASTERN NATIONAL PARKS • Compared with their big-shouldered cousins of the West, the parks along the Atlantic side of the U.S. are somewhat subtler in their magic and more varied in geology and biology. From the rockbound shores of Acadia to the exotic waters of the Everglades, these parks have something for everybody.

Acadia • MAINE

Hot Springs • ARKANSAS

Great Smoky Mountains • TENNESSEE, NORTH CAROLINA

Shenandoah • VIRGINIA

Mammoth Cave • KENTUCKY

Everglades • FLORIDA

Virgin Islands • UNITED STATES VIRGIN ISLANDS

Congaree • SOUTH CAROLINA

Natural Heroes: Two of a Kind • Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir combined politics and passion to exalt nature and expand the national parks

MIDWEST NATIONAL PARKS • Scattered through the midsection of America are a number of wildly varied national parks: some near cities, some far from anything; some well-trodden, some still hidden gems.

Wind Cave • SOUTH DAKOTA

Isle Royale • MICHIGAN

Voyageurs • MINNESOTA

Badlands • SOUTH DAKOTA

Theodore Roosevelt • NORTH DAKOTA

Cuyahoga Valley • OHIO

Gateway Arch • MISSOURI

Indiana Dunes • INDIANA

Loving the Parks to Death • Overcrowding is one of many factors damaging the parks, as well as invasive species and higher temperatures

WESTERN AND PACIFIC NATIONAL PARKS • Many of the nation’s most famous parks have been carved out of the Western landscape, much as the Colorado River has carved the Grand Canyon. But the American West does not end at the Pacific coastline; the park system reaches to Hawaii and American Samoa.

Yosemite • CALIFORNIA

Mesa Verde • COLORADO

Rocky Mountain • COLORADO

Grand Canyon • ARIZONA

Zion • UTAH

Bryce Canyon • UTAH

Carlsbad Caverns • NEW MEXICO

Big Bend • TEXAS

Haleakalā • HAWAII

Petrified Forest • ARIZONA

Arches • UTAH

Great Basin • NEVADA

American Samoa • AMERICAN SAMOA

The Original Americans and the Parks • Native tribes were the earliest keepers of the land that was claimed by the government and became the national parks. They are only now beginning to have their rights restored

NORTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS • The parks of the American Northwest feature some of the country’s most glorious terrain, from the grand peaks of Wyoming to the rain forests of Washington and finally to the vast beauty of Alaska.

Yellowstone • WYOMING, MONTANA, IDAHO

Mount Rainier • WASHINGTON

Crater Lake • OREGON

Glacier • MONTANA

Denali • ALASKA

Grand Teton • WYOMING

Olympic • WASHINGTON

Glacier Bay • ALASKA

Wrangell-St. Elias • ALASKA

LIFE Explores America's National Parks

PHOTO CREDITS

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Formats

  • OverDrive Magazine

Languages

  • English

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