NPS Centennial: Yosemite Celebrates

Several nature-cool programs will mark the National Park Service's 100th anniversary.

IF YOU RECEIVE AN INVITATION... to an anniversary party, the address is usually printed somewhere on an envelope or the web site. But what should a ready-to-celebrate partier do when the anniversary in question encompasses thousands upon thousands of square miles in several places around the nation? Perhaps the best answer is to find the nearest national park and swing by during the National Park Service Birthday Weekend. Oh, by golly, we went and said what we were merely hinting at a few sentences earlier. It is the National Park Service that is having a big anniversary — a centennial, in fact — meaning there is no one address on the invitation to attend. But many parks and locations are doing it up from Thursday, Aug. 25 through Sunday, Aug. 28, including Yosemite National Park. How will the place known for waterfalls, Tuolumne Meadow, and Half Dome (among about a billion other wonders) "do it up" in honor of the 100th anniversary of the NPS? Let's start with the...

FREE DAYS... from Aug. 25 through 28. Granted, those are system-wide, but if you want to call upon Yosemite National Park over the final weekend of August 2016, you won't pay at the gate to do so. A caboodle of ranger walks and talks, all centered around the centennial in some fashion, fill the Thursday, Aug. 25 calendar, but look Aug. 23 through 27 for other special happenings (science, architecture, and more will all take on a birthday-ish bent for the run of Centennial Week). You probably certainly can't visit every park during the long weekend celebration, but you can say hello to those parks near you or the park you love the best. Happy 100th, NPS, and yay Yosemite, for "doing it up" in grand anniversary style.

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us