Happy Birthday to our National Parks! Yellowstone, Zion, Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon...just to name a few! Maybe these names ring a bell for you, and you may have come across stunning photos on Facebook, or maybe you even visited a few yourself! So… What does this have to do with cozy organic cotton travel essentials? Well for starters, our travel pieces are wonderful accessories to have on any National Park adventure - perfect for cool early morning coffees in mother nature, or comfy layers to wear around the campfire. Secondly, and most importantly, we share the mission to leave the world better than we found it, respecting the Earth and all of her gifts! To celebrate, here are 10 things you may not have known about the National Park Service!
- The first established National Park was Yellowstone, named a protected land in 1872, and now stretches over 2.2 million acres!
- There are now 423 National Parks, covering 84 million acres in the U.S.
- All National Parks uphold a “Leave No Trace” practice, and asks all visitors to leave the land just as they found it.
- The National Parks are home and habitat to more than 400 endangered or threatened plant and animal species.
- About 20,000 people are employed by the National Park Service annually. Those employees are assisted by 246,000 Volunteers-In-Parks (VIPs), who donate about 6.7 million hours annually.
- There are over 18,000 miles of trails in the National Parks.
- At over 1,900 square miles, Grand Canyon National Park is larger than the state of Rhode Island.
- The mountains of Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park are some of the youngest mountains in the world, while the Black Hills in South Dakota are some of the oldest.
- The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States, with more than 11 million visitors in 2018.
- At 275 feet tall, the General Sherman Tree at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is the tallest tree in the world!