Wednesday Filler: Life Outside (and Inside) a National Park

Would that the many parks and preserves in North America stand as the crowning parts of their representative habitat rather than islands among development or commercially exploited lands.  Many if not most are islands, and sometimes within themselves as well.  Death Valley National Park, for instance, is often captured in popular memory as a hot, dry, unforgiving bare bones desert, when in fact it features pine forests, waterfalls, and snow capped mountains.  Saguaro National Park brings us images of pristine desert scenes, when in fact it is being encroached upon by Tucson, and a quick step on either side of the park road gate brings one into an entirely different world of cactus or concrete forest.

So it is with Sequoia National Park, where the big trees are hardly the only feature even in the park itself.  Much of the lower elevations of the park are wonderful reaches of the California chaparral world, while other parts are dry open oak forests with yuccas abounding.  While not the big trees that inspire awe and amazement, these environments are worthy of exploration and a reminder that while the purpose of a park is to preserve and allow everyone to enjoy our national treasures, a park also exists to remind us that the world outside its boundaries, while not protected, is every bit as amazing and worthy of more than a second thought.