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Many cities have a lot though. Even a place like Philly has a 1 million acre International Bioreserve flanking one side of the metro. The Pine Barrens in NJ
Denver has much more than Rocky Mountain National Park!
Denver, Jefferson & Douglas County and Boulder all have significant close in mountain parks. Then there are the national forests.
No metro in Colorado is 'surrounded' by park lands per se, but from any of the Front Range metros you have access to a large number of the coolest and largest nat'l parks, forests, & state parks in the US.
Rocky Mtn NP, Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Dinosaur Nat'l Monument...+ huge swaths of nat'l forest with plenty of public parkland. From my house in COS we could drive a half hour west and be camping in the mountains of Pike National Forest.
National forests have trails, campgrounds, and recreational areas within them. For all intensive purposes, they are parkland. You do have some area within National Forests where logging is allowed, but you have other areas that are strickly recreation and/or wildlife conservation
Are you suprised to hear greater LA:
Sant Mountains Recreation area: Includes Malibu Creek and Topanga state parks. Smaller canyons east of the 405, less wild but Franklin Canyon, Runyon canyon. Griffith Park is considered the eastern top of the Santa Monica Mountains and is the largest city park in the country.
For REAL mountains you have the San Gabriels. Entirely covered by the Angeles Naitonal Forest. In Ventura Couty beyond the Simi Valley you have the Los Padres Nationa Forest, the last stronghold of the California Condor, one of the largest birds in the world.
In Orange County you have the Santa Ana Mountains (Cleveland National Forest) but the Santa Anas have many more ranges of low hills, unlike the "transverse" ranges of the Santa Monicas and San Gabriels. During the Orange County period of growth, many parks were preserved against the onslaught of development. These areas include: Laguna Coast Wilderness, Crystal Cove, Aliso canyon, and Limestone canyon.
You have many lakes around greater LA. But mostly they are artificial reservoirs. The only natural lake is Lake Elsinore.
Obviously, you have public beaches up and down the coast. And beyond the mountains you have the high deserts of the Antelope Valley where you have public land too.
If you want the largest metro area with the greatest amount of parkland, greater LA is it.
Miami is the only Metro that's bordered by two national parks: The Everglades and Biscayne National Parks. Plus, the Keys are just south of Miami and the Bays, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean provide lots of recreation opportunities. That said, all of the opportunities are warm weather and/or water related.
Mount Rainier National Park is within the Seattle metropolitan area. A significant portion of North Cascades National Park is within the Seattle consolidated metropolitan area as is a small portion of Olympic National Park (Staircase area in Mason County).
Also within the Seattle metro area:
- Alpine Lakes Wilderness area (it should be a national park)
- Glacier Peak Wilderness area (Has 10,000 ft. tall volcano)
- Norse Peak Wilderness area
- Henry M. Jackson Wilderness area
- Wild Sky Wilderness area (one of the few lower elevation wilderness areas)
- Boulder River Wilderness area
- Glacier View Wilderness area
- Clearwater Wilderness area
- Noisy-Diobsud Wilderness
- Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve
- Deception Pass State Park (one America's most scenic & visited state parks)
- Blake Island State park (475 acre island west of downtown Seattle)
- 30+ other state parks
- Issaquah Alps (combination state and regional parks and preserves in the urban foothills east of town)
And then there are still the National Forests, state forests, county parks, county preserves, national wildlife refuges, etc.
Last edited by Andy; 02-28-2012 at 05:12 PM..
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