Infolific » National Parks

Badlands National Park - The Last Battle

Seth Taggert — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:46:39 +0000

In 1876, after the Sioux were defeated by the U.S. Army, some Indians received federal subsidies for working the Badlands soil, though less than they had been promised. Much of their former hunting grounds was also given to white farmers. But the dream of creating an agricultural Utopia on this [...]

Dry Tortugas National Park

Seth Taggert — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:32:56 +0000

Curving southwest from land like a string of green-and-sand jewels, the Florida Keys stretch for nearly 180 miles across the limitless blue of the Gulf of Mexico. Most remote of all are the Dry Tortugas, a cluster of waterless islands that rise above dazzling coral reefs, where seabirds swarm like [...]

Great Basin National Park

Seth Taggert — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:13:43 +0000

Avast and lonely sunbaked land, the giant shallow bowl of the Great Basin extends across Nevada and reaches into five neighboring states. Far from uniform, the basin consists of desert flats punctuated by a series of north-south mountain ranges. Geologists call it the basin and range region. Most of the [...]

Zion National Park - Festoons of Flowers

Seth Taggert — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:31:24 +0000

Away from the river and on ledges along the canyon walls are stands of pinyon pines and junipers, trees more typical of the arid Southwest. On the highlands beyond the canyon rims, the common trees are ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, white fir, and quaking aspen. But you don't have to [...]

Lassen Volcanic National Park

Seth Taggert — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:37:26 +0000

Imagine, for a moment, that from time immemorial a magical camera has been taking pictures of Lassen Volcanic National Park. Imagine, too, that by pressing a button on the camera you are able to speed up the sequence of photos showing the distant past and watch as Lassen's explosive life [...]

Arches National Park

Seth Taggert — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:21:19 +0000

Michelangelo said that statues are imprisoned in living stone; it was his job as a sculptor, working with hammer and chisel, to free them. Here in the broken desert landscape of Arches National Park, nature is the sculptor. Working at an infinitely slower pace than Michelangelo did, she has freed [...]

Mount Rainier National Park - Birth of a Volcano

Seth Taggert — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 23:35:52 +0000

Rainier's impressive height, reaching nearly three miles above sea level, is testimony to the awesome mountain-building power of volcanic forces. And the sulfurous fumes still issuing from its summit vents are reminders that its internal fires continue to smolder; for though Rainier seems dormant, it is by no means dead. [...]

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Seth Taggert — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:40:32 +0000

The eruption of a Hawaiian volcano is one of nature's grandest sound-and-light shows. Like the prelude to a main event, the ground begins to tremble with a series of tremors and earthquakes; then a long, narrow crack stretching across the volcano opens. Incandescent lava spurts out along the length of [...]

Big Bend National Park - The Flowering Desert

Seth Taggert — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 18:14:21 +0000

The Chihuahuan desert is a paradox. Often described as inhospitable, hostile, harsh, drab, and forbodding, it can be all of those things. It can be the most pleasant of places, serene, colorful, even magical. It all depends on your state of mind. If you can't handle the hard facts of [...]

Capitol Reef National Park - The Land Today

Seth Taggert — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:26:13 +0000

The ensuring 150 million years have seen the same story enacted over and over, oceans giving way to tidal flats, then to marshy lands, and finally to sandy worlds that were drowned beneath new oceans. The frozen waves that crest above the eastern slope's pale Navajo bedrock are not so [...]

Isle Royale National Park - Season's End

Seth Taggert — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 08:25:38 +0000

By late August, the leaves of maple, aspen, oak, and birch have begun to turn. Blue berries and thimbleberries are heavy with juicy fruit to welcome migrant birds back from the north. Wolves have given up their rendezvous sites; the pups of summer are now able to run with the [...]

Everglades National Park - Escargots

Seth Taggert — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:31:14 +0000

Crawling ever so slowly among the aquatic plants are apple snails -- golfball-sized mollusks that are able to breathe both underwater and in the air. (Unlike most other water-dwelling snails, apple snails have both gills and a simple type of lung.) At night, the brown-shelled snails climb up grass blades [...]

Big Bend National Park - The High Garden

Seth Taggert — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:57:28 +0000

Once upon a time, when the land was lush and moist, ancient reptiles, including some dinosaurs, roamed what is now the park. Above them soared the largest creature ever to have flown. The reptile, dubbed the Texas pterosaur, had a wingspan of about 36 feet, as wide as a modern [...]

Shenandoah National Park - Wind-Down Toward Winter

Seth Taggert — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:38:22 +0000

In late summer the brilliant spires of cardinal flowers come into bloom along soggy stream banks, and by early September, witch hazels are brightening damp glades with their lacy yellow flowers. (One of the last holdouts against winter, the witch hazels keep right on blossoming into early December.) As the [...]

Petrified Forest National Park - Prehistoric Melting Pot

Seth Taggert — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:35:33 +0000

Less ancient, but equally mysterious, are the vestiges of prehistoric Indian peoples that dot the hills and knolls. Although Petrified Forest was never a major cultural center, as Mesa Verde was, these high grasslands became a sort of melting pot where three great prehistoric cultures -- the Anasazi from the [...]

Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Memories of Long Ago

Seth Taggert — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 18:01:56 +0000

Man too has left his mark on the landscape. When the national park was established, humans had lived in these mountains for many centuries. First to come were the Indians and then, two centuries ago, the first white settlers arrived. The mountain people lived quietly, maintaining themselves on small farms [...]

North Cascades National Park - Time and Change

Seth Taggert — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:15:56 +0000

At first glance the dim, serene forests of the North Cascades seem permanent, unchanging. But the reality is constant flux, an ebb and flow of destruction and rebirth that affects every living thing. The cycle may begin when disease or insects kill a few trees. Years later lightning strikes, and [...]

Isle Royale National Park - Cycles of Life

Seth Taggert — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 04:35:17 +0000

Spring's first awakenings on Isle Royale, back when the ice sheet was still withdrawing, probably aroused only algae and lichens, which had been carried from the mainland by the wind and water. But it cannot have been too many decades before mosses and a few higher plants -- grasses and [...]

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Seth Taggert — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 04:14:31 +0000

Few mountains anywhere in the world are more aptly named than the Great Smokies. Rank upon rank of smoothly rounded ridges recede toward the horizon like shadowy silhouettes, their contours blurred during the summer months by an ever-present haze, the product of incalculable quantities of vapor exhaled into the air [...]

Bryce Canyon National Park - Forests and Hoodoos

Seth Taggert — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:04:07 +0000

The Forest World It was atop the heavily forested Pausaugunt Plateau that the nomadic Paiutes spend their summers, living in loosely organized family groups. Here they built brush shelters called wickiups, and hunted the abundant mule deer, along with rabbits and other small game. From the lush grasses growing in [...]