Grand Canyon National Park

The Grand Canyon in northern Arizona is nature's greatest sculpture. Up to 18 miles wide, a mile deep, and 280 miles long, this breathtaking gorge contains fantastically shaped peaks, buttes, and ravines.

Equally spectacular are the canyon's colors. The overall red glow changes in hue depending on the time of the day and the cloud cover. The many layers of rock sometimes glisten int he sun and make up dazzling rainbow of purples, pinks, greens, grays, and yellows.

The "sculptor" of the Grand Canyon is the winding Colorado River. Its rapid current sweeps tons of sand and gravel over  the riverbed every minute, scraping and pounding as the grit tumbles downstream. Over the eons, the river has cut steadily downward, while volcanic and seismic forces have thrust the earth upward on either side. Amazingly, the rock layers exposed by the river reveal nearly two billion years of geological history.

More than four million visitors view the Grand Canyon each year. Some hike the Bright Angel Trail to the bottom of the canyon. Others descend by mule, or ride through  on river rafts. Park headquarters and year-round campsites are found on the South Rim. Because of heavy snow, the thickly forested North Rim is closed in the winter.

The land that is now the Grand Canyon once lay beneath a sea. As a result, fossil hunters can find the remains of prehistoric sea creatures in the canyon's walls.

Yosemite National Park

Deep in the Sierra Nevada, California’s snow-capped mountains, is a special hidden treasure – not gold or silver, but America’s most spectacular hidden valley.

It is called Yosemite and it is the center of one of our most popular national parks.

Yosemite Valley is seven miles long and in some places less than half a mile wide.  Towering on both sides of the winding Merced River are sheer granite walls more than 2,000 feet high.  Ribbon-like waterfalls cascade down the sides.   To the north, Half Dome Mountain presents its flat, scarred face.   (The other half of Half Dome cracked off and slid down into the valley thousands of years ago.)

Stretching out from the famous valley Yosemite National Park takes in 1,200 square miles of soaring mountains.   Mariposa Grove, in the south, is the home of giant sequoia trees.  Some of them measure 34 feet through the middle and are 275 feet high.  

In the northwest are the Tuolumne Meadows, cold Alpine meadows which fill with flowers in summer.  Through the years the park has revealed the beauty of the Sierra Nevada to millions of visitors.

The first white men to see Yosemite Valley were probably U.S. soldiers who arrived in 1851.

They were searching for Indians who were raiding nearby  mining camps.  There were 22 Indian villages in Yosemite at that time.