Here’s your motivation to get out and enjoy a free weekend at a national park
Aug 26, 2016, 5:36 PM
In this Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016 photo, visitors look at Grand View Point in the Island in the Sky District at Canyonlands National Park near Moab, Utah. The National Park Service marks its 100th anniversary on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016. (Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP)
(Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP)
This weekend, all of our national parks will celebrate their centennial with free admission for all.
As the outdoor guy around here, I want to encourage you to take advantage of this time and celebrate the American outdoors.
Here is some some motivation from environmental advocate, author and National Park Ranger Edward Abbey.
Abbey was giving a speech to a group of environmentalists in Missoula, Montana that was later published in the High Country News on Sept. 24, 1976.
He said, “One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourselves out.
Be as I am: A reluctant enthusiast, a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure.
It is not enough to fight for the land. It is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here.
So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious and awesome space.
Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much;
I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: You will outlive the [expletive].”
