Parks Canada and the Banff Gondola proudly announce the opening of a NEW Winter Wonderland Playground in Banff National Park, something for all ages! Visitors and locals alike be possible to enjoy outdoor ice skating in Banff National Park.

An ice rink will be located at the base of the Banff Gondola just in time for the holiday season. Starting Tuesday December 29th, the complimentary ice skating rink will be open daily from 10am-4pm with evening skating till 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Skate rentals are available on-site and Starbucks has warm beverages to keep you toasty. Come celebrate the season with friends and family enjoy a skate, warm up by the fire pits, or just sit back and relax with a passionate drink surrounded by spectacular views of the Canadian Rockies!

Click here to read more upon the body this new winter wonderland playground and ice skating in Banff National Park.

In a country with such natural beauty and diversity it is no wonder that three U.S. National Parks have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites - Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park, one of the world’s earliest, was designated since of that kind in 1919 and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

A 1938 poster depicting the Grand Canyon. Image: Library of Congress.

The Grand Canyon National Park boasts stunning vistas that even the best photographs can’t adequately capture. About the size of Delaware, but located in Arizona, the Park is big enough to contain exposed rock that in the same manner with old as two billion years and has enough diverse microclimates that people can be hiking through snowdrifts and sunbathing onward the river bank on the same day.

John Wesley Powell  is credited with leading the first occurrence through the Grand Canyon in 1869 on the Powell Geographic Expedition. Powell, a U.S. soldier and trained geologist, explored the Colorado River and the surrounding areas, gathering information and providing recommendations to developers back east.

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Running a national park and trying to protect some of the last remaining mountain gorillas left in the world, in the midst of chaos, is no easy task. The rangers working in Virunga National Park in the DRC are really doing a phenomenal job and the great thing for those of us living far away, is we can read about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, every day.

The park has set up a web site that allows rangers to blog their daily outings. Whether its to chat about newborn gorilla babies; fighting rebels; scorching down charcoal kilns; making tourists wear sheltering masks in the same manner they don’t pass on germs to gorillas, and other fascinating entries. The blog also acts as a put upon the right track funding source, you can see where your money is going, even if you just have $20 to spare. Check it out for yourself, and please donate a little money if you can.