Original subtitles

The Native Americans who first came and set eyes

on these lakes and mountains encountered a vast wilderness.

An entire continent that still lay wild and free.

These Native Americans believed that the greatest natural wonders

belong to no one.

They belong to all.

Over a hundred years ago,

these treasured places were protected for eternity, for everyone.

And the National Parks were born.

Conrad says, "Go slowly.

Listen for those who came before."

Oh yeah! Whoo!

Yeah!

Woo!

Woo!

Woo!

The first people here had no idea what they'd find.

The adventure is stepping into the unknown.

Conrad Anker is a world-famous climber and a National Parks Ambassador.

I think I got everything to shoot up there, Dad.

Looks good.

During semester break, Conrad always takes his step-son, Max Lowe,

on a climbing trip through the parks.

Their family friend, Rachel Pohl, comes along.

Let's roll.

Yellowstone.

The land sits over the molten fury of the largest super-volcano on Earth.

Each year, over two million visitors are carried back in time.

Heat-loving bacteria create the vibrant colors.

Over half of the geysers on this planet are here.

Yellowstone is a place where you can feel the beating heart of the planet

and gaze into its eye.

From this beating heart, great rivers flow out to all corners of the continent.

In past trips, we've rafted down these rivers,

the highways of the Native American.

The Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon,

digging a mile down into the earth,

exposing rock layers formed 1.7 billion years ago.

In the great river valleys, Native Americans hunted and gathered.

At Chaco Canyon, in New Mexico, they built a thriving city.

If you listen, you can still hear their voices on the wind.

We're heading' north, towards Wyoming, and another Native American icon.

The Lakota Sioux revere a thousand-foot monolith

called Devils Tower.

Here they passed down stories of powerful spirits,

and giant, terrifying bears.

The National Parks protect land and animals, too.

The threatened prairie dogs are safe here.

Prairie dogs have a highly-developed vocabulary,

which includes specific warning calls for each predator.

It's the females who sound the alarm.

Look at him!

Yeah, come on.

Max, get a picture of this one.

And flip it.

You're not helping, Max!

Max and Conrad are amazing climbers.

Get back on there.

-It's so hard. -Come on, you've gotta take that dip.

-Me? -Yeah.

I'm working on it.

Oh, now you're just showing off.

Fall off already, so I can try.

Max!

The Native Americans believed there is a solemn power here.

They tie prayer flags on the trees.

The columns are said to be claw marks made by the giant bear.

And we're trying to climb those claw marks.

The claw marks are massive crystals of rock,

formed in the heart of a volcano.

The rest of the volcano has eroded away.

It's very slippery. It's really deceiving.

Devils Tower sits like

a lightning rod up on the Wyoming highlands.

Not a good place in a storm.

Lightning! We're going down!

From Wyoming, we head northwest into Montana, my home state.

Welcome to Glacier National Park.

? This land was made for you and me ?

Here, too, nature can catch you off guard.

No, no, no! Oh.

Waterton Glacier International Peace Park

spans Canada and the United States, and is a World Heritage Site.

? This land was made for you and me ?

The team plans the rest of the summer.

We came up through Colorado

to Devils Tower,

and then we're gonna go through Yellowstone, to Glacier National Park,

across the Great Divide, down to Redwood National Park.

Redwood National Park, in California,

shelters the tallest trees on the planet.

But these ancient survivors, some 2,000 years old,

are now as vulnerable as a field of wildflowers.

That is a nice looking tree.

Over here, Jim!

Some scientists devote their lives to the study

and urgent protection of Redwood forests.

These graceful groves almost didn't survive an onslaught 150 years ago.

Ninety-five percent of the redwood forest...

was felled for lumber.

In the western states, scientists who study trees

understand that in order to thrive,

forests large and small all depend on fire.

Many conifers seal their cones with resin,

which must burn away before the seeds can germinate.

Out of the ashes springs new life.

Here, at Yosemite Valley,

trees are born in fire.

Wild nature needs protectors.

A hundred and 20 years ago, the fiercest of those protectors

was John Muir, a poet of nature.

The sun shines not on us, but in us.

The rivers flow not past, but through us.

Break away, once in a while, and wash your spirit clean.

Muir loved Yosemite Valley.

But he couldn't stop it from being destroyed by loggers,

ranchers, and developers.

But then his passionate articles and sketches

caught the eye of a powerful man.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite

where they camped for three days.

The President had good reason to treasure wilderness.

When Roosevelt was 25, his mother and his wife...

fell ill.

They both died on the same day.

He wrote, "The light has gone out of my life."

He took his grief out into the wilderness,

where he discovered nature's power to heal.

He never forgot it.

Their camping trip saved America's natural wonders.

Muir and Roosevelt crystallized a sweeping vision

for the first unified system of National Parks anywhere on Earth.

Slowly the idea caught on.

National Park Service lands now encompass an area three times the size of England.

These 400 sites range from Yosemite...

to the volcanoes in Hawaii...

Niagara Falls in the east...

the Channel Islands of California...

King's Canyon...

Death Valley, arguably the hottest place on Earth.

From the caverns in the south,

to the spires of Monument Valley, Arizona.

From the Grand Tetons of Wyoming...

To Acadia, in Maine.

These lands became your lands.

Lake Powell...

Yellowstone.

Crater Lake, Oregon, the deepest lake in the nation.

The National Mall in Washington DC,

where cherry blossoms chase away the winter.

New York City.

Here, Teddy Roosevelt is memorialized near Central Park.

And a proud lady standing in New York Harbor

extends a welcome to all.

Bird life thrives in Florida's Everglades.

But it wasn't always so.

Ladies hats were once decorated with elaborate feathers.

By 1900, plume hunters were killing over five million birds a year.

But then local women's clubs, in the spirit of John Muir,

fought to form the Everglades National Park...

and end this outrage.

This is once again a safe place, even for a baby Godzilla.

These lands are their lands, too.

Nothing better than waking up from a nap to an ice cream bar.

Yeah.

We're traveling across the country

from Death Valley, past the Hoover Dam, and Lake Mead, and straight into Utah.

Utah has 13 National Park locations.

Which is precisely why I choose to live here.

In Bryce Canyon, rain water seeps into the rock.

The water freezes in the winter.

The ice expands, shattering the rock into a fantasia of spires called hoodoos.

The spires reveal layers of time, stacked up in the rocks.

Below the base, you're running with dinosaurs,

then up through the Cenozoic, to the dawn of mankind.

Let's get a picture up here.

OK!

I'm going to be tall.

Yeah!

Perfect!

All right, let's keep on the pace.

John Muir said, "Get close to nature's heart.

Listen."

We all get such different things out of the parks.

On their perpetual road trip, their friend, Eric Porter,

takes them to just outside the park,

where the wind has left its fingerprint on the sandstone...

Creating a playground for all to enjoy.

Woo!

Nice!

Woo!

Conrad is a hero to me.

On one extreme climb in the Himalayas,

Conrad's party was hit by a terrible avalanche.

He lost his best friend, Alex Lowe.

Alex Lowe was my father, and your parents are your entire world.

So my world kind of just turned off for a while.

Conrad came into our lives months after

because he was a close friend of our family's.

And through that shared grieving, I think we kind of came together.

It was nice to have that father figure back in my life.

And going on these amazing adventures, and going to these wild places

and taking me with him has been an amazing gift.

The whole universe, flying through space with other stars,

all singing and shining as one, appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

Here, nature may heal,

and give strength to body and soul.

Over the years, on these trips with Max and Conrad,

I have had some unforgettable experiences.

Like in Katmai National Park, in Alaska,

where young brown bears were learning from their mother

the art... of catching salmon.

Or not.

For the youngsters, it can take a while.

Older brothers know a few tricks.

And it's frustrating.

This year, the team finishes up with a winter trip over semester break.

Above Wisconsin, in Upper Michigan, is Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

At the edge of Lake Superior, now frozen solid,

is the East Channel lighthouse.

Normally, where we're skiing is open water.

But we're here to climb frozen waterfalls.

It's really nice having Ryan Hudson join us.

Ryan climbed ice with us last year in Alaska.

-Let's roll with it. -Yeah.

Ice climbing is very special to Conrad.

Oh yeah!

It's his idea of heaven.

Woo-oo!

Heads up down there!

A storm moves in and it turns colder...

twenty degrees below zero.

Conrad loves it.

Woo!

It's so cold that the steel ice picks can shatter.

I place ice-screws to secure the rope for Rachel and the team.

My hands... are so cold!

OK.

In the extreme cold, with her hands above her heart...

Rachel's fingers shut down.

I can't!

Help!

Later, Rachel's eye for beauty catches what the others had overlooked.

Sweet.

A secret ballroom in a palace of ice.

So magical.

Pretty cool... wanna try this one?

John Muir got close to the heart of nature.

And here...

I feel it, too.

Oh, that's a good shot.

It is said, "The National Parks are America's best idea."

John Muir knew it all along.

He said, "In God's Wildness lies the hope of the world."

And it all started under a big ol tree.

with a great President...

a fierce poet of nature...

and a handshake.