B1-09 · America’s National Parks

America's National Parks

Some people say that America's best idea isn't the hamburger or the smartphone, but the national park. In 1872, the US Congress created Yellowstone, the first national park in the world. The idea was simple: some places are so beautiful that they should belong to everybody, not to a few rich people. Today, the United States has 63 national parks, and the whole park system gets more than 300 million visits a year.

Yellowstone (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho). Yellowstone sits on top of a huge volcano. Under the ground, there is hot rock that heats the water, so the park has more than half of all the geysers on Earth. The most famous one, Old Faithful, shoots hot water into the air about every hour and a half. Yellowstone is also the only place in the USA where bison have lived since prehistoric times. If you went there, you would probably see them walking along the road. But be careful: if a bison came too close, you should move away. Every year, a few tourists get hurt because they want a selfie!

Grand Canyon (Arizona). The Colorado River has cut this canyon over millions of years. It is 446 kilometers long and almost two kilometers deep. If you walked from the top to the river and back, it would take you two days, and rangers warn people not to try it in one day in summer, when the temperature at the bottom can reach 45 °C.

Yosemite (California). Yosemite is famous for its granite walls, waterfalls and giant sequoias, some of the biggest trees on Earth. El Capitan, a rock wall almost a kilometer high, is a dream for climbers. In 2017, Alex Honnold climbed it without ropes. Most of us wouldn't do that even if somebody paid us a million dollars!

Parks in danger. National parks are popular, and that creates problems. In summer, there are traffic jams in Yosemite, and some parks now ask visitors to book a time to enter. Climate change brings fires and less snow. If people didn't visit the parks at all, nature would be safer, but nobody would learn to love it. So the parks have to find a balance.

What about you? If you had a free ticket to one of these parks, which would you choose?