Next up for bicyclist riding to all U.S. National Parks: White Sands, Guadalupe and Carlsbad Caverns

Leah Romero, Las Cruces Sun-News
·3 min read

LAS CRUCES – The U.S. is home to over 400 national parks which cover over 84 million acres of land, and to help raise awareness and funding, one man from Tucson has vowed to visit each one on his bicycle.

In April, Scott Parkinson hit pause on his life and began the slow-going adventure of bicycling roughly 18,000 continuous miles across the country in 18 months. He said he has been bike touring his entire life and came up with the idea of this trip several years ago.

After mapping out a plan, he and traveling partner, Alex Zelek, took to the roads. Zelek tackled the first 3,100 miles with Parkinson but had to drop out of the trip due to wildfire smoke and other health concerns.

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Scott Parkinson of Arizona commenced an over 18,000-mile bicycle tour of the country's National Parks in April 2021 to encourage people to interact with nature and to raise money for conservation and preservation.
Scott Parkinson of Arizona commenced an over 18,000-mile bicycle tour of the country's National Parks in April 2021 to encourage people to interact with nature and to raise money for conservation and preservation.

So far, Parkinson has traveled about 6,700 miles visiting 14 national parks and states. His visited parks include Saguaro, Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest (Arizona), Hot Springs (Arkansas), Gateway Arch (Missouri), Voyageurs (Minnesota), Theodore Roosevelt (North Dakota), Glacier (Montana), North Cascades and Olympic (Washington), Redwood, Pinnacles, Joshua Tree and Channel Islands National Parks (California).

“I think a lot of people have lost touch with just being out in nature and how valuable spending time out in nature is for us,” Parkinson said. “I want people to … find that sort of adventure in their own lives again.”

From Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, Parkinson said he crossed over into New Mexico and traveled down to Las Cruces from Albuquerque. Along the way, he traveled through Gallup to Hatch and saw the Sevilleta and Bosque Del Apache national wildlife refuges and Caballo Lake.

He made it to Las Cruces Sunday and on Tuesday he made his way to White Sands National Park.

Parkinson said at each park, depending on access to camping and other factors, he may spend a few days visiting.

As of Nov. 16, he's raised $8,525 for the National Parks Foundation through the fundraiser Parks Pilgrimage. The goal is $50,000, all of which will go toward conservation and preservation projects across the country’s parks. Donations can be made online at give.nationalparks.org.

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Scott Parkinson of Arizona commenced an over 18,000-mile bicycle tour of the country's National Parks in April 2021 to encourage people to interact with nature and to raise money for conservation and preservation.
Scott Parkinson of Arizona commenced an over 18,000-mile bicycle tour of the country's National Parks in April 2021 to encourage people to interact with nature and to raise money for conservation and preservation.

“I understand that this last year has been hard on people and not everybody can donate. But if you just go out to the park and you sort of rekindle that spirit of adventure and being outside, it makes it something that you want to protect,” Parkinson said. “And that's the most important thing”

After White Sands, Parkinson said he plans to bicycle to El Paso and then head east, visiting the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas and then the nearby Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. His journey will then take him south to Big Bend in Texas and through southern states, eventually ending up in Everglades National Park in Florida.

He said the original plan was to complete the journey in September 2022, but he had to change routes early on due to wildfires. Instead, he will likely finish in October or November 2022 with an extra 2,000 miles added to his ride.

Adverse weather and raging temperatures have impacted the trip, but the bicyclist said the summer wildfires were the worst to deal with.

Scott Parkinson of Arizona commenced an over 18,000-mile bicycle tour of the country's National Parks in April 2021, stopping in New Mexico to visit White Sands National Park.
Scott Parkinson of Arizona commenced an over 18,000-mile bicycle tour of the country's National Parks in April 2021, stopping in New Mexico to visit White Sands National Park.

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“My chest hurt for about a month after I got out of the northern Rockies and I had a bad cough,” he said. “For like three weeks my voice was like an octave deeper. That's how bad the smoke was.”

Parkinson said he skipped several parks, including Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, and he plans to circle back and visit those parks next year.

Follow Parkinson on Instagram and Facebook where he posts frequent updates.

Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Bicyclist riding to all US National Parks currently in New Mexico