New River Gorge National River Joins National Find Your Park Movement

Date: March 31, 2015
Contact: Mark Bollinger, 304-465-6523

New River Gorge National River joins parks, programs and partners across the country to encourage everyone to find their park and share their stories online atFindYourPark.com. Launched yesterday by theNational Park Serviceand the National Park Foundation, Find Your Park is a public awareness and education campaign celebrating the milestone centennial anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016 and setting the stage for its second century of service.

Find Your Park invites the public to see that a national park can be more than a place -- it can be a feeling, a state of mind, or a sense of American pride. Beyond vast landscapes, the campaign highlights historical, urban, and cultural parks, as well as the National Park Service programs that protect, preserve and share nature, culture, and history in communities nationwide.

"Find Your Park" is alsoto be the theme for this year's National Park Week, April 18 –26.A great opportunity to find your park is to attend this year's Wildflower Weekend held on Friday April 24 through Sunday, April 26, 2015. Visitors will discover the incredible natural diversity of the New River Gorge area through a variety of special programs and hikes being offered in the park as well as at Tamarack and area state parks including Pipestem Resort, Twin Falls Resort, Hawk's Nest, Babcock, and Little Beaver. The highlight of the event is the annual "Hike into Spring," a chance to join rangers for a spring wildflower hike from Grandview to the river. Shuttles will be provided to bring visitors back. Or stop by Tamarack any time from April 1^stthrough 28^thto see this year's winners of the Youth Arts in the Park's 2015 Appalachian Spring Wildflower Art Contest. The winning artwork of 58 local students, out of over 530 entries, will be on exhibit in the vestibules that lead to Tamarack's center courtyard. For a full schedule of events, visit https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/wildflower-weekend.htm.

Visit www.NationalParkWeek.org to learn more about how you can join parks, programs, and partners in celebrating National Park Week across the country.

About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America's 407 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at www.nps.gov.