National Park Vignettes, Hot Springs to North Cascades
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*I estimated this from the 574 ft elevation of Lake Ouachita, a few miles up the Ouachita River from Hot Springs NP.
Indiana Dunes National Park occupies the southern shore of Lake Michigan, between Gary and Michigan City, at the eastern edge of the Chicago area.
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Protecting a forested island that rises almost 800 ft above Lake Superior, Isle Royale National Park receives ferry service from Houghton, Copper Harbor and Grand Portage. Intermittent green dots in the lake indicate Isle Royale is in Michigan.
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On a plateau adjacent to Twentynine Palms, elev. 1988 ft, (at the southern edge of the Mojave Desert), Joshua Tree National Park, California overlooks the city of Indio, elev. 13 ft (which is in the Sonoran Desert). Nearby mega geography includes the Los Angeles Basin, Palm Springs, San Bernardino Mtns, San Andreas Fault, Salton Sea and the Colorado River Aqueduct.
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Katmai National Park & Preserve guards Cook Inlet and the Shelikof Strait from its position in the Aleutian Range. In Lake Clark National Park & Preserve, Iliamna Volcano rises 10,000 ft out of Cook Inlet. Equal parts ice and land, Kenai Fjords National Park hugs the SE coast of the Kenai Peninsula.
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High in the Sierra Nevada, east of the San Joaquin Valley city of Fresno, Kings Canyon National Park lies adjacent to Sequoia National Park and the John Muir Wilderness. The Pacific Crest Trail traverses the Kings Canyon high country, where you’ll find the headwaters of the Kings River, a tributary of the San Joaquin.
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Located near Chester, elev. 4534 ft, in the forested mountains above California’s Sacramento Valley, Lassen Volcanic National Park features 10,457 ft Lassen Peak, and a section of the Pacific Crest Trail.
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In the forested hills of Central Kentucky, about equal distance from Louisville and Nashville, Mammoth Cave National Park lies near Bowling Green, elev. 496 ft, where it straddles the Green River, a tributary of the Ohio.
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Located on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, Mesa Verde National Park lies at relatively high elevation* between the San Juan River and the San Juan Mtns, in the Four Corners area of Colorado, near the town of Cortez. Iconic neighbors include the Navajo Nation, Southern Ute Reservation and Canyon of the Ancients National Monument.
*I determined Mesa Verde NP lies at relatively high elevation by noting that nearby Durango has a relatively high of elevation of 6523 ft.
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A little west of the Cascade Range crest, at the headwaters of the Cowlitz River, Washington’s Mt Rainier National Park overlooks the Seattle/Puget Sound region. To the south, Mt St Helens and Mt Adams rise out of the continuous forest cover. Closer to the park, US Hwy 12 crosses White Pass, and Packwood lies down on the Cowlitz.
New River Gorge National Park lies just east of Beckley, elev. 2421, Oak Hill, and the I-77 toll freeway, upstream of state capital Charleston, in the forested Appalachian Mountains of Southern West Virginia,
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In the Cascade Range of Washington, mostly west of the Pacific Crest (delineated here by the Pacific Crest Trail), North Cascades National Park encompasses the mountains NW and SE of the Skagit River. West and south, Mt Baker and Glacier Pk, stand like a gateway to the North Cascades for residents of nearby Puget Sound.