Prologue: Redwood National and State Parks, California —
For his 50th birthday, Mark Woods and his family returned to one of the first national parks he had visited as a child: Redwood National and State Parks in California. "We didn't know it at the time but it would be the last trip we'd do with my mother," said Woods. See more of his journey to 12 parks in 12 months through his pictures.
January: Acadia National Park, Maine —
"It seemed fitting to begin a year in America's national parks with the sunrise atop Cadillac Mountain in Maine's Acadia National Park," Woods wrote. "Not only does this spot -- the highest point on the eastern seaboard -- epitomize so many issues for the future of the parks, this is where first light first hits the continental United States every year. On this New Year's Day, with fog blanketing the summit, first light was more like first glow."
February: Saguaro National Park, Arizona —
"I headed to Arizona, partly because I wanted to explore the future of the cactus that symbolizes America's West and partly because my mother lived there," wrote Woods. "As is the case with many Baby Boomers, my love of the national parks can be traced to parents packing us in a station wagon and hitting the road. When I arrived in Tucson, my mom was diagnosed with a rare cancer and given months to live, instantly making all my plans for the year seem simultaneously meaningless and even more meaningful."
March: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Arizona and Utah —
"When I went to northern Arizona for a gathering of river guides, every day I'd walk to the twin bridges that cross Marble Canyon -- the gateway to the Grand Canyon -- and look down at the Colorado River, flowing 467 feet below," wrote Woods. "And every night I'd walk to the same bridges and look up at something perhaps even more stunning, something that brought back a flood of childhood memories: night skies."
April: Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona —
"The beauty and power of the Grand Canyon is impossible to capture in an image, although we all try," wrote Woods. "It's a place that because of its enormity -- not just the width and depth of the canyon, but the age of the rock layers -- makes you feel incredibly small. And this is an oddly comforting feeling, one that brings me back to the Grand Canyon again and again."
May: Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida —
"In the mid-1800s, America shipped 16 million bricks to a small island 70 miles off Key West and built a fort that to this day astounds engineers," wrote Woods. "In another 100 years, it may be gone, washed away by rising seas and shrinking budgets. With that in mind, I headed to Garden Key to camp next to Fort Jefferson and under a supermoon."
June: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana —
"I started this month at the world's first national park, a place that ever since its creation in 1872 has been evolving and trying to answer the most basic of questions: What is a national park?" wrote Woods. "I ended this month back in Arizona, where my mother died shortly before sunrise on June 30, the midpoint of the year, leaving me to wonder, literally and figuratively, 'Where do I go from here?'"
July: Gateway National Recreation Area, New York and New Jersey —
"I had planned to go to Denali National Park in Alaska with my mom in July," wrote Woods. "I ended up going to one of America's urban national parks, camping at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. After initially focusing on the negatives of the place -- sweltering heat, swarming mosquitoes, concrete and weeds, planes flying overhead -- some of the locals helped me see some of the beauty in the 27,000 acres of Gateway."
August: Yosemite National Park, California —
"I purposefully picked to go to one of America's busiest parks at one of the busiest times of the year," wrote Woods. "We often talk about 'loving our parks to death.' But after spending a year in the parks, I believe the biggest threat for the future isn't whether we love our parks too much. It's whether we're making sure our children love the parks enough to keep them alive."
September: Flight 93 National Memorial, Pennsylvania —
"In September, Lori Guadagno (pictured here) and I headed to one of America's relatively new national parks, one entrusted with telling part of the story of 9/11 and preserving the site of the United 93 crash," wrote Woods. "Lori's brother, Richard Guadagno, was on United Flight 93. He was a U.S. Fish & Wildlife ranger who devoted his life to preserving and protecting natural places."
October: Olympic National Park, Washington state —
"Gordon Hempton won an Emmy for his recordings of natural sound and considers Olympic National Park in his backyard to be one of the 'last quiet places on earth,'" wrote Woods. "In an effort to preserve that quiet, he started a noise control project built around a spot in the Hoh Rain Forest that he dubbed 'One Square Inch of Silence.' During a visit to Olympic, I hiked with Hempton to the spot and camped one rainless night in the rain forest."
November: Big Bend National Park, Texas —
"After my family gathered in Tucson to scatter my mother's ashes, I hit the road for an old-fashioned, cross-country road trip, driving my mom's campervan from Arizona to Florida," wrote Woods. "A friend agreed to make the trip with me. After spending the first night camping in a Walmart parking lot in El Paso, we found more tranquil settings -- from the dark skies of Big Bend National Park in Texas to a piece of America's largest national seashore in Mississippi and Florida at Gulf Islands National Seashore."
December: Haleakala National Park, Hawaii —
"I was trying to figure out where to end the year when I read that Haleakala means "House of the Sun" and the mythology of this mountain involves a son lassoing the sun for his mother -- slowing the sun's movement and extending the day," wrote Woods. "So a year that began with a New Year's Day sunrise atop a mountain in Maine ended with a New Year's Eve sunset atop a volcano in Hawaii."
