National Parks

Alaskans prefer to call the mountain Denali, meaning the “High One,” which makes sense since it is the highest peak in North America. Believe it or not, the youngest person to climb to the summit was only eleven years old!

The animal life may be the most exciting thing about Denali. It is the only national park patrolled by sled dogs. The park has more than three dozen species of mammals—from grizzly and black bears, caribou, moose, gray wolves, and wolverines, to foxes, lynx, and Dall sheep—but no reptiles due to the cold temperatures. This also slows down the metabolism of the fish, so they’re smaller than you’d find in other places.

Plant life is unusual, too. Because of its subarctic landscape, there are lots of fungi, algae, mosses, and lichen growing in the colder and shadier places. But you’ll also see beautiful plants that flower in the short summer months, like lupine, bluebell, goldenrod, and fireweed.

Hand in hand with fjords, of course, are the glaciers that created them. At Kenai Fjords, you can get close to the incredible Exit Glacier. It is a valley glacier, which is a moving river of ice. The Exit Glacier flows about ten inches a day from the Harding Icefield. Beyond glaciers there is a rain forest, alpine tundra, and the coast.

But the wildlife is as big a draw here as the landscape: You can take a boat tour with a ranger and spot sea lions, puffins, sea otters, porpoises, seals, and the most spectacular sighting of all, humpback and orca whales. Look toward land and you might even see some mountain goats! There is kayaking here for the very experienced, and some stalwart adventurers will tackle the backcountry, camping, kayaking, and trekking across hundreds of thousands of pristine acres.

American Samoa is in the South Pacific, about 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii. It consists of several beautiful islands that are filled with rain forests and surrounded by coral reefs. This means lots of hiking, scuba diving, and fantastic snorkeling. And if you’re interested in unusual animals, there are humpback whales, colorful tropical fish, geckos, and even the flying fox, which is actually a fruit bat with a wingspan of three feet. As for the plants, about 30 percent of the plant life, which is almost five hundred plants and ferns, are only found on these islands.

You can hike a trail to the top of a mountain, see some World War II gun battlements, and swim with the turtles—all in the same day!

But the years since its establishment as a national park are a blink of the eye when you think of how long it took to create this canyon. The Grand Canyon began forming about seventeen million years ago through erosion caused by the Colorado River. That river, which is about six thousand feet below the South Rim, etched its way through the rocks to create a canyon that is 277 miles long and as wide as 18 miles. In the deepest part of the Canyon, the Colorado River flows past rocks that are 1.8 billion years old.

There are many great ways to see the canyon: People fly over in planes and helicopters, hike to the bottom, or even ride a donkey down the trails. But white-water rafting is one of the most spectacular. Today there are guides and sophisticated rafts to take you. It was not so easy in 1869, on the expedition led by geologist John Wesley Powell: His was the first passage through the canyon by European Americans. Even though Powell had lost one arm in the Civil War, he was a very brave explorer. Some of the nine other men and four boats in his party did not return from the expedition with Powell, but their trip gave us invaluable information about both the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.

Plant and animal life changes dramatically in the canyon, depending on the depth from the rim. Bats, rodents, fungi, and lichen are abundant here; mammals range from porcupines to black bears, and, of course, lots of snakes! But the most dangerous are surprisingly the rock squirrels, which send more tourists to the emergency room with bites than any other animal.

The park is unusual in other ways: It covers nearly 100,000 acres of almost complete wilderness, and is divided into two parts in the Sonoran Desert—on two sides of the city of Tucson.

Animals that live in the desert heat don’t have an easy life, so only the most adaptable ones survive. There are lots of bats, which like to come out at night when it’s cool; hummingbirds and bees, which actually make their home inside the holes of the saguaro, like birdhouses; and, maybe cleverest of all, vultures: They actually urinate on themselves to cool off!