Infolific » National Parks

Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Canyon Oases

Seth Taggert — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:44:38 +0000

As the reef was being pushed up, cracks developed, and many of these, with the aid of erosion, became deeply incised canyons. These canyons are now the special wonder of the Guadalupes. In some, springs arise to feed streams that pause in limpid pools, forming cool and fragrant oases. Mosses [...]

Carlsbad Caverns National Park - The Action

Seth Taggert — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:13:01 +0000

When rain falls and the drops seep through the soil, they combine with carbon dioxide to form a weak carbonic acid. Trickling down through cracks in the reef, this mild acid is strong enough to dissolve limestone, generally in the form of calcite, which it carries along. When a drop [...]

Theodore Roosevelt National Park - The Cattleman

Seth Taggert — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:39:58 +0000

The year 1884 was devastating to Teddy Roosevelt. His wife and his mother died on the same day in February. In June a disastrous confrontation at the Republican Convention left his promising political career in ruins. Disheartened, defeated, and grieving, he retired from public life and returned to the badlands, [...]

Grand Canyon National Park - The Living River

Seth Taggert — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:18:06 +0000

From the river's perspective, as it makes its brief passage across the broken rock between deep gorges, little of this life-and-death panorama can be seen. The flower stalks of century plants rise like distant flagpoles across the low valley, while more like maypoles. And before very long, the entire vista [...]

Shenandoah National Park - Wind-Down Toward Winter

Seth Taggert — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:00:39 +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 [...]

Great Basin National Park - Climbing to the Top

Seth Taggert — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:19:28 +0000

Above the pygmy forest, at about 8,000 feet in elevation, you enter the realm of mountain mahogany, a shrub with hard, reddish wood. Climb just another 1,000 feet, and you find yourself in cooler air, surrounded by the sweet resinous smell of spruce-fir forests and aspen groves (their leaves turn [...]

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Seth Taggert — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 02:37:24 +0000

Standing atop a high point in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, you survey an arid land of purple shadows and gray-brown rock. Southwestward into Texas rise the Guadalupe Mountains, and your eye follows the line of the ancient seacoast that gave them birth. In steep-walled canyons, carved long ago by rushing [...]

Yellowstone National Park - Fire and Ice

Seth Taggert — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 19:42:20 +0000

All of Yellowstone's geysers have one thing in common: they result from a link between ancient volcanism beneath the earth and water that falls from above. The same is true of all the water that bubbles, boils, spurts, and hisses from the ground in whatever form throughout the park. It [...]

Isle Royale National Park - Blossom Time

Seth Taggert — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:05:59 +0000

Summer comes in a rush, beginning in June. The air is alive with mosquitoes, blackflies, and midges, all aswarm around the heads and flanks of adult moose (the calves are well protected by their wooly coats). Dainty clusters of diminutive calypso orchids -- the most elegant of Isle Royale's 34 [...]

Theodore Roosevelt National Park - The Delicate Badlands

Seth Taggert — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 05:44:29 +0000

Despite the seemingly endless vistas of grass, despite the implacably rugged badlands that slash through them, despite the calm quality of eternal sameness that the Little Missouri lends as it winds northward toward its junction with the Missouri, despite all the elements that create the illusion of immutable toughness, this [...]

Olympic National Park - Beyond the Rain Forest

Seth Taggert — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:24:11 +0000

Where the land begins to rise toward the mountains it does so abruptly, without any hesitation. The slopes are steep and difficult to climb: huge moss-covered logs lie tumbled across each other, and streams fed by melting snow sluice down the mountainsides, daring anyone to cross their icy waters and [...]

Lassen Volcanic National Park - The Last Survivor

Seth Taggert — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 04:49:17 +0000

Long before European settlers reached California, four Indian tribes -- the Yana, Yahi, Maidu, and Atsugewi -- lived in relative harmony under the shadow of Lassen Peak. Until the mid-19th century, Indians in the region had encountered little trouble with European settlers; they had ignored -- and been largely ignored [...]

Virgin Islands National Park - The Rainbow Realm

Seth Taggert — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:57:54 +0000

Corals in all their varieties, shapes, and sizes are the very foundation for survival of a host of other animals and plants that live on the reef. For some, such as parrotfish, corals are a source of both food and protection. Crevices, overhands, and caves in the reefs allow the [...]

Haleakala National Park - Jungle Birds and Blossoms

Seth Taggert — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 12:11:09 +0000

Except for the silversword, Haleakala's crater is virtually bare of vegetation, but at its eastern end, where the lower crater wall slopes down, clouds spill over and rain falls in great quantities. The result is an isolated oasis, called Paliku (the Hawaiian word for "vertical cliff"), where such trees as [...]

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 [...]