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From Acadia to Zion, we're exploring every single National Park in the United States. Majestic mountains, lush forests, and everything in between. Have you heard of the 'Old Man of the Lake' at Crater Lake National Park? Or the Channel Island foxes? And what's happening with the glaciers at Glacier National Park? Find out all of this and more in this country-spanning tour of every National Park. Don't miss a video! Subscribe NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss?sub_confirmation=1 About Mental Floss: Mental Floss is where curious people come for trivia-tastic information. Mental Floss produces lists of fun facts, debunks common misconceptions, and tells untold stories from history, science, culture and more. Website: http://www.mentalfloss.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mental_floss Facebook: https://facebook.com/mentalflossmagazine Discord: https://discord.io/mentalfloss Copyright Notice: This video and YouTube channel contain dialog, music, and images that are property of Mental Floss. You are authorized to share the video link and channel, and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to this YouTube Channel is provided. 2025 Mental Floss 1 Fact About All 63 National Parks | Mental Floss https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss
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A dead tree has been floating upright in Crater Lake for over a hundred years
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Dubbed the old man of the lake by its many admirers, the deceased hemlock fell into the
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lake sometime before 1896, when a scientist came upon it. He published his observation in 1902
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the same year that Crater Lake National Park was established in southern Oregon. The bleached and gnarly stump floats about three feet above the surface and 27 feet below it
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Most trees that float in lakes eventually sink, but not the old man, and people aren't sure why
0:29
Even today, the weather-beaten wood makes its rounds, propelled by winds or waves from one
0:34
quadrant of the clear blue lake to another. There is no talk of removing him. In fact
0:39
when scientists tied him down to the shoreline in 1988, the skies allegedly turned dark and
0:43
swirling winds suddenly kicked up. The scientists unleashed the old man, the skies cleared
0:48
and all was right again. Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy, editor-in-chief of Mental Floss
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and this is The List Show. Crater Lake's old man is just the first of many fascinating facts
0:57
about America's 63 national parks we'll be covering today. Let's get started
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Before we dive in, let's do everyone's favorite thing. Terminology clarification. National parks aren't just areas of the national park system. There is a specific
1:15
classification that, according to the National Park Service, contains a variety of resources
1:20
and encompasses large land or water areas to help provide adequate protection of the resources
1:25
There are other classifications within the national park system, like national preserves
1:29
monuments, lakeshores, national historical parks, which is kind of confusing, a national park for the performing arts, shout out to Wolf Trap in Virginia
1:38
and loads more that aren't national parks that we will not be covering in this video
1:42
And with that, let's head to Maine. Acadia National Park on Maine's coast is home to the highest peak on the eastern seaboard
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Cadillac Mountain rises about 1,530 feet from the shore of Frenchman Bay
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but you can drive or take the park shuttle to the top if your hiking skills aren't up to the incline
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From October 7th to March 6th, Cadillac Mountain is the first spot in the U.S. to be bathed in the
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sun's rays, making sunrise an especially popular time to visit the summit. 2,600 miles southwest of
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Hawaii and 1,800 miles northwest of New Zealand lies the National Park of American Samoa. The South
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Pacific Archipelago's Park preserves infrastructure from World War II along with tropical rainforests
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volcanic ridges, and coral reefs. But even though the territory has American in its name
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U.S. citizens will still need a passport to visit the park. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
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Services has no jurisdiction in American Samoa, and visitors must comply with the regulations of
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the American Samoa government, which requires travelers to have a valid passport, sufficient
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money for their stay, and a ticket out. As you are gazing in awe at the rock formations in Arches
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National Park in Utah, remember to look down once in a while. The ground at your feet is literally
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alive. Much of the park's land is covered in a knobbly black substance called biological soil
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crust, made of lichens, algae, fungi, and cyanobacteria, one of the oldest kinds of life
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on Earth. These living mats of nutrients prevent soil erosion and give desert plants enough of a
3:02
foothold to survive in the arid climate. But they're still pretty fragile, so watch where you step
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Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park in Arizona has provided the backdrop for countless westerns
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but the otherworldly scenery of Badlands National Park in South Dakota has starred in a few flicks
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too. It's the setting of a wagon ride scene in 1990s Dances with Wolves, and the landscape stood
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in for a planet full of alien bugs in the 1997 sci-fi movie Starship Troopers. And who could
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forget the surface of the asteroid that Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck need to blow up in 1998's
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Armageddon? Yep, also the Badlands. Fortunately, this beautiful park is still intact. Visitors to
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Texas's vast Big Bend National Park, which hugs a big curve of the Rio Grande, might glimpse black
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bears and bobcats, rattlesnakes and ravens, and other iconic native wildlife. They might also see
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a lot of odd ungulates that are a long way from home. The park is home to a large population of
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invasive Barbary sheep, which originated in North Africa. People brought them to Texas in the mid-20th
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century, and now hundreds of the animals are out-competing endangered desert bighorn sheep
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for water, food, and territory in the park. Biscayne National Park, located along the Atlantic just
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south of Miami, is 95% water. And one of the coolest ways to explore it is on its Maritime
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Heritage Trail, a string of six actual shipwrecks and one lighthouse accessible to snorkelers and
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scuba divers. The sunken wrecks include cargo steamers, a wooden sailing vessel, and schooners
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all of which met their end on the coast's reefs between the late 19th century and mid-20th century
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Even among non-geologists, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park should elicit awe
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This Colorado Canyon's incredibly steep sides reveal more than a billion years of Earth's history
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Layers of metamorphic rocks, pegmatite rock faces streaked with pink feldspar, and the fossil-rich Morrison formation date from the Precambrian to the present day
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The Gunnison River at the very bottom of the canyon continues to wear away rock at a rate of about one inch per century
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Speaking of rock, Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah is known for its unusual geology of a totally different kind
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The park contains the world's largest concentration of hoodoos, which are rock spires carved by wind
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and water. About 50 million years ago, a vast lake deposited sediments in the present-day park
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creating a whole bunch of different sedimentary rocks that would over the years all erode at
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slightly different rates. The movement of Earth's tectonic plates then lifted the lake bed up to a
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higher elevation, exposing it to rain and ice. Over thousands of years, these forces carved the
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rock into the oddly-shaped columns we see today. Not too far from Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands National
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Park is home to dazzling desert scenery as well as legends of Old West outlaws who traveled among
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its vast networks of canyons. Just west of the park's maze district, train and bank robber Butch
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Cassidy and his gang made their hideout at the robber's roost along the Dirty Devil River
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If you lack the hiking and canyoneering skills to visit the remote redoubt, you can get a feel for Canyonland's rugged terrain in the Needles District
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which offers more developed trails and roads for four-wheel drive vehicles. Though it's still not easy. The National Park Service warns that inexperienced drivers should
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not attempt these roads. There is a high risk of vehicle damage, and towing costs usually exceed
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$1,500. Even worse, a camping site on one of the roads requires you to BYOT. Bring your own toilet
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Parts of southern Utah's Capitol Reef National Park, which is best known for its rocky vistas
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caused by a geological wrinkle in earth's surface, actually started out as an agricultural enterprise
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Mormon settlers founded the town of Fruita in 1880 with the idea of planting fruit orchards
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and vegetable gardens and selling the produce. Visitors can explore the Fruta Historic District
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today and even pick their own apples, plums, apricots, and other fruits at various times of
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the year from the historic trees, now owned and managed by the National Park Service
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In New Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert, Carlsbad Cavern's National Park provides a rich habitat
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for 17 species of bats, including the hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats that fly
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out from Carlsbad Cavern at dusk each night from April through October. In December 1941
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a dentist slash inventor saw this incredible sight and, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor
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came up with an idea. To use the bats to carry bombs. Much of their work on the project was done
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at the nearby Carlsbad Army Airfield. The idea was that the sleeping bats could be collected
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during the day and fitted with tiny explosives, then set free at night over Japan to roost in
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the country's traditional wood and paper buildings. A 1943 test run at the airbase
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proved successful. For the military, not for the bats. But the project was ultimately cancelled
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The Channel Island foxes are conservation success stories. The diminutive canines are endemic to Channel Islands National Park off the coast of Southern California
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In the 1990s, their populations plummeted due to disease and especially being preyed upon by invasive golden eagles
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Conservation groups were alarmed and took action to restore a more natural balance to the island's fragile ecosystems
7:43
such as removing feral livestock and replanting native vegetation. Three of the four island fox subspecies recovered so quickly
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that they were removed from the endangered species list in 2016. Congaree National Park in central South Carolina is one of the least visited east of the Mississippi
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It encompasses the floodplain of the Congaree River and acres of old-growth forest barely touched by human hands
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Difficult terrain that, from the colonial period on, provided a refuge for black people who had escaped enslavement and lived in free settlements thereafter
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They were known as Maroons, and they formed at least one village within the present-day
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park that was largely hidden from the racist society around it. Though living in the wilderness was challenging, the residents chose the path of resistance
8:24
The Cuyahoga River, winding through northeastern Ohio to Cleveland and Lake Erie, was once
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one of America's most polluted waterways. It even caught fire multiple times, thanks to the huge amount of oil-based industrial
8:35
crud in it. And after news of a 1969 blaze made it into a widely seen issue of Time magazine, the
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neglected river became the symbol of how bad America's environmental problems were. But in
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the decades since, thanks to environmental activism and regulation, it now represents progress. Since
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2000 Cuyahoga Valley National Park has protected a stretch of the river and its recovering biodiversity historic sites and natural landmarks Death Valley National Park in California and a bit in Nevada is notorious for being hot Like practically surface hot
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An area now appropriately named Furnace Creek recorded the world's hottest known temperature
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134 degrees Fahrenheit, on July 10, 1913. A few factors in the park come together to cause thermometers to soar
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For instance, the narrow valley is surrounded by tall mountain ranges, and its floor is a couple hundred feet below sea level
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which creates a bucket to trap hot air. Despite cooler temps at night, the hot air can't fully
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rise out of the valley. It just sinks back down to toast tourists for another day
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Rising 20,310 feet in the Alaska Range, Majestic Denali is North America's tallest mountain
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Whether bathed in alpine glow or frosted with fresh snow, the peak's beauty enthralled visitors
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long before Denali National Park was established in 1917. It's also covered in poop. Park researchers
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said in 2019 that thanks to climate change, once permanent ice may soon be melting down Denali's
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sides. And with it, approximately 66 tons of human excrement left behind by decades of climbers and
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explorers. Fortunately, today's mountaineers have adopted a climate-friendly policy of packing out
10:07
their poo. The small, sandy islands that make up Dry Tortugas National Park lie 70 miles west of
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Key West, Florida. Its isolation in the Gulf of Mexico made it a perfect place for a prison
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Initially, the ring-shaped fortress on Garden Key, known as Fort Jefferson, was designed to protect American interests in the Gulf of Mexico, which came in handy during the Civil War
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During and after the conflict, Fort Jefferson was turned into a military prison
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Its most famous inmate was Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth and others to assassinate Abraham Lincoln
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Mudd, who claimed innocence, was pardoned after saving many lives during a yellow fever outbreak at the prison
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When Spanish and American colonizers invaded present-day southern Florida, the Calusa and Seminole used the Everglades wilderness to their advantage
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They knew how to survive amid the thick vegetation and maze of waterways
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giving them an upper hand against the unprepared white occupiers. Those lands in and around Everglades National Park still represent the largest designated wilderness in the eastern U.S
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Maybe there should be a sign at the entrance to gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve that says
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Visit at your own risk. This immense wilderness in northern Alaska has no roads, no trails, no campgrounds, no services
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and no one nearby to call for help, even if the park did have Wi-Fi, which it doesn't
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But what you will get at Gates of the Arctic is 7.5 million acres of breathtaking mountains
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valleys clothed in Arctic flora, herds of caribou and muskox, and a closer connection to nature without a crowd of tourists jostling for a picture
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The park receives about 10,000 visitors per year, compared to, say, Yellowstone's 3 million-plus visitors a year
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Aero Saarinen's iconic steel arch on the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri
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marks America's gateway to the West and the nation's complicated legacy of westward expansion
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Ironically, it's also the smallest national park at a mere 91 acres, substantially less than one square mile
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that includes the arch and visitor center, gardens, riverfront trails, and a historic courthouse where Dredd and Harriet Scott
12:02
an enslaved couple sued for their freedom in the 1840s. Fun fact, you can go all the way to the top
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of the arch via a one-of-a-kind tram designed in a mere two weeks by a guy named Dick Bowser
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who had dropped out of engineering school to join the Navy and never got his degree. The glaciers that occupy what is now Montana's Glacier National Park have been melting away
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since the end of the Little Ice Age nearly 175 years ago. In 1850, the area was home to roughly
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80 glaciers, and by 2015, only 26 named glaciers remained. In recent decades, their retreat has
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been hastened by climate change. From 1966 to 2015, all of the park's named glaciers shrank by 40
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on average. 80% of visitors to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska arrive by cruise ship
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and the park's vibrant blue waters are the first thing they see. Glacial water has a unique turquoise
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hue, but it's not because that's the color of melting glaciers. The frozen masses that give
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Glacier Bay its name are constantly shifting, and as they move, they grind the earth below them into
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a fine sediment. This glacial flower then runs off into the bay, where it stays suspended in the water
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and means that blue and green wavelengths hit your eyes. If you're planning a trip to the Grand
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Canyon, remember to layer up. The canyon is deep enough to create distinct pockets of weather
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and temperatures at the highest and lowest points can vary by as much as 25 degrees Fahrenheit
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Where exactly the temperature falls depends on the time of year. A record low of negative 22
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degrees Fahrenheit was recorded in February 1985, and the record high of 120 degrees Fahrenheit has
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been recorded multiple times in the summer. The wide range and elevation also impacts humidity
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levels. A station on the North Rim is the coldest and wettest point in the park, and Phantom Ranch
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the hottest point and one of the driest, is located only eight miles away. Many remote national parks
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are difficult to access, but that's not the case with Grand Teton. It's home to the Jackson Hole
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Airport, the only commercial airport located within a U.S. national park. Originally situated
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just outside the official property, it became part of Grand Teton when the national park expanded to
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absorb the Jackson Hole National Monument in 1950. Today, it's the busiest airport in Wyoming
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though it doesn't crack the top 100 for U.S. airports overall. National parks are ideal for
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stargazing, and Great Basin in Nevada is especially known for its dark skies. Every September, the
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park hosts the Great Basin Astronomy Festival for visitors looking to get better acquainted with the
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cosmos. The multi-night event includes night sky photography workshops, observatory tours, and telescope viewing parties. Just be sure to pack a red light. Regular flashlights are banned
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to maintain the low light conditions. Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado is
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perfect for people who love snowboarding but hate the cold. Sandboarding, sledding, and skiing are
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permitted on any of the dunes separate from the park's plant life. Though Great Sand Dunes doesn't
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provide equipment to visitors, several businesses in the area rent sleds and boards designed to glide
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on sand. You'll want to avoid hitting the dunes in the middle of a hot day, though. The surface of
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the sand can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit. The Great Smoky Mountains are home to one of the only
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synchronous firefly species in North America. For a few weeks in May or June, the male insects flash
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patterns in sync as part of a mating display. The result is a pulsing, synchronized spectacle that
15:08
lights up the forest. The annual phenomenon attracts viewers from around the world. Each
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spring, over 20,000 people apply for vehicle passes to see the light show, and fewer than
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1,000 are distributed through a lottery system. Standing 8,751 feet tall, Guadalupe Peak in
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Guadalupe Mountains National Park is the highest point in Texas. The mountain has enticed many
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adventurers over the years, including a group of wheelchair users in the early 80s. Dave Kiley
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Joe Moss, and Donnie Rogers were members of Point, or PowerPelagics on independent nature trails
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The goal of their trek was to boost visibility of people with disabilities in outdoor spaces
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while raising money for a local rehabilitation center. After crawling through rocks and cacti for the last several hundred feet of the trail
15:49
the three men reached their goal on July 16, 1982. Though space in their bags was limited
15:54
they had the foresight to pack a bottle of champagne to celebrate the accomplishment. Located on the island in Maui
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Haleakala National Park is home to many species that aren't found anywhere else
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Many of those plants and animals are also at risk of dying out. As of 2018, Haleakala hosted 103 endangered species
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more than any other national park in the country. With such a small native area, these organisms are especially vulnerable to threats that are easily weathered in the mainland U.S
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Everything from habitat loss to feral cats has been blamed for the decline of Maui's endemic plants and wildlife
16:24
The barren lava fields in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park resemble another planet, making them the perfect training grounds for NASA's astronauts
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The alien terrain around Mauna Loa has been used to simulate missions to the moon, and more recently, life on Mars
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In 2013, six NASA researchers spent four months living in a small dome on the slope of the volcano
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during which they could only venture outside wearing spacesuits. Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas attracts history and nature buffs alike
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In addition to the natural thermal springs, it includes the historic bathhouses in the adjacent city of Hot Springs
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making it one of the most accessible national parks in the system. It's also home to the only on-site national park brewery
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The Superior Bathhouse Brewery opened in the former site of the Superior Bathhouse in 2014
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The beer itself features thermal spring water as the main ingredient, which is something no other brewery in the world can say
17:13
Encompassing part of Lake Michigan's coastline, Indiana Dunes National Park is one of the best places to enjoy a beach day in the Midwest
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The sand looks similar to what you'd find near the ocean, but if you listen closely, you'll hear a major difference
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The sand is famous for singing as it shifts, a phenomenon that's only observed in a handful of places on Earth
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The song is more of a whisper than a belt, so avoid visiting the beach at peak busy times if you want to hear it
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Isle Royale National Park is made up of a cluster of islands on Lake Superior, only accessible by watercraft or seaplane
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From November 1st until April 15th, it isn't accessible at all. Isle Royale is the only national park in the country that fully closes for the winter
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Lake Superior sees extreme weather in the colder months that would make flying or boating to the islands dangerous If you plan to celebrate your birthday in Joshua Tree National Park leave the balloons at home Inflated balloons aren allowed inside the California park because they officially categorized as litter and therefore banned to protect the wildlife that might ingest them
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There is one way around the rule, however. If you successfully secure the right permit
18:12
you can bring your balloons into Joshua Tree with you. Of course, you'll still be expected
18:16
to use them responsibly and take them with you at the end of your visit. Even if you haven't been to Katmai National Park, you may recognize its rotund residence
18:24
Every year in October, the Alaska Park hosts Fat Bear Week, an online competition to decide
18:29
which of its brown bears packed on the most pounds in preparation for winter. The March
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Madness-style bracket includes pictures, plus a live stream of catmise bears gorging on salmon
18:38
around the clock. In 2023, the event attracted a record-breaking 1.38 million votes, with a hefty
18:44
mama bear named Grazer ultimately claiming the title. Goals. Kenai Fjords National Park is home
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to part of the Harding Icefield, the largest ice field located fully within the U.S. The frozen
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mass spans 700 square miles, with the portion within park boundaries covering around 40% of the
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park. More than 38 glaciers flow from the icy expanse, and only one of them is accessible by
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road. There's a 6-8 hour hike leading to the top of the ice field, but it's not recommended for
19:11
beginners. General Grant National Park was created in 1890 and clearly honored President and Civil
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War General Ulysses S. Grant, right? No. It was named after and created to protect the General
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Grant Sequoia Tree in specific, and the grove of trees around it in general. The tree had been
19:28
named years prior in honor of Grant. In the 1920s, it was declared the nation's Christmas tree
19:33
and in the 1950s, it was declared a national shrine in memory of the men and women of the
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armed forces who have served and fought and died to keep this nation free. At the dedication
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ceremony, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz proclaimed, Today, this shrine takes its place in equal stature with that other great shrine in Arlington
19:49
Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. So why have you never heard of General Grant
19:54
National Park? It was a tiny little thing at four square miles. So when the over 700 square mile
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King's Canyon National Park was created in 1940, it absorbed the General Grant National Park
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which now survives as the General Grant Grove. Cobook Valley in Alaska is one of two U.S
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National Parks north of the Arctic Circle, but you wouldn't think that by looking at key parts
20:14
of it. The Great Cove Book Sand Dunes are the largest active sand dunes in the Arctic. They
20:19
trace their history back tens of thousands of years when the glaciers that once covered the
20:22
land pulverized the rocks beneath them into a fine sand. Today, the dunes are a great place to spot
20:28
prints of bears, wolves, moose, and other wildlife that pass through the Sandy Valley. In addition to
20:33
the breathtaking natural beauty, visitors come to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in Alaska
20:37
to admire one man's inspiring craftsmanship. Richard Pronicky lived in the National Park for
20:43
more than 30 years, and his journals are the basis of the best-selling memoir One Man's
20:47
Wilderness, an Alaskan odyssey. One of his most impressive accomplishments was constructing a
20:51
cabin by hand using mostly local materials. The structure still stands at Upper Twin Lake today
20:56
and visitors can explore it in the summer months. The Earth is home to four different types of
21:00
volcanoes. Shield, Plug Dome, Cinder Cone, and Composite. Lassen Volcanic National Park in
21:06
Northern California is one of the rare places on the planet where you can find all four
21:10
In addition to its diverse volcanoes, the park is home to hydrothermal features like boiling mud pots and roaring fumaroles
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You don't need to be a geology expert to know they're best viewed from a distance
21:21
Mammoth Cave National Park's most noteworthy residents are easy to miss. Kentucky cave shrimp grow about 1.25 inches long, and their transparent shells make them nearly impossible to see in their dark cave environment
21:32
The species is also close to extinction. They're not found anywhere else on Earth, and the National Park, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
21:39
are in charge of their preservation. Many of them live in underwater cave pockets that humans can't
21:44
access, so at least they don't have to worry about disruptive tourists. Mesa Verde National Park in
21:49
Montezuma County, Colorado isn't just a national park. It's also the largest archaeological preserve
21:54
in the country, home to nearly 5,000 archaeological sites. Around 600 of those are cliff dwellings
22:00
The biggest by far is Cliff Palace, discovered and named by a couple of ranchers in the late 19th
22:05
century. Some 100 people once lived in its 150 rooms. There are visitor tours through the palace
22:10
but no, you can't book it for your bachelorette trip. While exploring the future Washington state
22:15
in 1792, Great Britain's George Vancouver spotted a hulking mountain in the distance
22:20
He named it Mount Rainier after his buddy, British Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. Aww
22:25
Except not really, because of course the Native Americans of the region already had their own
22:29
names for the landmark. But Mount Rainier stuck among settlers, and it's now the namesake of
22:34
Mount Rainier National Park. In recent years, there's been a push to formally restore Mount
22:38
Rainier to one of its original monikers, a change that plenty of white Americans a century ago fully
22:43
supported. It's an amazing story for another time, but some felt that since Rainier fought for the
22:48
British during the Revolutionary War, his name shouldn't get immortalized on an American mountain
22:53
On a normal day, West Virginia's New River Gorge is full of whitewater rafters, rock climbers
22:58
hikers, and all manner of other nature lovers. But on the third Saturday of October, the adrenaline
23:03
enthusiasts come out to play. Because that's Bridge Day, a single-day festival during which
23:08
the New River Gorge Bridge is closed to traffic and open to base jumpers. They parachute 876 feet
23:15
from the bridge into the gorge below. In general, base jumping is banned in national parks
23:20
so the founding legislation had to specifically allow permits to be created. In the 1950s
23:25
the North Cascades in northern Washington played host to a few key writers from the beat generation
23:29
Gary Snyder, Philip Whelan, and Jack Kerouac each spent a summer or two as fire lookouts
23:34
a job that entailed living alone atop a mountain and surveying the landscape for any fires
23:39
Naturally, they all wrote about their experiences. Snyder and Whelan in verse, and Kerouac in prose
23:45
Kerouac didn't take very well to the extreme isolation. As he wrote in his semi-autobiographical novel Desolation Angels
23:52
Desolation Adventure finds me finding at the bottom of myself abysmal nothingness
23:56
worst than that, no illusion even. My mind's in rags. Yeah, he didn't reapply for the gig the next
24:02
summer. The word rainforest might evoke lush greenery in a sweltering equatorial locale
24:08
That's a tropical rainforest. But there are temperate rainforests too, and Olympic National
24:13
Park on Washington's Olympic Peninsula is home to one of them. The forest boasts many a Roosevelt
24:18
elk and plenty of massive, centuries-old trees, Sitka spruce and western hemlock among them. Not
24:23
mention that the place is crawling with vampires. Just kidding, Twilight isn't real. And even if it
24:28
was, the Cullen family wouldn't hunt wildlife in Olympic National Park. It's illegal
24:32
The petrified forest sounds like something spit out by a Harry Potter term generator
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In fact, it's a real place in northeastern Arizona, but not a forest in the traditional
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sense. More than 200 million years ago, the region's fallen trees got ferried off by flood
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waters and buried beneath tons of sediment and other mineral-rich materials. In this oxygenless
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tomb, the minerals sort of hijack the log's decaying process, seeping in and blooming into
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colorful quartz. As the National Park Service describes it, each piece is like a giant crystal
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often sparkling in the sunlight as if covered by glitter. It's really too bad I already played my
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Twilight joke card. The California red-legged frog was once so ubiquitous in its home state
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that people generally agree it's the species at the center of an 1865 short story by Mark Twain
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the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County. But human interference caused the frog's population
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to plummet dramatically during the 20th century, and conservationists have spent the last couple
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of decades working hard to revive it. One successful attempt involved turning Pinnacles
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National Park's Bear Gulch Reservoir into a breeding ground for the creatures. There
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it's a frog's world, and humans just live in it. You're not allowed to swim in the water so as to
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not disturb the spawning hoppers, and it's against the law to harass or harm them in any way, per the
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NPS. Approaching so closely that they jump is a form of harassment. Maybe the only place where
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jump scares are quite literally illegal. It's no secret that the Redwood National and State Parks
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in Northern California are full of ridiculously tall trees. The world's tallest tree is one of
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them, and its precise location is a secret. The tree, named Hyperion, is somewhere between 600
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and 800 years old and over 380 feet tall. For reference, that's a full 75 feet taller than
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the Statue of Liberty, base included. Hyperion's exact whereabouts are intentionally unpublicized
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to protect it from the compacted soil, trampled understory, and other damage that too much foot
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traffic could cause. Plus, then, the other trees might feel bad. In August 1917, a 20-year-old
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Michigan student named Agnes Lowe traipsed off to Rocky Mountain National Park to spend a week
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in the Colorado wilderness without anything but the clothes on her back. She was barefoot
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dressed as a cavewoman, and christened a Modern Eve by the Denver Post. Anyway
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readers across the country were captivated by newspaper reports of the escapade. When Lowe emerged after seven days, sunburned and mosquito-bitten but otherwise healthy as a wild horse
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she had more than 60 marriage proposals waiting for her in the mail. But Park Superintendent Claude Way soon confessed that it was all a publicity stunt
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The Denver Post had led the charge with Way help and Lowe had actually just spent the week in a lodge Way got dragged of course but he stood by his actions by arguing that the charade did bring tons of national attention to the park For thousands of years the people of the
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Tohono O'Otham Nation have lived in the Sonoran Desert and harvested the fruit of the saguaro
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cactuses that grow there. They even have special permission to do it in Arizona's
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saguaro National Park, where interacting with the cactuses is otherwise prohibited. It's tough work. Harvesting season is usually in mid-June, when the heat is blistering and the
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monsoons haven't yet arrived. And it's not low-hanging fruit either. To reach it, harvesters
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use a 20-foot-long pull called a coweepa. The tools are made from the cactuses themselves
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As Tanisha Tucker, one of the Tohono O'odham Nation's leading harvesters, told the Trust for
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Public Land, there's not really anything else in the desert that's tall enough to reach the top of
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a cactus, but another cactus. Though the sweet red fruit makes for a tasty raw snack, it doesn't
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stay fresh for very long. So Tucker boils much of it into a syrup, which she jars for later use on
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everything from pancakes and tortillas to ice cream and barbecue. They even ferment it into a
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ceremonial wine. What Sequoia National Park lacks in cactus wine, it more than makes up for in
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sequoia trees that make you feel like Gulliver and Brobdegnag. The largest is the General Sherman
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Tree, which measures 275 feet tall and boasts a base diameter of over 36 feet. That means its
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circumference is over 113 feet. You'd only have to run around it 47 times to hit a mile
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Actually, that still seems like a lot. Sequoia National Park was formed in 1890 to preserve
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giant sequoias, making it the first national park created for the express purpose of protecting a
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organism. The woody behemoth's scientific name is Sequoia dendron giganteum, which, yeah
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In the 1920s and 30s, Virginia officials hoping to create Shenandoah National Park
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collected around 3,000 tracts of privately owned land in the Blue Ridge Mountains
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It seems like a nice idea to buy back uninhabited land and transform it into a federally protected
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environmental haven. But not all the territory was uninhabited. Some 500 families, roughly 2,000
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people, lived there, mostly descendants of 19th century German and British immigrants
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Officials forced these so-called hollow folk to leave, soon torching houses in their wake and
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generally trying to rid the land of any evidence of human habitation. Ethnographic reports had
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painted the hollow folk out to be illiterate and primitive in their technology and societal
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structures. One especially persuasive book from 1933 described one community as almost completely cut off from the current of American life. All this helped the government
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market the forced migration as a humanitarian endeavor, a chance for uncivilized communities
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to assimilate into civilized society. Boy, have we heard that one before. But while there was some
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poverty in some of the mountain communities, like there is in many communities, the portrait of
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hollow folk as backwoods bums centuries behind the rest of the country was patently false
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As the historian Audrey Hornay explains in a piece on the NPS's website, throughout the hollows, the universal presence of an array of kitchen and dining wares
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pharmaceutical glass, military items, mail-order toys, 78 RPM record fragments, specialized agricultural tools, store-bought shoes, and even automobiles all suggest that
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mountain residents were as equally bombarded by mass consumer culture as were other early
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20th century rural Americans. It's only fitting that Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most important
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conservationists in American history, would have a national park of his own. Theodore Roosevelt
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National Park stretches across the badlands of North Dakota, Roosevelt's happy place
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and the spark that lit the flame of all his conservation efforts. On park grounds, behind
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the South Unit Visitor Center to be exact, is the Maltese Cross Cabin, where Roosevelt lived briefly
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during his cattle ranching days. The cabin is surprisingly well-traveled for a house that
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should have been anchored to the ground. It was displayed at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis
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Missouri, and then made an appearance at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland
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Oregon. The itinerant edifice then returned to North Dakota, spending time in Fargo and Bismarck
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before eventually relocating to TR's Park in 1959. I know there's at least one person who'd watch a
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movie called The Maltese Cross Cabins Cross Country Adventure, and I know that because that
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person is me. The Virgin Islands National Park, which covers about two-thirds of St. John
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features centuries-old petroglyphs, or rock carvings, that were likely made by the island's
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early occupants, the Taino people, who lived throughout much of the Caribbean. The petroglyphs
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which possibly date back as far as 900 CE, can be seen on the rocks around Reef Bay along the
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island's southern coast. Among the images are bats, which, paired with ceramic evidence
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support some scholars' belief that the winged mammals were an important religious symbol to
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the Taino people. And Reef Bay is no stranger to bats. They come out at dusk to feed on the insects
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that fly around the water. The only formal lodging in Minnesota's Voyagers National Park is Kettle
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Falls Hotel, whose tagline is this. Tough place to get to, but well worth it once you get there
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Maybe not the catchiest way to say that, but points for accuracy. You can only get there by
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boat or float plane. The hotel opened in 1913 and was sold in 1918 to one Robert Williams
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The price tag? $1,000 and four barrels of whiskey. Important question for viewers. Does anyone want
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sell me a hotel for a thousand bucks and four barrels of whiskey? Anyone? The majestic dunes
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of New Mexico's White Sands National Park comprise a special kind of sand, gypsum. If you want to see
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it for yourself, though, make sure to check road conditions. While that's a good idea in general
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because of weather or construction, White Sands ups the ante by closing for missile testing. It
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sits right next to White Sands Missile Range, which advertises itself as the largest fully
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instrumented open-air test range in the Department of Defense. And to keep everyone safe, the road
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to the dunes is closed during said testing. But don't worry, it's usually only for a couple of
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hours. And the gift shop remains open. The eponymous Wind Cave of South Dakota's Wind Cave
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National Park is exactly what it sounds like, a windy cave. Or more precisely, around 150 miles
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of explored passages in a windy, winding cave system. The wind is caused by changes in barometric
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pressure. Basically, the pressure in the cave is always trying to stabilize with the air pressure
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outside. So when there's high pressure outside, air rushes into the cave, making it windy. When
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there's low pressure outside, air rushes out of the cave, also making it windy, but in the opposite
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direction. While white settlers first stumbled upon the cave in the 1880s, the Lakota people had
33:17
already known about it for centuries. In fact, for many Lakota, it's a key part of their origin story
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The version the National Park Service gives is that the Wind Cave was the passage to Earth's
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surfaced from a spirit lodge, where humans lived in their pre-Earth days. The first group of humans
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to make the trip through the passage were convinced to do so prematurely by a couple of trickster
33:34
spirits. The creator then punished the party by transforming them into Earth's first bison
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The next group journeyed to Earth with the creator's permission, and they became the Lakota
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Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska is called the Mountain Kingdom of North
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America because dwarves used to live there until a dragon named Smog chased them off and claimed
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all their gold. Wait, sorry, I think I'm getting this mixed up with something else. Wrangell St
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Elias is known as a mountain kingdom because it's the meeting point of three mountain ranges
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Wrangell, St. Elias, Chugach, and some even throw in the Alaska Range. And at 13.2 million acres
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the park and preserve combine to be the largest NPS site by a landslide. That's roughly the same
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size as four Yellowstones. I don't know about you, but to me it seems possible that a dragon lives
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there and we've just never seen it. Yellowstone itself, located mostly in Wyoming, is a great
34:25
place for humans who want to go off the grid. Partially within its bounds is the most isolated
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spot in the contiguous U.S. Thoroughfare, a cheekily named patch of land that can be 30 miles
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plus from any road or building. You're not even allowed to get there using a motor vehicle
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It's horseback or your own two feet. There's no cell service either. Jack Kerouac? You'd hate it
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One of Yosemite National Park's most famous sites is Horsetail Fall, a waterfall located on the
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eastern face of the rock formation known as El Capitan. When the light hits the waterfall just
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right, it looks like a blazing bright fire is cascading down the rock face. It's a dazzling
35:00
optical illusion, and a harmless one. But Yosemite was once known for an actual firefall
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by which I mean people straight up chucked a bonfire from the top of an overlook called Glacier
35:10
Point. The owners of a hotel first did it in 1872, and spectators gathered to watch the fire
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hurtled on the cliff, with some extended gaps, until 1968. That's when National Park Service
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Director George Hartzog said, hey, uh, stop doing that. In some parks, you should stop and smell the
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flowers. In Southwest Utah's Zion National Park, you should stop and search for snails. The Zion
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snail, which lives in the park and nowhere else in the world, can be found among the flora that
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grows along wet canyon walls. You might need a magnifying glass, though. Zion snails are less
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than 1 eighth of an inch long, but they do boast the biggest feet of any animal in the kingdom
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Relative to their body size, of course. And that rounds out our trivia road trip of every national park in the United States
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Make sure to subscribe to Mental Floss for even more videos chock full of fun facts like these
35:58
Thanks for coming along, and we'll see you next time
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