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| California Hiking, Camping, Biking or Driving are a great way to enjoy the relaxing sounds and views of variety of State Parks available in the State of California. Watching the sun set over the water or mountains are a beautiful way to end your day. You can experience all of this by visiting some of California's state parks. |
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Yosemite National Park covers a huge area of the western Sierra Nevada mountains in central California and has innumerable lakes, meadows, forests and granite summits with endless unspoilt Alpine scenery. At the center is Yosemite Valley, a half-mile deep depression carved by glaciers during the last ice age, which now has soaring 3,000 foot high domes and many powerful waterfalls, including three of the world's highest.
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Death Valley National Park include the Funeral Mountains, Coffin Peak, Hell's Gate, Starvation Canyon and Dead Man Pass - this is clearly a place with a bad history, reflecting the troubles and misfortunes endured by the pioneers who first traversed, inhabited and mined the region during the end of the last century.
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Joshua Tree National Park is popular with the more thoughtful traveler - there is no spectacular central attraction as is the case with many other Southwest parks, just many square miles of wild, unspoilt desert scenery. Two factors make the park special; the eerie, spiky Joshua trees which grow densely in the western half, and the extensive outcrops of huge granite boulders, up to 100 feet high. |
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Mojave National Preserve - The Mojave Desert may have a reputation as being a hot, rattlesnake-infested sandy wasteland, but it contains numerous particular places of interest, and the vast open spaces have a special, stark beauty of their own, which has to be experienced in person to be fully appreciated. What remains is not just sand dunes and inhospitable mountains, but also ghost towns, volcanic craters and lava, historic sites and buildings, various other unusual geological features and even a diverse range of wildlife.
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Lassen Volcanic National Park - Lassen Peak was originally a side-vent of a much larger volcano, posthumously named Mount Tehama, that exploded with huge force many thousands of years ago leaving a ring of hills some 3 miles across. Lassen itself has erupted several times, most recently after a violent explosion in 1915. |
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Lake Tahoe is strikingly beautiful when seen from afar, but those seeking peace and solitude will not be immediately impressed with much of the area around the shore as it contains innumerable shops, marinas, campsites, and especially holiday homes and lodges. Thousands of these wooden dwellings are scattered through the dense pine and cedar forest around the lake, and many of the adjacent beaches are privately owned. |
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