Dinosaur National Monument will mark this special occasion with a ranger talk titled Our National Parks at 1 p.m. in the Quarry Visitor Center today. Birthday cake will be served at the Quarry Visitor Center in Utah and the Canyon Visitor Center in Colorado at 1:45 p.m.
You can also Find Your Park / Encuentra Tu Parque during the Skies Over Dinosaur Astronomy Festival, which began Wednesday and which runs through Sunday. Events kicked off Wednesday afternoon with a Celebration of the Sun, which includes solar art projects and viewing the sun through special telescopes from 2:30 to 4 p.m. on the back patio of the Quarry Visitor Center. Additional Celebration of the Sun activities are scheduled from 2:30 to 4 p.m. each day of the festival, with extra solar viewing from 10 a.m. to noon on Sunday.
On Friday and Saturday, join the Green River Campground Evening Program at 7:30 p.m. followed by Stargazing with Telescopes at the Split Mountain Campground at 9 p.m. Rangers and volunteers will offer naked-eye constellation tours at 9 p.m. each day before leading a telescope tour of the sky that includes closer views of planets, stars, nebula and galaxies.
While the skies over Dinosaur National Monument remain naturally dark, the majority of Americans cannot see the Milky Way or other night sky features from their homes anymore due to light pollution.
On Thursday a ranger talk titled “Lights vs the Night” will explore similar themes, starting at 8 p.m. at the Quarry Visitor Center, also followed by an optional walk to look for night-sky friendly lighting in the monument.
On Aug. 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act that created the National Park Service “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for future generations.”
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of that moment and to look ahead to the next 100 years, the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation launched the Find Your Park / Encuentra Tu Parque movement. Inspiring people from all backgrounds to celebrate and support America’s national parks and community-based programs, #FindYourPark / #EncuentraTuParque invites people to discover and share their own unique connections to our nation’s natural landscapes, vibrant culture and rich history.
For more information, call 435-781-7700, visit www.nps.gov/dino or follow DinosaurNPS on social media.
