Parks and Monument, both national and state, that we have visited
National Parks, National Monuments, and State Parks we have visited. Following the listing of visited parks and monuments, I have included a brief note about the various sites. National Park stave medallions are available at ShopANP.org, Eagle River Designs, or NationalParkSouvenirs.com. Utah state park walking stick medallions are available at www.stateparks.utah.gov/parks. The bold red dot (•) signifies that I have a hiking stave medallion from that location.
NATIONAL PARKS:
• Arches National Park, Utah — October 1995
• Badlands National Park, South Dakota — July 2002
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison — September 2001
• Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah — April 1996
• Canyonlands National Park, Utah — October 1997
• Capitol Reef National Park, Utah — October 1999
• Glacier National Park, Montana — July 2001
• Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona — September 2011
• Great Basin National Park, Nevada — June 1996
• Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming — June 1997
• Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado — August 1990
• Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado — June 2000
• Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada — July 2001
• Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota — July 2002
• Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming — June 1997
• Zion National Park, Utah — July 1985
NATIONAL MONUMENTS, MEMORIALS, HISTORICAL SITES, NATIONAL RESERVES, and RECREATION AREAS:
• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Nebraska — July 2002
• Bears Ears National Monument, Utah — April 2022
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument, Colorado —
• Buffalo Gap National Grassland, South Dakota — July 2002
• California National Historical Trail, Utah and Wyoming — July 2002
• Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah — September 2011
• City of Rocks National Reserve, Idaho — June 2019
• Colorado National Monument, Colorado — September 2001
• Craters of Moon National Monument, Idaho — June 1996
• Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado — September 2001
• Devil’s Tower National Monument, Wyoming — July 2002
• Dinosaur National Monument, Utah and Colorado — June 2000
• Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Utah — August 2021
• Fort Laramie National Historical Site, Wyoming — July 2002
• Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming — June 1997
• Four Corners Historic Site, southeast Utah — April 2022
• Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Utah — October 2000
• Golden Spike National Historical Site, Utah — July 2001
• Grand Staircase of the Escalante National Monument, Utah and Arizona — June 2002
• Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, Idaho — June 2019
• Hovenweep National Monument, southeast Utah — April 2022
• Jewel Cave National Monument, South Dakota — July 2002
• Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada — Summer 1995
• Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota — July 2002
• Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota — July 2002
• Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah — April 2022
• Navajo National Monument, Arizona — April 2022
• Old Spanish National Historic Trail, southeast Utah — April 2022
• Oregon Trail National Historical Site, Wyoming and Idaho — July 2002
• Pipe Spring National Monument, Arizona — September 2011
• Pony Express National Historical Trail, Utah — July 2002
• Promontory Point National Historic Site, Utah — June 1995
• Rainbow Bridge National Monument, Utah — October 2000
• Scotts Bluff National Monument, Nebraska — July 2002
• Timpanogos Cave National Monument, Utah — June 1994
• Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Arizona — September 2011
STATE PARKS:
• Anasazi — April 1996
• Antelope Island — July 1994
• Bear Lake — July 1994
• Big Sand —
• Camp Floyd — July 1982
• Coral Pink Sand Dune Dune — July 1985
• Dead Horse Point — October 1997, April 2022
• Deer Creek — July 1995
• East Canyon — July 1997
• Edge of Cedars —
• Escalante — April 1996
• Fort Buenaventura — June 1995
• Fremont Indian — April 1996
• Goblin Valley — October 1995
• Goosenecks — April 2022
• Great Salt Lake — July 1982
• Green River — October 1995
• Gunlock — September 1996
• Huntington — June 2003
• Hyrum —
• Iron Mission —
• Jordan River —
• Jordanelle — June 1997
• Kodachrome Basin — April 1996
• Lost Creek —
• Millsite —
• Minersville —
• Newspaper Rock — October 1997
• Otter Creek —
• Palisade — June 1992
• Pioneer Trail — July 1995
• Piute — April 1996
• Quail Creek —
• Redfleet —
• Rockport — June 1997
• Scofield —
• Snow Canyon — July 1992
• Starvation —
• Steinaker —
• Territorial Statehouse — July 1992
• Fieldhouse of Natural History — July 1989
• Utah Lake — July 2002
• Veteran Memorial —
• Wasatch Mountain — August 1994
• Willard Bay — June 1995
• Yuba Lake — August 2002
NATIONAL PARKS NOTES:
• Arches National Park, Utah — The world’s largest concentration of natural stone arches enchants visitors to this red rock wonderland along the Colorado River. The most recognizable is Delicate Arch. This landform once stood as an uplifted sandstone fin. Over time, wind, water, and ice erosion opened a small window that has widened to created the scenic span that today stands as an iconic symbol of the state of Utah. Delicate Arch has an opening that is 32 feet wide and 46 feet high. This dramatic free-standing arch is all that remains of a thin Entrada Sandstone fin sculpted by thousands of years of weathering. Delicate Arch is just one of over 2000 natural sandstone openings found in Arches National Park. All arches ultimately will collapse over time as new ones form.
• Badlands National Park, South Dakota — This dramatic country held little value to the Lakota Sioux, who named it “land bad”. Today’s visitors admire bison grazing on pristine prairies and fossil specimens of rhinos, saber-toothed cats and marine species unearthed from one of the world’s greatest collections. Rising high above the South Dakota landscape is the Wall, a sixty-mile escarpment shaped by erosion of sedimentary rock that accumulated over millions of years. Erosion on the Wall is ongoing, its profile continually changing.
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado — More than two million years in the making, this western Colorado wonder rises as high as 2,700 feet above the roaring waters of the trout-rich Gunnison River. Roads and trails along the canyon rim offer visitors breathtaking views into a towering river-carved gorge so deep and narrow its lower portions only see minutes of sunlight daily. Especially memorable is viewing the canyon’s snow-covered rock walls during a winter trek on snowshoes or cross-country skis.
• Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah — The signature sandstone formations at this southwestern park are called hoodoos. Often likened to totem poles silhouetted against the Utah sky, Bryce Canyon’s hoodoos are so mystifying that early-day Native Americans believed they were humans frozen in stone. The park is home to the world’s largest collection of these oddly-shaped and heavily-eroded formations. Prime time for viewing them is sunrise or sunset, when rock and sky are aglow in vivid colors.
• Canyonlands National Park, Utah — Two great western rivers, the Green and the Colorado, have played vital roles in sculpting this Utah wonderland during the past several hundred million years. The two rivers come into confluence in the park, which the rivers have separated into three main sections: the Needles, the Maze, and the Island in the Sky. Each of these distinctive districts offers premier desert wilderness experiences, including hiking, backpacking, boating, floating and four wheeling, in unforgettable Southwestern settings.
• Capitol Reef National Park, Utah — A dramatic wrinkle in the Earth’s crust, the Waterpocket Fold, is the signature geologic feature of this Utah national park. Millions of years of erosion continue their work on this massive monocline, creating a dramatic landscape of canyons, cliffs, domes and spires extending almost 100 miles north from Lake Powell. The Fremont River flows west to east across the Waterpocket Fold, bringing animal life, other-worldly riparian greenery and pioneer-era fruit orchards to the arid desert wilderness.
• Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, Utah — Flaming Gorge is located in the Green River Bain of Wyoming and in the canyons, parks, and highlands of the eastern Uinta Mountains of Utah and Colorado. It was on May 26, 1869 that Major John Wesley Powell named the Flaming Gorge after he and his men saw the sun reflecting off of the red rocks. The esthetically engineered dam which creates the Flaming Gorge reservoir is the largest dam in Utah, and it was completed in 1964. The dam is under the domain of the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area was established by Congress on October 1, 1968. It is administered by the Forest Service. The area contains 207,363 acres of land and water, almost equally divided between Utah and Wyoming.
• Glacier National Park, Montana — A rare phenomenon occurs in this scenery-blessed park on Montana’s northern border. From the summit of Triple Divide Peak, rain and melting snow run off in three directions, flowing toward the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and Canada’s Hudson Bay. The mountain is viewed from Going-to-the-Sun Road, which crosses the Continental Divide and offers visitors breathtaking views of the parks’ rugged mountains, glaciers, picturesque lakes, roaring waterfalls and maybe a bighorn sheep or grizzly bear.
• Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona — This fabled gorge created by the Colorado River may be America’s most famous landscape feature. The Grand Canyon is massive, 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and more than a mile deep in places. Its vast expanse and spectacular geologic formations lure millions annually to canyon rim overlooks. The Colorado River, a prime rafting and kayaking destination, is still at work carving out one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World.
• Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming — Few will argue that the Teton Range, which rises to more than 6,000 feet above the Jackson Hole valley floor, is the nation’s most memorable mountain profile. Flanked by its sister peaks, the Middle Teton and Mount Owen, Wyoming’s Grand Teton Peak towers to 13,700 feet above sea level. The Teton summits attract daring mountaineers from around the globe. Other park visitors enjoy hiking around picturesque mountain lakes, floating on the Snake River, and viewing a wide variety of wildlife.
• Great Basin National Park, Nevada — The park derives its name from the Great Basin, the dry and mountainous region between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Mountains. The park is located about 290 miles north of Las Vegas, on the Nevada-Utah border. The park is notable for its groves of ancient bristlecone pines, the oldest known nonclonal organisms, and for the Lehman Caves at the base of 13,063-foot (3,982 m) Wheeler Peak. President Warren G. Harding created Lehman Caves National Monument by presidential proclamation on January 24, 1922. The monument and its surroundings was designated a national park on October 27, 1986.
• Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado — From about 600 A.D. to 1300 A.D., the Ancestral Puebloans struggled to survive in the arid environment at this Four Corners destination. Mesa Verde today preserves about 5,000 archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings that served the residential and ceremonial needs of their inhabitants. Ranger-led tours through some of these cliff communities offer fascinating glimpses into the lives of a hardy Southwestern people. Some visitors to this mystical place swear they can feel their presence.
• National Park Geek logo — The National Park Geek logo is symbolic of National Park history. The Ranger Hat has been a symbol of pride for Rangers since 1911 when it became part of their uniforms. It represents the long history of preserving our public lands and telling our country’s history. The glasses in our logo represent President Teddy Roosevelt, who was instrumental in his support for National Parks and Monuments. We combined these symbols to create a platform to share your love for our precious parks.
• Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado — Home to 14,259 foot Longs Peak, sixty summits rising above 12,000 feet, mountain-rimmed lakes, roaring waterfalls, the headwaters of the might Colorado River and more than 350 miles of hiking trails, this Colorado destination offers endless opportunities for mountain adventure. Trail Ridge Road, America’s highest continuous paved highway, traverses the Continental Divide, a rugged ridge separating the continent’s watersheds. Elven miles of the scenic roadway wind through the park’s treeless alpine tundra about 11,000 feet.
• Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada — This park borders Glacier National Park in Montana, United States. Waterton was the fourth Canadian national park, formed in 1895 and named after Waterton Lake, in turn after the Victorian naturalist and conservationist Charles Waterton. Its range is between the Rocky Mountains and prairies. This park contains 195 square miles of rugged mountains and wilderness.
• Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota — This park is located in southwestern South Dakota. Established on January 3rd, 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the seventh national park and the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. The cave is notable for its calcite formations known as boxwork, as well as its frostwork. Approximately 95 percent of the world’s discovered boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave. The cave is recognized as the densest cave system in the world, with the greatest passage volume per cubic mile. Wind Cave is the seventh longest cave in the world with 149.01 miles of explored cave passageways and is the third longest cave in the United States. Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed-grass prairie in the United States.
• Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming — There is good reason why this destination, located primarily in Wyoming, became America’s first national park. Yellowstone must be seen to be believed. It is home to more than half of the world’s geysers, which thrill visitors when they erupt in furies of boiling water and steam. Vividly colored hot springs and bubbling mud pots are other geothermal features that amaze in this wilderness of mountains, lakes, meadows and forests that support a wide variety of large mammals.
• Zion National Park, Utah — The Virgin River hardly ranks among the West’s larger stream flows, but its importance to this southwest Utah wonder cannot be overstated. The river’s North and East forks drop steeply, giving them extraordinary erosion power as they flow through Zion, carving many of the park’s awe-inspiring sandstone landforms and the unforgettable Zion Canyon itself. The Virgin River also serves as a watery desert oasis that nurtures extensive populations of animals and plants.
NATIONAL MONUMENTS AND MEMORIALS NOTES:
• Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming — Known to many because of its prominent role in Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, Wyoming’s Devils Tower is the centerpiece in America’s first official national monument. President Theodore Roosevelt established the monument in the scenic Black Hills in 1906. Legend has it that a giant bear scratched out the vertical cracks that adorn the almost 1,300-foot rock monolith. The parallel grooves attract daring rock climbers from around the world.
• Mount Rushmore, South Dakota — This genius of man and the handiwork of nature find harmony in the Black Hills. Towering above the ponderosa pine forests at this South Dakota destination are the carved-in-granite images of four prominent Untied States presidents, those being George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. Each face is about 60 feet high. Most unforgettable is the Evening Lighting Ceremony, when the monument, blasted and carved on the mountainside between 1927 and 1941, is illuminated after a ranger program.
• Navajo National Monument — We loved our visit to this incredible site. The ancient ruins and the scenery were incomparable. The temperature was 55 degrees and there was not a cloud in the sky. The structures contained within this cave site were constructed mainly of sandstone blocks plastered together with mud and mortar. In marked contrast to earlier constructions and villages on top of the mesas, the cliff dwelling of Navajo National Monument reflected a region-wide trend towards the aggregation of growing regional populations into close, highly defensible quarters during the mid to late 13th century. While much of the construction in this site remains similar to common ancestral Pueblo architectural forms, including such features as kivas, a circular tower, and pit-houses, the limited space that this site presented created a much more densely populated living area. At its peak, Keet Seel had more than 150 rooms and 6 kivas, while Betatakin had about 120 rooms and only one kiva.
STATE PARKS NOTES:
• Anasazi State Park, Garfield County — Visitors to this park enjoy seeing the partially-excavated prehistoric village as well as a replica. The museum contains interpretive exhibits, an artifact collection storage room, a small theater, gallery space, and restrooms. The museum also hosts a store which carries extraordinary Native American jewelry and pottery, as well as an assortment of unique items.
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