This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising...each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.So observed John Muir, the naturalist, writer, and conservationist who fought to protect America's wild lands.Today the system of national parks he helped to create stretches from shore to shore,preserving nature's grand show for future generations.

Native Americans were the first guardians of the land, taking only what they needed to survive and living in harmony with nature. For their descendants, mountains, canyons, and other features of the landscape are the spiritual connections with their ancestors, stretching back to ancient times. Many parks and monuments in the West are located on tribal lands.