Thirty-two matches are in the books and eleven of them resulted in upsets as the first round of the National Park Playoff is complete! Only three parks expected to be in the Sweet Sixteen have been bounced: East #2 Lincoln Memorial, Pacific #4 Death Valley, and North #4 Mount Rushmore. Monuments have had a rough […]
Hawai’i Volcanos NP (7) vs. Crater Lake NP (10) One of my favorite parts about our national parks is the social aspect that arises from interacting with them. Learning about and exploring these parks is (almost) always more fun with friends, which is why I’ve asked my good friend Kelsey Dunn to do this national […]
Bryce Canyon NP (4) vs. Great Sand Dunes NP (13) Preview There are many reasons why certain pieces of land become national parks: biological diversity, ecological preservation, historical importance, and monumentalism, etc. My personal favorite is otherworldly nature. Sometimes parks, while not explicitly said in the legislation which establishes them, are created because they are […]
Great Smoky Mountains NP (1) vs. Dry Tortugas NP (16) Preview When grouped with the other national parks in the first seed, the Great Smoky Mountains are simultaneously the John Lennon and the Ringo Starr of the gang. The park holds the gold medal for visitors per year at 11.4 million, and for good reason […]
Yosemite NP (1) vs. NP of the American Samoa (16) Preview There are very few parks that can pull off an upset against the leviathan that is Yosemite National Park — the National Park of the American Samoa is one of them. As both the furthest park away from the continental United States and the […]