Category: Places & Travel

… was established in 1916 and renamed on this date in 1987.

Mammoths, giant bison, and short-faced bears were witness to the first tremblings of the earth and firework-like explosions of molten rock thousands of feet into the air. Approximately 60,000 years ago, the rain of cooling cinders and four lava flows formed Capulin Volcano, a nearly perfectly-shaped cinder cone, rising more than 1000 feet above the surrounding landscape. Although long extinct, Capulin Volcano is dramatic evidence of the volcanic processes that shaped northeastern New Mexico. Today the pine forested volcano provide habitat for mule deer, wild turkey, and black bear.

Capulin Volcano National Monument

It’s no secret that Yellowstone National Park is volcanic in nature. Still, scientists are raising their eyebrows over a recent swarm of earthquakes that have been shaking the park’s underpinnings.

Since December 26 the park has been hit by more than 250 earthquakes that, while not overpowering, have been in the range of a 4.0 magnitude, according to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

National Parks Traveler

Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charles Mason rode out on what is now Sun Point in search of lost cattle 120 years ago today and found Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde. That afternoon, Richard found Spruce Tree House, and the next day, the two men discovered Square Tower House. Al Wetherill, Richard’s brother, saw Cliff Palace sometime the year before, but he did not enter the dwelling, so the credit for “discovering” the dwelling has been given to Richard Wetherill and Charles Mason.

In 1901, Richard Wetherill homesteaded land that included Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo Del Arroyo, and Chetro Ketl in what is now Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Wetherill remained in Chaco Canyon, homesteading and operating a trading post at Pueblo Bonito until his murder in 1910. Chiishch’ilin Biy, charged with the murder, served several years in prison, but was released in 1914 due to poor health. Wetherill is buried in the small cemetery west of Pueblo Bonito.

NewMexiKen took this photo of Cliff Palace in 2006. Click image for a larger version.

National Parks Traveler has a very difficult quiz this week about the national parks.

This week’s quiz explores many colorful aspects of our national parks. We’re going to depart from custom here and mix in some true-false and short-answer items. Answers are at the end. If we catch you peeking we’ll confiscate your crayons.

… became law on this date in 1980, more than doubling the size of the national park system.

According to America’s National Park System: The Critical Documents edited by Lary M. Dilsaver:

In the waning days of the Carter Democratic administration, Congress acted to further protect and expand preserved areas in Alaska, many rescued from exploitation two years earlier by presidential proclamation. This complex and lengthy act defines preserved parks, forests, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges, wild and scenic rivers, and Native American corporation lands and the degrees of preservation and usage for each. It prescribes timber, fish, and wildlife protection and use by Native Americans and other citizens.

New areas for the national park system included Aniakchak National Preserve, Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Kenai Fjords National Park, Kobuk Valley National Park, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Noatak National Preserve, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The act also added new lands to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Katmai National Monument and Preserve, and Denali National Park and Preserve (renamed from Mount McKinley National Park).

New wild and scenic rivers under Park Service administration included Alagnak, Alatna, Aniakchak, Charley, Chilikadrotna, John, Kobuk, Mulchatna, Noatak, North Fork of the Koyukuk, Salmon, Tinayguk, and Tlikakila rivers. Other wild and scenic rivers are designated or expanded in wildlife refuges and in other areas.

The vast majority of acreage in the Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Katmai, Kobuk Valley, Lake Clark, Noatak, and Wrangell-St. Elias units is designated wilderness.

Photo taken by Ken, official oldest son of NewMexiKen, 1998.

… was redisignated on this date in 2000, pending land acquisition. It had been a national monument since 1932. The land was acquired and Great Sand Dunes became America’s 57th national park in 2004.

In this high mountain valley are the tallest dunes in North America, flanked by some of the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains. The park and preserve protects much of the Great Sand Dunes’ natural system, including alpine tundra and lakes, forests, streams, dunes, grasslands, and wetlands.

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

And National Parks Traveler tells us that Great Sand Dunes is one of the quietest places in the U.S.

… was established on this date in 1919.

Zion is an ancient Hebrew word meaning a place of refuge or sanctuary. Protected within the park’s 229 square miles is a dramatic landscape of sculptured canyons and soaring cliffs. Zion is located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and Mojave Desert provinces. This unique geography and the variety of life zones within the park make Zion significant as a place of unusual plant and animal diversity.

Zion National Park

NewMexiKen photo, 2005

… was proclaimed a national monument 101 years ago today by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument offers a glimpse of the homes and lives of the people of the Mogollon culture who lived in the Gila Wilderness from the 1280s through the early 1300s. The surroundings probably look today very much like they did when the cliff dwellings were inhabited.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

… was redesignated from national monument to national park on this date in 1971.

For there is a cloud on my horizon. A small dark cloud no bigger than my hand. Its name is Progress.

The ease and relative freedom of this lovely job at Arches follow from the comparative absence of the motorized tourists, who stay away by the millions. And they stay away because of the unpaved entrance road, the unflushable toilets in the campgrounds, and the fact that most of them have never even heard of Arches National Monument.
…

The Master Plan has been fulfilled. Where once a few adventurous people came on weekends to camp for a night or two and enjoy a taste of the primitive and remote, you will now find serpentine streams of baroque automobiles pouring in and out, all through the spring and summer, in numbers that would have seemed fantastic when I worked there: from 3,000 to 30,000 to 300,000 per year, the “visitation,” as they call it, mounts ever upward [769,672 visitors in 2003].
…

Progress has come at last to Arches, after a million years of neglect. Industrial Tourism has arrived.

— Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire (1968)

NewMexiKen photo, 2003

… was established on this date in 1978.

Four Spanish frontier missions, part of a colonization system that stretched across the Spanish Southwest in the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, are preserved here. They include Missions San Jose, San Juan, Espada, and Concepcion. The park, containing many cultural sites along with some natural areas, was established in 1978. The park covers about 819 acres.

National Park Service

… was upgraded from national monument to national park on this date in 1978.

Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands National Park consists of 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. The Badlands Wilderness Area covers 64,000 acres and is the site of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America. The Stronghold Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and includes sites of 1890s Ghost Dances. Established as Badlands National Monument in 1939, the area was redesignated “National Park” in 1978. Over 11,000 years of human history pale to the ages old paleontological resources. Badlands National Park contains the world’s richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 23 to 35 million years old. Scientists can study the evolution of mammal species such as the horse, sheep, rhinoceros and pig in the Badlands formations.

National Park Service

… began as Gran Quivara National Monument in 1909, but evolved over the years and was renamed Salinas Pueblo Missions 20 years ago today.

Once, thriving American Indian trade communities of Tiwa and Tompiro speaking Puebloans inhabited this remote frontier area of central New Mexico. Early in the 17th-century Spanish Franciscans found the area ripe for their missionary efforts. However, by the late 1670s the entire Salinas District, as the Spanish had named it, was depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard. What remains today are austere yet beautiful reminders of this earliest contact between Pueblo Indians and Spanish Colonials: the ruins of four mission churches, at Quarai, Abó, and Gran Quivira and the partially excavated pueblo of Las Humanas or, as it is known today, Gran Quivira. Established in 1980 through the combination of two New Mexico State Monuments and the former Gran Quivira National Monument, the present Monument comprises a total of 1,100 acres.

Source: National Park Service

Eight-five years ago today President Calvin Coolidge signed a proclamation creating Carlsbad Cave National Monument and its “extraordinary proportions and… unusual beauty and variety of natural decoration…” It became a national park in 1930.

As you pass through the Chihuahuan Desert and Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico and west Texas—filled with prickly pear, chollas, sotols and agaves—you might never guess there are more than 300 known caves beneath the surface. The park contains 113 of these caves, formed when sulfuric acid dissolved the surrounding limestone, creating some of the largest caves in North America.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

… became Saguaro National Park on this date in 1994.

This unique desert is home to the most recognizable cactus in the world, the majestic saguaro. Visitors of all ages are fascinated and enchanted by these desert giants, especially their many interesting and complex interrelationships with other desert life. Saguaro cacti provide their sweet fruits to hungry desert animals. They also provide homes to a variety of birds, such as the Harris’ hawk, Gila woodpecker and the tiny elf owl. Yet, the saguaro requires other desert plants for its very survival. During the first few years of a very long life, a young saguaro needs the shade and protection of a nurse plant such as the palo verde tree. With an average life span of 150 years, a mature saguaro may grow to a height of 50 feet and weigh over 10 tons.

National Park Service

… was proclaimed a national monument 100 years ago today. It was redisignated a national historical park in 1990.

Tumacácori NHP protects three Spanish colonial mission ruins in southern Arizona: Tumacácori, Guevavi, and Calabazas. The adobe structures are on three sites, with a visitor center at Tumacácori. These missions are among more than twenty established in the Pimería Alta by Father Kino and other Jesuits, and later expanded upon by Franciscan missionaries.

— Tumacácori National Historical Park

… was formed on this date in 1950 by combining the much smaller national park established in 1929 (which included just the Tetons and the lakes) and the Jackson Hole National Monument established in 1943. Today the park includes nearly 310,000 acres.

Located in northwestern Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park protects stunning mountain scenery and a diverse array of wildlife. The central feature of the park is the Teton Range — an active, fault-block, 40-mile-long mountain front. The range includes eight peaks over 12,000 feet (3,658 m), including the Grand Teton at 13,770 feet (4,198 m). Seven morainal lakes run along the base of the range, and more than 100 alpine lakes can be found in the backcountry.

Elk, moose, pronghorn, mule deer, and bison are commonly seen in the park. Black bears are common in forested areas, while grizzlies are occasionally observed in the northern part of the park. More than 300 species of birds can be observed, including bald eagles and peregrine falcons.

Grand Teton National Park

… was authorized on this date 44 years ago. From the National Park Service:

Canyonlands National Park preserves a colorful landscape of sedimentary sandstones eroded into countless canyons, mesas and buttes by the Colorado River and its tributaries. The Colorado and Green rivers divide the park into four districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze and the rivers themselves. While the districts share a primitive desert atmosphere, each retains its own character and offers different opportunities for exploration and learning.