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100 Years of National Parks

Airs Monday, September 5, at 8 p.m. We immerse ourselves in Yellowstone, Zion, the Everglades, and William Pierce Park in DC.

From the series Neighborhood Stories– Park Life, profiling the daily life of a community's urban oasis: "Country Bobby" Lowry is the guardian of Walter Pierce Community Park in Washington, D.C. He's been keeping an eye on the park for almost three decades, and knows more about how it than any city official -- he knows the trees, the plants and the kids. In the first of four stories about the park, we meet this transplanted farm boy who never takes shortcuts in his work.

Utah's Zion National Park draws 2.7 million visitors a year, and a major attraction for hearty hikers is a trek along the Grotto trailhead to Angel's Landing. From the banks of the Virgin River, the yellow-and-red sandstone sides of Zion Canyon rise 2,000 feet. It feels like being inside a huge body. The canyon walls are the rib cage spread open and Angel's Landing is like the heart.

Rick Hutchinson is research geologist for Yellowstone National Park. His main job is minding the more than 120 thermal features in the park: geysers, fumeroles, mud pots, steam vents. He tour us thru the geyser basins -- step carefully, the crust is thin and the water is boiling just under the surface.

Rick and a friend died in 1997. They were caught in an avalanche at Heart Lake, while out cross-country skiing on a park-wide inventory of the hot springs.