The 100th Anniversary of America’s National Park Service
Photo: A couple traverses Saint Mary Lake via canoe, Glacier National Park, Montana
Although I always grasped, in theory, the vastness and dramatic natural diversity of this country, I cannot say I truly understood it until I traveled from coast to coast and back for myself, by myself. In my life to date there are four times that I recall being quite literally lost for words. All have been occasions where the sheer majesty and scale of nature have overcome me. Three have been in America’s national parks.
To truly know what it is to be one with these magnificent plots of life and land, venturing into the heart of these parks, far from the familiarity of highly trafficked roads, becomes a necessity. Whether it is hiking up a ragged and rocky mountain in Glacier 
National Park or descending down into the alien-like depths of the Grand Canyon, the sense of adventure, solitude and physical strain all help to offer the smallest glimpse into what it is to live in some of nature’s most remote and harshest climates.
During certain parts of my treks and travels, I was truly alone. So alone, in fact, that if anything were to happen, no one would know. This is both an exhilarating and apprehensive state. You are in awe of the enormity and sheer scale of what is in front of you and yet here you are, in the midst of this sprawling habitat in which you are not fit to survive, nor prosper. Yet in this place, there are no distractions. Nothing and no one to influence you or your behavior. There is only the present, and a feeling that is near impossible to convey in words.
It is moments like these which can never be crafted, created or forced. Seconds and minutes where everything seems to come together and you are overtaken by emotion and connected to something more than yourself.
For more images from his travels, visit: www.AdrianBonvento.com
