Path to Discovery

In the middle of your trip to a National Park Service site, you are knee-deep in the experience you never thought you would have. You have stepped out of your comfort zone and are now experiencing the world around you in a new way, connecting to it and to the people with you. As you experience new sights, smells, and landforms, traveling a terrain previously unknown, you map your way through the adventure one new step at a time. Your relationships with the place and the people, even the siblings who annoy you, begin to shift.

Path Markers

Parks are dotted with signage that serves as markers to help us know where we are and how to go in the right direction. These signs also provide symbols of places we have been.

Pikes Peak National Historic Landmark, 1988, Travis Gerrish

Medicine Bow National Forest near Rocky Mountain National Park, 2011, Liz Schuman Carlson

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2013, Dave Schneider

Mount Rainier National Park, 2014, Linda Kleinhesselink

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, 2015, Stephanie Fretham

Cape Hatteras National Seashore, 2015, Linda Kleinhesselink

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, 1988, Linda Kleinhesselink

Bear Paw Battlefield at Nez Perce National Historic Park, 2015, John Fretham

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, 2015, John Fretham

Cedar Breaks National Monument, 1998, Linda Kleinhesselink

Yellowstone National Park, 2014, Sarah Kleinhesselink

Grand Teton National Park, 2009, Tracy Donner

Rocky Mountain National Park, 2011, Dave Schneider

The Adventure

Parks allow us to engage with the environment, the past, and others in experiencing new and wonderful adventures. Steering the riverboat, wiggling our toes in the sand, crashing in the snow or on the trail gives texture to our experiences.