Leave Only Footprints

In late 2015, television journalist Conor Knighton was reeling from a broken engagement. His fiancée called off their European castle wedding shortly after they ordered save-the-date cards, then became engaged to a coworker four months later. Knighton drew a parallel to Theodore Roosevelt, who fled to the Dakota Territory in the 1880s after the deaths of his wife and mother on the same day, immersing himself in nature and emerging as the conservationist president who would protect more than 250 million acres of land. Inspired by a news article about the upcoming centennial of the National Park Service, Knighton hatched his own plan for healing through nature. A freelance correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, he decided to visit all 59 official national parks in a single calendar year. He gave notice on his apartment, sold his furniture, and committed to living on the road.

On January 1, Knighton hiked up the snow-covered road to the summit of Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park in Maine to witness the first sunrise of the year in the contiguous United States. CBS had not yet committed to the project, so he carried a cheap video camera to film his own footage. Around 50 bundled-up strangers joined him in the dark. When the sun crested the horizon, Knighton felt gratitude for the adventure ahead, though he had almost nothing planned: no lodging for the next week, no highway map, and no idea how much the year would cost. Two weeks later, CBS gave the green light.

From that point, Knighton crisscrossed the country, organizing his experiences not by geography or chronology but by the thematic threads he discovered connecting the parks. At Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, the oldest federally protected land in the country, he underwent a traditional bathhouse regimen and learned that the park is mandated by law to give away its geothermal springwater for free. At Biscayne National Park in Florida, he went scuba diving along a Maritime Heritage Trail of shipwrecks with his video journalist, Efrain Robles, who revealed that his only prior experience on water was being floated across the Rio Grande on a piece of plywood when his mother brought him from Mexico at age five.

Knighton's travels took him through parks that protect endangered species and fragile ecosystems. At the Everglades, a ranger led him through the famous River of Grass, the first national park set aside for what is alive rather than for scenic grandeur. At Channel Islands in California, he learned about the dramatic recovery of the island fox, which nearly went extinct when golden eagles preyed on the foxes after DDT eliminated the resident bald eagles. At Death Valley, he visited Devils Hole, a tiny, fenced pool that is the sole habitat of the Devils Hole pupfish, one of the rarest fish in the world.

The book explored spirituality, sound, and the deep human connection to trees. At Yosemite, Knighton traced John Muir's journey from a strict Protestant upbringing to a spiritual awakening in which Muir described the valley as a church. At Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, one of the quietest places in the country, he met a Park Service sound scientist who explained that noise pollution is increasing across the parks, disrupting wildlife behavior. At Sequoia, he walked to the General Sherman Tree, the largest living thing in the world, and at Redwood, he discovered that coast redwoods survive through interlocking root systems that hold each other up underground.

Knighton confronted the parks' most urgent crises. At Glacier National Park in Montana, he hiked 12 miles to see Grinnell Glacier with geologist Dan Fagre of the U.S. Geological Survey, who took photographs from the same vantage points as century-old images, documenting how an estimated 150 glaciers have shrunk to roughly 25, with models predicting total disappearance by 2050. At Kenai Fjords in Alaska, small signs along the road marked where Exit Glacier once extended, each marker hundreds of feet farther from the current ice. At Zion in Utah, he learned that visitation has nearly doubled in two decades, creating dangerous crowding on trails like Angels Landing, where at least nine people have fallen to their deaths since 2004.

At Big Bend in Texas, Knighton and Efrain took a rowboat across the Rio Grande into the tiny Mexican village of Boquillas del Carmen, which was cut off from the United States after 9/11 and only recently reopened. On the drive back, Efrain opened up about crossing the same river as a child and reflected on his identity as "Ni de aquí, ni de allá" (107), neither from here nor from there. In the National Park of American Samoa, the most remote unit in the system, Knighton stayed with a local chief's family and learned that the park is the only one leased rather than owned, rented from tribal chiefs under a 50-year agreement.

The parks reshaped Knighton's emotional landscape. At Petrified Forest in Arizona, he learned about the "Conscience Pile," a heap of stolen petrified wood mailed back by remorseful visitors whose apology letters range from children's misspelled notes to adults confessing a "curse." He recognized a parallel in his own life and decided to forgive his ex-fiancée: "once a piece of you has been taken, it can't be put back" (187). At Canyonlands in Utah, he met Tony and Linda Oyster, married 35 years, whose secret is mutual respect and letting things go. When Efrain asked what Knighton wanted in a partner, he answered that he wanted "a relationship that feels like a national park" (234).

At Mount Rainier in Washington, Knighton confronted the demographic imbalance among park visitors. He met Alicia Highland, an African American outdoor educator who described a lifetime of being treated as an outsider in outdoor spaces, from being called a racial slur in third grade to being accused of benefiting from affirmative action on her third day at the Forest Service. He interviewed Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who warned that if future nonwhite majorities do not feel connected to the parks, "how could we expect them to prioritize preserving places like this?" (287).

At Isle Royale, an isolated Michigan island with no cell service, Knighton disappeared from the digital world for four days, hiking over 30 miles and reading by headlamp. The forced disconnection provided a hard reset. At Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, the world's longest cave at over 400 miles, he experienced total darkness when the ranger switched off the lights and found he could lean into the nothingness rather than resist it.

Knighton saved Yellowstone, the country's first national park, for last. Arriving by snow coach in December, he found the park nearly empty. That night, he watched Old Faithful erupt alone in the moonlight, the boiling water turning to snow as it hits the freezing air.

For his final act, Knighton watched the year's last sunset at Point Reyes National Seashore in California on New Year's Eve. Standing alone at the lighthouse overlook, he thought of the people he met during the year and reflected on his transformation: he arrived at the parks broken and uncertain; he left humbled and grateful. The lighthouse, he decided, was a beacon: "Keep going, it said. Your safe harbor is still out there, somewhere else, waiting for you to arrive" (321). In an epilogue, Knighton reported that CBS offered him a long-term contract as a nature correspondent. Years later, he still lives on the road, not yet ready to stop wandering.