Intro Photo:
G:\Electronic Journals\National Parks\photos\Jewels in the Crown - Photo Gallery\appalachian trail AP070729041999.jpg
Alt: Man on rock outcropping (AP Images)
Each of the almost 400 national parks in the U.S. system is unique — home to geologic features, natural wonders, or significant historical events which tell part of the story of a wondrous land and the people who made it a nation. National Parks, National Legacy shares a few of those stories in these pages and reveals some of the many remarkable vistas, which an early observer once described as “a new heaven and a new earth into which the creative spirit had just been breathed.”
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Alt: Two white ibis in wetland (AP Images)
Two white ibis leap through the brush of Florida’s Everglades National Park. The birds, recognized by the trademark red beak, range from the southern United States to northern South America.
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Alt: Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial seen through cherry blossoms (AP Images)
The Washington Monument, left, and the Jefferson Memorial are in the nation’s capital, seen here with the blossoms of the Japanese cherry trees, which make only a brief appearance in the spring. Both monuments are part of the National Mall complex designated as a national park.
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Alt: Old Faithful spouting (National Park Service)
The geyser known as Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park derives its name from the fact that its eruptions — about 20 a day — can be predicted with 90 percent accuracy. Old Faithful is part of an array of geothermal features in this park located in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. The park contains the most diverse and intact assortment of geothermal features on Earth.
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Alt: Aerial view of lighthouse (AP Images)
This 19th century lighthouse, the tallest brick lighthouse in the world, is a landmark at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the first place where Congress gave the seaside the status of a national park.
Clinging to a ribbon of barrier islands on the nation’s Atlantic Coast, the park, encompassing more than 12,000 hectares, delights beach-goers and fishers, but is also an important stop on the flyway for migratory birds.
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Alt: Herd of wild horses on seashore (AP Images)
Wild horses roam some of the barrier islands of the Atlantic seaboard. This herd is seen at Shackleford Banks on the Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina. The National Park Service and a private foundation jointly manage the herds and occasionally allow members of the public to adopt the animals.
Photo 6: Please use AP Images “Smokey Mountains” #96050302210
Alt: Smoky Mountains (AP Images)
A haze believed to be generated by the vast forests of these mountains gives rise to the name of the Great Smoky Mountains Park on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. The park is home to one of the most pristine natural environments in the eastern United States and to a vast array of animal and plant life.
The diversity of American culture is another attraction of the park, once home to tribes of American Indians and the adventurous pioneers who traveled and settled the mountains in the Western expansion.
Photo 7: Please use AP Images “National Parks” #060521029185
Alt: Waterfall and forest (AP Images)
The streams and cliffs join forces to make waterfalls one of the primary attractions at California’s Yosemite.
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Alt: People on staircase in cave (AP Images)
Mammoth Cave National Park is the world’s longest cave system, with almost 600 kilometers mapped. Carved from the Earth by geologic forces that began 10 million years ago, the caves’ tunnels and chambers are still being explored with no end in sight.
Photo 9: G:\Electronic Journals\National Parks\photos\Jewels in the Crown - Photo Gallery\appalachian trail AP070729041999.jpg
Alt: Man on rock outcropping (AP Images)
A lone hiker is seen on a rock outcropping in Maine in the final stretch of the 3,460-kilometer-long Appalachian Trail. One of the ultimate challenges for American hikers, the trail winds through 14 states on its north-south route, following a chain of mountains that are among the oldest in the world.
The Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, running 4,186 kilometers from Canada to Mexico, were the first to win protection from the National Trail Systems Act.
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Alt: Lake and mountains (AP Images)
Grand Teton National Park is recognized for jagged mountains that rise sharply from the lakes left behind by the retreat of the glaciers. It is in Wyoming, adjacent to Yellowstone National Park.
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Alt: Wolf wearing radio collar (AP Images)
This gray wolf is wearing a radio collar to be monitored by biologists in Yellowstone National Park. A more-than-decadelong effort to restore the population of the Rocky Mountain grey wolf allowed the legendary predator to be removed from the endangered species list in 2008.
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Alt: Rocky seashore (Getty Images)
Acadia National Park on the rugged coast of Maine became the first national park east of the Mississippi River. Seeing the encroachment of early 20th-century development on the land’s natural beauty, a far-sighted conservationist donated the land to create the park to the federal government.
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Alt: Fish swimming in clear water (National Park Service)
A saddled butterfly fish (Chaetodon ephippum) swims with a school of convict sturgeonfish (Acanthurus triostegus) in the waters of the National Park of American Samoa. Close to 1,000 species of fish are found in the warm, clear waters of this Pacific Island park.
Designated in 1993, this island park adds paleotropical rainforest, Pacific island scenery and coral reef ecosystems to the U.S. park system.
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Alt: Deer in meadow next to mountain (AP Images)
Deer are commonly seen in the meadows of California’s Yosemite National Park. The bighorned sheep are harder to spot as they favor the difficult-to-reach Alpine habitats. Only a small population of sheep remains in Yosemite, and they are considered an endangered species.
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Alt: Rock formation (AP Images)
The special attractions of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah are the eerie geologic formations left behind by weathering and erosion.