If you just focus on its "national park" status, then today is the 87th birthday of Hot Springs National Park.

Kings Canyon National Park is an alpine wonderland, set amongst the rugged lands of the Sierra Mountains in California, just north of Sequoia National Park and to the southeast of Yosemite National Park. The park, administered with Sequoia, is one of America’s oldest. While it still protects the ancient sequoia trees of the Grant Grove that were the park’s original focal point, it is rapidly becoming known as one of America’s premier backcountry destinations.

Since boyhood I've embraced a vision of the National Park Service as an agency that not only cared for forested mountains, shimmering lakes, foaming cataracts, dusty trails and a wildlife menagerie that stretched from alligators to wolverines, but also as one with a science mission built around these wonders. How accurate is that vision?

“Does any skeptic suppose that a true mountaineer regrets any heroic mountain exploit because of some mishap…does he suppose that any of the many zealous navigators who sailed in that vain quest, the discovery of the mild open sea about the North Pole, bewailed the suffering he endured or the brave efforts he made? Does he imagine that man will ever cease his attempts…to reach the summit of unconquered peaks, simply because of possible mishaps and sufferings attendant thereon?”