Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park
A great addition to a national park road trip (especially if traveled solo)
Suggested Readers: National Park Enthusiasts, and Individuals Searching for “Their Path”
Conor Knighton is lost. Not in a national park, but in life. His fiance leaves him shortly before their fairytale wedding and his career is somewhat at a standstill. Brokenhearted and bewildered, he comes up with an idea to get back on track: visit all of America’s 59 national parks during the National Park Services 100 year anniversary and document his experience. However, rather than retelling his journey in chronological order, Knighton organizes his chapters into various themes. Some themes are relatively straightforward and in line with what one might expect from a book focusing on the national parks: “Ice (Glacier Bay, Kenai Fjords, Wrengell-St. Elias)” and “Mountains (Guadalupe Mountains, Rocky Mountain). But other chapters delve into more societal themes such as “Diversity (Mount Rainier, Shenandoah),” or abstract and intangible experiences like “God (Yosemite, Capitol Reef, Lake Clark)”. Regardless of topic, Knighton engages readers with his eccentric (and often humorous) style of writing which delivers no shortage of National Park factoids, histories, and stories- as well as the more personal journey of a young man rediscovering his path in life.
I find Knighton’s rendition of his experience incredibly honest and relatable as he shares how visiting these great, wild places provides opportunities to both heal the spirit and find inspiration, wonder, and adventure. It cannot be understated that in a world increasingly connected through technology the National Parks provide us with much needed opportunities to disconnect, think and become grounded in nature’s beauty and solitude. Short of your own transamerica national park road trip, “Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park,” parts readers the wisdom of valuing these invaluable places for generations to come.
Excerpt:
“I heard about Great Basin’s skies, and I’d timed my visit so that I would arrive on the night of a new moon- the darkest possible night. It was also a weekend night, which meant Annie would be hosting one of her popular astronomy talks. As the sun set, a small crowd began to form in the parking lot. Flashlights were forbidden- Annie wanted our eyes to adjust naturally.
When the stars finally made their debut, the canopy shining overhead did not strike me as something that should be referred to as a “dark Sky.” Wind Cave was dark. This was the brightest sky I had ever seen.
Rising up from the east, the Milky Way slowly streaked across Great Basin’s horizon- it looked like the heavens had been ripped apart. This wasn’t some faint constellation where you have to struggle to connect the dots just to see a shape that vaguely resembles a bear chasing after twin crabs.This was an unmissable interstellar Grand Canyon, a massive band of light so brilliant it cast shadows on the ground.
I was transfixed. It was hard to comprehend that all of these thousands of stars had been up there all along, hiding in plain sight. I realized that all other supposedly beautiful starry nights of my life had been symphonies with notes missing. At Great Basin, I was finally able to appreciate the full composition.
An astronomer would tell you that I was still only seeing a tiny fraction of the universe. The human eye, under the best of conditions, can see fewer than five thousand of the billions of stars that shine in our galaxy alone. As I tried to take them all in, I wondered if the limiting factor was not the eye, but the human brain. Throw in even a few dozen more bright-white pinpricks and it felt like my head would explode.
When I occasionally lowered my gaze to rest my neck for a few minutes, I could see the heads of a hundred other tourists craned skyward, their eyes wide with wonder. Annie had set up telescopes in the parking lot for anyone who wanted to take a closer look. When I walked over to one to peer at Jupiter, I met a troop of Boy Scouts from Farmington, New Mexico, who had come to the park to earn their astronomy merit badges. I asked one of the Scouts if the sky was different than what he was used to seeing back home.
“I can’t see any of this back home,” he said. “It makes me think, our world is so small, and the galaxy out there is so big.”
At an age when most kids think they’re the center of the universe, the stars of Great Basin helped remind this kid that he wasn’t. That none of us are.”
PUBLISHER: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group, 2020.