Chapter 03 — Parks & Protected Lands
US National Parks
The collection
Seven verified photographs from five of America's best-known National Parks — Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion and Bryce Canyon. Each is credited to its photographer and links to its original source and license. Locations are confirmed at the park level; where we can't confirm the exact viewpoint, we don't name one. Monument Valley and the Mount Zirkel Wilderness — a tribal park and a wilderness area, not National Parks — appear in the Landscapes chapter instead.
Authentic Photography
Real light. Real places.
Genuine on-location photographs. Where an exact location could not be confirmed, the caption says so rather than guessing.
Canyon Under Cloud
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona · © Jason Thompson
Source · Unsplash License
Granite Summit
Yosemite National Park, California · © Madhu Shesharam
Source · Unsplash License
Yosemite Falls Country
Yosemite National Park, California · © Mick Haupt
Source · Unsplash License
River Through the Mountains
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming · © Austin Farrington
Source · Unsplash License
Bison and Grizzly
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming · © Steven Cordes
Source · Unsplash License
Sandstone Walls
Zion National Park, Utah · © Dan Cutler
Source · Unsplash License
Amphitheater of Hoodoos
Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah · © Drew
Source · Unsplash LicenseEditorial
Five parks, five very different landscapes
Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona protects a canyon carved by the Colorado River, its exposed rock layers recording close to two billion years of geological history. Shifting cloud and low sun change its colors from minute to minute, which is why the same view rarely photographs the same way twice.
Yosemite National Park in California's Sierra Nevada is defined by glacier-carved granite — sheer walls, domes and some of the tallest waterfalls in North America, which run strongest in spring snowmelt. Yellowstone, mostly in Wyoming, was the first national park in the world (1872); beyond its geysers it is one of the few places in the lower 48 states where bison and grizzly bears still share the same range.
In southern Utah, Zion National Park is a deep canyon of red and cream Navajo Sandstone cut by the Virgin River, while nearby Bryce Canyon is not a single canyon at all but a series of natural amphitheaters filled with hoodoos — thin spires of rock shaped by frost and rain.
Only photographs confirmed to have been taken inside a US National Park appear in this chapter. Monument Valley is a Navajo Nation Tribal Park and the Mount Zirkel Wilderness is part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, so both now live in the Landscapes chapter, labeled as exactly what they are.