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Amajor shift thundered through the country in the 19th century, when westward expansion led to the discovery of America’s breathtaking landscapes. Seeing the potential for harm done by those living out newsman Horace Greeley’s famous advice — “Go West” — President Ulyss-

es S. Grant signed into law a plan to preserve Yellowstone as a na-tional park in 1872. Other designations followed. And followed. By the time President Woodrow Wilson signed off on the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, there were 35 national parks and monuments.

Today, 59 national parks cover 52 million acres spanning 27 states, drawing visitors to America’s bounty of canyons, forests, mountains, glaciers, geologic formations, meadows, dunes and, more important, the chance to escape the urban grind for wide-open wilderness.

Last year’s record visitation to national parks — more than 300 million people — is expected to swell with the excitement around the 100th anniversary on Aug. 25, a centennial com-memorated with U.S. Mint limited-edition National Park Service coins, a U.S. postage stamp, hundreds of celebrations and just as many tributes in the media.

But the old assertion that the parks are “America’s greatest idea” stands in contrast to displaced natives and critics who op-pose federal ownership of land, decrying human impact, inef-fective operations, poor maintenance, over-regulation and land grabbing to protect against encroachment. Some say the parks are “being loved to death.” Others insist that without their des-ignation, these areas would be covered with condos and chain stores. America’s “crown jewels” would be no more, the wildlife,

waterways, islands, deserts, ancient volcanoes, badlands, archeo-logical sites, petrified forests and geothermal springs succumbing to progress.

Preservation of wild places in Alaska’s vastness, in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and the floral-sloped hills, glacial lakes and mossy walks in between is often traced to artist George Catlin, who proposed a rough concept of national parks in the 1830s when he saw the impact of westward expansion on native peoples and wildlife. Naturalist writer John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt continued the fight.

The West is loaded with the jewels they found so precious. Ne-vada claims the Great Basin and a piece of Death Valley, as well as national recreation areas such as Lake Mead and the national monument at Tule Springs Fossil Beds. California has nine na-tional parks. Arizona has three, including the Grand Canyon, plus more than a dozen national monuments and historic sites that highlight the state’s compelling ruins, geology, native his-tory, canyons and saguaro cactus. Utah has five national parks and many monuments, trails and landmarks. Combined, the West’s protected parks and monuments take up far more land than those on America’s East Coast.

As we celebrate their first century, it’s worth going back to the first year, and the words of then NPS Director Stephen T. Mather: “Who will gainsay that the parks contain the highest potentiali-ties of national pride, national contentment and national health? A visit inspires love of country; begets contentment; engenders pride of possession; contains the antidote for national rest-lessness. ... He is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of the privilege of living here who has toured the national parks.” — Kristen Peterson

1 0 0 Y E A R S O F

NATIONAL PARKS

As the National Park Service hits the century mark, rediscover the beauty of the West

Heaven. Bliss. Above. That’s Zion in the dic-tionary, and the southwest Utah preserve earns those synonyms.

Zion National Park was established in 1919, a few months after the Grand Canyon. From the pinnacle of Angels Landing, a 5-mile hike to a fin of rock slicing through sky, the whole world is an avenue of 2,000-foot sandstone cliffs. Flecked with pine and juniper, these formations are the butterflies hatched from ancient dunes, as the land was cut by colossal rivers that dried into desert long ago.

Water still dances through the rocks, from the Virgin River to snowmelt and rain feeding stun-ning falls and cold, clear springs. The signature experience is trekking upstream through the Narrows, the river canyon’s vast walls defying the sun and creating pockets of cool, silent beauty. Taking the first morning shuttle means you’ll have moments where nothing distracts. And as close as we are in Las Vegas, we can easily drive up in the slower seasons to indulge in one of the NPS’ best-loved parks. Biking the Pa’rus Trail or climbing big walls or canyoneering in slots that feel like Disneyland sets, Zion owns the expres-sion, “Nature’s playground.”

While camping is a must, sudden storms can drive side adventures in Springdale, the park’s gateway. Roadside motels are run by locals full of stories and tips on good eats, from pizza in an old Mormon church to M&M pancakes on a pueblo-style patio. But nothing beats roast-ing your own dessert on a retractable fork by starlight. Well, maybe one thing does: sunrise painting those red, red rocks. — Erin Ryan

ZIONState: UtahDistance from Las Vegas: 2.5 hoursDetails: nps.gov/zion

DOODLEBUGS ARE REAL! The winged insects often are mistaken for drag-onflies inside Zion. That is, when they’ve grown past the larval stage, when they’re known to dig pits to trap and mercilessly devour ants. Hence the nickname “ant lion.”

PHOTO BY L.E. BASKOW/STAFF

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Crushed beneath the sea with its tectonic plates colliding and pulling apart, Death Valley’s violent geological past carved an intensely sculptural land-scape — a story written in the strata of the rocky terrain. The 3.4 million acres of Death Valley National Park offer a front-row seat to rock formations dating back more than 2 billion years.

This is the land of superlatives. Famously one of the hottest places on Earth and the hottest in North America, temperatures in excess of 120 degrees draw tourists to explore its ghost towns, mining history and natural attractions, dining in nearby Shoshone or Tecopa or staying at the Furnace Creek Inn. At Bad-water Basin, otherworldly salt flats cover the lowest point in North America — 282 feet below sea level.

The alluvial fans, craggy steeples of Zabriskie Point badlands, sled-worthy dunes and volcanic crater

become a poem of evolving climates, a trip through time defined by lava flow and ash fall. Spring rains and melting snowcaps deliver wildflower blooms that incite regional pilgrimages to witness the life in Death Valley.

Its Mars-like landscape is home to the Devil’s Golf Course and the Devil’s Cornfield. It baffles with the sliding rocks of Racetrack Playa that leave wakes of chunky berms as they mysteriously move across dried mud.

President Herbert Hoover proclaimed the area, home to the Shoshone people for centuries, as Death Valley National Monument on Feb. 11, 1933. In 1994, it was expanded and renamed Death Valley National Park, a vast desert with scenic byways taking visitors into the beauty created by erosion and the Earth’s tumultuous crust. — Kristen Peterson

John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, took a road trip in search of America in the ’60s. They went about 10,000 miles, following the nation’s outline. On the West Coast, they found them-selves in a forest where average trees shot 250 feet in the air, growing tight as blades of grass in a lawn you could see from space.

It was Redwood, an old-growth sanctuary of endangered giants. Some have stood for 2,000 years. Laying a hand on the bark of such a tree, you feel what Steinbeck did, the “cathedral hush.” Because you can’t help thinking about everything these creatures have lived through, all the milestones of history and footsteps over their powerful roots. The power doesn’t come from growing deep into the ground. It’s about saplings shooting up side by side and weaving together in a way no one can see.

Unless we’re talking about Corkscrew Tree, which is multiple trunks twisting into a single spectacle off the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway. It’s among redwood enthusiast Richard Stenger’s 10 must-see trees in the park for “hikes, hugs or holy encounters.” The list includes the downed Star Wars Tree, used in “Return of the Jedi” dur-ing the famous speeder scene, and Tall Tree, the tallest ever measured at nearly 368 feet — until the top broke off in the 1980s.

Marveling at the collective organism on a bike or on horseback, from a kayak or the comfort of your own boots, it hits hard how close we came to logging into oblivion the cathedral that once covered this part of California. — Erin Ryan

REDWOODState: CaliforniaDistance from Las Vegas: 14 hoursDetails: nps.gov/redw

THE TALLEST OF ALL LIVING THINGS

Trees inside Redwood National Park can reach

30 stories high.

PHOTO BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

DEATH VALLEYStates: Nevada and California

Distance from Las Vegas: 2 hoursDetails: nps.gov/deva

VALLEY OF GHOST TOWNSAmong Death Valley’s many ghost towns is Panamint City, “the toughest, rawest, most hard-boiled

little hellhole that ever passed for a civilized town.” Founded by outlaws mining for silver, the town that once housed 2,000 is now little more than a ruined smelter chimney.

DEATH VALLEY BY FOOTThe Hike Death Valley Challenge, which involves hiking designated trails in the intense environment

for points, wins you a decal that is, comically, water-resistant.

NOTEWORTHY SPOTSArtist’s Palette is a collection of volcanic hills colored red, pink, yellow, green and purple by mineral

pigments, and Devil’s Golf Course is so named because the jagged shards of eroded rock salt are so treacherous they say only the devil could play golf on the surface. And the dunes stretch to forever.

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Like God dropped a handful of molten pebbles on Earth. That’s how one Las Vegas climber sees the random, almost globular rock deposits of Joshua Tree National Park, where he says some sites in the Hidden Valley and Jumbo Rocks campgrounds back right up to granite walls. While one person climbs a perfect crack, another can belay from a camp chair right next to the tent. Other places have been called climbing’s “mecca,” but JTree has over 8,000 routes — about four times that of our own Red Rock Canyon.

Within the sprawling desert vistas are groves of the plant for which the park is named. The Joshua Tree looks like a sea anemone that crawled onto dry land, with cactus-like bursts of evergreen leaves on spindly branches. They contribute to the Dr. Seuss vibe and can grow so thick it’s like hiking through a full auditorium. They’re incredibly photogenic against a pink and purple dusk.

For those into geology, there’s an 18-mile, self-guided tour of 16 stops along a dirt road, from natural rock sculptures to debris flows and the Blue Cut earthquake fault. But there are better photo spots, like Skull Rock on the main east-west road, eroded by rain to the point of having hollowed-out eye sockets (and a suspi-ciously alien forehead). Or hike the half-mile from White Tank Campground to Arch Rock.

Right next to the rock arch on the desert-lover’s bucket list is the oasis. And Joshua Tree has five, the fan palms towering up to 75 feet, waving back at God. — Erin Ryan

Nevada’s other national park puts ecosystems in a blender, offering the charged emptiness of dry lakebeds and the grandness of rock clusters, the intrigue of caves and the music of creeks. It even has a glacier.

Biodiversity is so rich in Great Basin and its neighboring valleys that the NPS tallies more than 800 plant species and 238 bird species, with mammals, reptiles and fish that range from mountain lions to hissing gopher snakes to cutthroat trout. The variety stems from eleva-tion that climbs from 5,000 feet to 13,000, but spectacles are not limited to the peaks.

In the Lehman Caves, minerals come to life in the spires of stalac-tites and stalagmites, twig-like helic-tites, flowstone like frozen waterfalls, corral-mimicking popcorn and over 300 rare shield formations. Grow-

ing from the fractured limestone like a giant petrified jellyfish, the Parachute might be the most famous cave shield.

President Warren Harding made the Lehman Caves a national monu-ment in 1922, but the greater park didn’t happen until 1986. It boasts more than 60 miles of hiking trails, rich bird-watching and wildflower spotting, and unique artifacts and activities such as arborglyphs carved into aspens by Basque sheepherders and fall pine-nut picking.

And this spring, Great Basin was designated an International Dark Sky Park. With high elevation and low humidity and light pollution, it allows for naked-eye viewing of countless stars, meteors, five planets, the An-dromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way, prompting the slogan: “Half the park is after dark.” — Erin Ryan

GREAT BASINState: Nevada

Distance from Las Vegas: 4.5 hoursDetails: nps.gov/grba

GOLD MININGThree miles west of the park, mining operations have been stumbling along since the late 1800s in the Osceola Ditch, where a 24-pound nugget of gold was found. Scarce water hampers ex-traction efforts to this day.

JOSHUA TREEState: California

Distance from Las Vegas: 3.5 hoursDetails: nps.gov/jotr

Oct. 28-30 is the Night Sky Festival, part of the celebration of the NPS’ 100th birthday. Astronomers, scientists, artists

and enthusiasts will gather in the dark to take in the celestial fireworks.