articles/Landscape/beauty-landscape-page2

The Beauty of the Landscape - part 2 of 1 2 3

by Paul Gallagher Published 01/12/2016

Photography has a pivotal role to play in the health and well-being of all wild and natural places. Ours is the only way of telling the story; no account, regardless of how well written, can quite prepare the traveller for their first glimpse of Yosemite's El Capital or the Grand Canyon.

This then is Imagemaker's piece of the jigsaw, using Paul Gallagher's images to show what some of the places are like and, by inference, why we should be worried about them, why we should cherish them and prevent philistines such as Trump and his cronies from decimating them for personal gain. Any thing we say about Yosemite could equally apply in Alaska where the Iditerod required the import of snow for the dogs to run on or to any of the starving polar bears looking out on their ice-free and seal-free territories around Svalbard. This is why we have a duty to call out the likes of Trump even if he is not 'our' president, for he presides over the country which is pumping a massive chunk of the CO2 overload and now has a bunch of redneck coal producers baying for relaxation of the rules. And feel free to have a pop at our own government, shortly about to start fracking in Lancashire (Lancashire, Mrs May is a place 'up north' - you can find it on your map, it's just a bit up from where the new railway is due to stop).

The National Parks of USA and Canada - some notes

1. The main difference between Yosemite and Canada is the scale of the places. Yosemite National Park is just over 3,000 square kilometres whereas Banff National Park alone covers over 6,600 square kilometres and its neighbour, Jasper, covers almost 11,000 square kilometres!

2. The main attraction of Yosemite National Park is the Yosemite Valley itself which is only about 9 kilometres in length and although the sights are staggering, because if its global fame from Ansel Adams, it can get rather busy with American tourists.

3. Yosemite is situated in the High Sierras and so to reach the national park the road climbs gradually up 1,200m above sea level and the most impressive of the cliffs is El Capitan which stands 3,000ft above the valley floor

4. Many of the mountains that surround the lakes of Banff, Yoho and Kooteney National parks rise up to over 10,000 feet above sea level and are often snow capped.

• The Beauty of the Landscape page 1
  
• The Beauty of the Landscape page 2
  
• The Beauty of the Landscape page 3
  

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