Photobook : 100 Years — The Wilder Coast

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Big Pharma and the Epi Pen outrage: maybe one day that will be a hipster band name and nobody will understand the reference, because the days of unfettered capitalism and a CEO's casual raise of 8 million dollars while kids die from bee stings will be long buried in the past. I love this country but it's got some big ass problems.

Today is a very special day, however, a day to celebrate something that this country did very, very right: our National Parks! And monuments, markers, memorials, preserves and scenic trails byways. Today our National Park System turns 100 years old. David and I celebrated (a few days early) by hiking into the Great Smoky Mountain National Park right over the Tennessee border and finally exploring Midnight Hole.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

While I've written about Midnight Hole many times for outdoor magazines, I've never actually visited there myself. Reason being is that our sidekick shorty, Hometeam, is not allowed inside the GSMNP, and it's no fun exploring without her. Well.....except just this one time. That place is so heavenly green, it really is just like swimming inside of an enormous, ice cold emerald. David and I had such a nice, easy breezy afternoon inside the Smokies. I came home feeling so grateful to the park for providing us with a place where we could feel so happy, healthy and normal again.

That led me to think about what a role the National Parks have played in our relationship: Dave and I never would have met if I hadn't run Colorado river through the length of the Grand Canyon in February eight long years ago. We got engaged on the Appalachian Trail, the National Scenic Trail that connects our home in Asheville to the backyard of my childhood home in Vermont. We explored Acadia on our honeymoon and have depended on brief excursions up the Blue Ridge Parkway to keep us sane during this past year.

Of course we were both busy exploring the parks long before we met one another. I spent a semester in the Southwest in high school learning to climb and camp in Zion, Arches, Escalante, balancing along the razor sharp ridge of Angels Landing and running through the Hoodoos. Then eleven years in Washington - between the Olympics, the North Cascades, Rainier and all the monuments and reserves, they may as well go ahead and turn that entire state into a National Park. I worked on the Endeavour on the inside passage of Alaska getting my mind blown every single hour of every single day with calving glaciers, the frigid stillness of Glacier Bay's silty turquoise water and the enormity of it all. For my high school reunion we roamed through Yellowstone and on a solo drive across country I managed to witness the strangeness of Mt. Rushmore, accompanied by my gentleman's flask.

Here are some shots from over the last sixteen years of exploring. These photos make me want more! I cannot believe I still haven't been to Yosemite, maybe that should be next. (After the Badlands, of course, since I've only been to South Dakota once, and also Glacier National Park - I'm ashamed I've never been there because I've spent weeks in Whitefish, just never went inside the park boundaries, and obviously I should visit the volcanoes in Hawaii, and.......) Alright, I need help: what's your favorite National Park?