We smiled as Burns and his film crew hinted on the screen at what we already knew so well; that our country’s national parks offer and inspire in us something special, something inexplicably appealing, even sacred. On this trip, we had visited two parks, Oregon’s Crater Lake and California’s Redwood forests. We had journeyed across seven states to Crater Lake Lodge, perched in another-worldly setting, on the edge of a six-mile-wide volcanic crater filled with two thousand feet of the bluest water on earth.
After four long days of driving, we had rounded a final corner of the winding, still snow-lined road to the lodge, and the lake had appeared suddenly in front of us. The park’s “Imax moment” had arrived, and as is often the case, with virtually no warning. Anyone who watches television commercials has seen many of our national parks’ signature landscapes, usually with a new-model automobile cornering aggressively in the foreground. However, no television screen—even the gigantic ones we Americans love—can prepare you for the grand and genuinely breathtaking realities that quietly await your own eyes.
Park Rangers will tell you how they love to watch visitors’ faces react to these first sights of unexpected grandeur. Some, like the Grand Canyon, are so profoundly striking in their scope and beauty that they leave a permanent emotional mark, altering forever your perspective of America, and of the earth itself. Park Rangers also relate a common inquiry from visitors: “What should we do if we have only a few hours to see the park?” We learned long ago that the true nature of a national park does not reveal itself so casually. Most are literally just too big, but it is more than this.
A park’s real character is revealed gradually, across the changing colorful cycles of sunrise and sunset on the landscape. It is revealed in the eventual reward of a moose, bison or elk appearing at the end of a long hiking trail or a patient stakeout at the edge of a meadow. These delights seldom serve themselves up at a quick stop in a parking lot. They reward the visitor who chooses not only to stop, but also to stay, for at least a few days. At Yellowstone, we allowed ourselves the luxury of two weeks, yet still departed with so much yet unseen and unexplored.
In addition to the wildlife and geological scenery, staying overnight also allows for the enjoyment of something very special. Most of the parks have at least one historic lodge, and these are resplendent with nostalgic ambiance and a uniquely American stone-and-timber style, sometimes called “parkitechture. They are rustic, beautiful, comfortable, and amazingly free of televisions and even telephones. As a result, something wonderful happens: people talk to each other! They gather on balconies and by fireplaces. They play cards and board games. They share coffee or a glass of wine. Perfect strangers sit down together and happily converse, swapping travel stories and details of their day’s adventures on hiking trails. They laugh and smile together.
And in the parks, Americans tend to look out for one another. On our last day in Redwoods, we suffered a flat tire on a remote gravel road. Park Rangers were quick to assist, but fellow visitors also offered up help in a spirit that surely persists in small towns but is rarely seen in the supposed civilization of our large urban areas. And days before, on a remote Oregon back road to a trailhead just outside of Crater Lake, we witnessed the human spirit of the parks as profoundly as we ever had. Rounding a bend, we encountered two stopped vehicles whose drivers and their families were standing together in the roadway. As we slowly approached, one driver came to my window and explained that minutes earlier a deer and her fawn ran across the road in front of him.
Frightened by the sight of the man’s van, the tiny fawn had immediately crouched down and frozen out of instinct. He remained on the pavement, perfectly motionless, while his mother undoubtedly watched in a panic from the woods nearby. Uninjured but driven by his natural fear of humans, he refused to move a muscle. The man’s young son remarked that the fawn must be dead. He wasn’t, of course, but he clearly would not move—nor would his mother return—until we all departed, and the sense of danger was gone. Fearing that as soon as we left, another car might round the bend and inadvertently run over his tiny body before he had time to recover, we moved ourselves down the road, almost out of sight. When the fawn still lay frightened and frozen, we returned and finally placed a small orange emergency cone next to his tiny form, then drove off to the trailhead, fingers crossed.
When my wife and I returned later, we rejoiced to find the cone, and no fawn! Our plan had worked, the cone protecting him until calm returned, and mother and baby were reunited. The spontaneous and unhesitating teamwork of a small group of citizens who loved the woods and the wild creatures within it had saved a fragile young life. In that moment, we were all park rangers.
This is, I think, the true magic of the national parks, and it is why we continue to go, year after year, across thousands of miles. In discovering, exploring and respecting the beautiful and wild places so wisely preserved and protected by some of our boldest leaders, we become—if even for a short time—the fellow Americans and human beings we wish ourselves to be, acknowledging each other, looking out for each other, and caring deeply for the land and lives in our collective trust. America’s best idea?
Ken Burns may just be right.
