What the national parks give you

We were sitting on the rocky bank of Cascade Canyon Creek, high up in the Tetons.
 
Munching on trail mix, we watched a black bear cub feeding and shuffling along the upper slope on the other side of the creek. As he passed out of view, a moose cow — our third moose sighting of the morning — ambled downstream, swimming across the stream as she drew closer. A pika scrambled through the rocks around us, and its antics almost made us miss the river otter that emerged from its hiding place to swim and scamper upstream.
 
The five of us — my wife and I, and our three daughters — sat there for an hour, awed and enthralled, before continuing our hike up the canyon. The wildlife and wildflowers, the crystalline cascading water, the cloudless sky, and Mt. Owen towering above in jagged majesty — it was all a bit surreal in its perfection.
 
But that’s what the national parks give you.
 
I’ve been to more than 20 in all corners of our country. And that day in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming was echoed in infinite variety on many other occasions before and since.
 
Our national parks have been called America’s best idea. Once you get past the very formation of the nation, I don’t disagree.
 
The parks have been on my mind lately. One reason is the phenomenon occurring now in Yosemite, in California. It’s firefall season there, and it comes every February when the light at sunset hits Horsetail Fall and makes it look like a river of fire pouring off the shoulder of El Capitan. It’s stunning. If you’ve never seen it, it’s worth a look online.
 
The second reason, however, is downright dispiriting. The National Park Service just released its list of needed maintenance work that has been deferred for lack of funding — and the backlog is now at $11.9 billion. Yes, billion.
 
It’s a staggering total. The list has projects large and small, some you’d notice and some you might not. They include roads and bridges, campgrounds and trails, visitor centers and signs. And a $220 million project that would replace a 50-year-old pipeline that brings water to the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon but that is prone to breakdowns. If it goes, a spokesman said, water would have to be hauled up from springs down in the canyon, which could only be done for so long and which might end up forcing the park to close.
 
Congress did appropriate $118 million more in the current budget, but deferred projects rose by $440 million. President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for 2017 would add another $450 million, which clearly would help, but Congress has not been receptive to past requests. And in Washington, hopes that Congress will pass any budget are waning with the Senate bracing for a brawl over the replacement of recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — walking and chewing gum simultaneously apparently being an impossibility. A short-term continuing resolution would merely keep current spending levels intact.
 
Aging facilities and insufficient resources are strained further by the parks’ record popularity — more than 307 million visits in 2015. That’s not a bad problem on its own, and shows our love for our natural temples.
 
If you’ve ever hiked in the Narrows in Utah’s Zion Canyon, wading up the Virgin River as the walls close in, twisting and turning in sculpted fantasy; if you’ve ever seen a herd of mountain goats silhouetted against Klahane Ridge in Olympic in Washington; if you’ve ever marveled at the spire-like hoodoos of Utah’s Bryce Canyon and gazed up at its impossibly gorgeous expanse of night sky — you know what I mean.
 
Preserving that might not be cheap, but it is priceless.
 
Michael Dobie is a member of Newsday’s editorial board.