Gifts for exercise - or health nuts - on your Christmas list can be challenging.
The latest gizmos are just that, gizmos.
Gift cards are always a fallback.
But they are not really inspirational.
They feel like a cash transaction because they are.
So what do you do?
Give the card that is multi-faceted and inspirational.
An annual National Park Pass for $80.
The passes are available for purchase online via the National Park Service.
Being a part of nature’s grandeur is priceless.
It is also one-size-fits-all.
And it can provide physical and mental health benefits.
It is an access card to endless trails for casual walkers, serious hikers, and trail runners.
It can open up new vistas for rock scramblers, skiers, and those who get their exercise from fishing.
And there are other benefits.
It can inspire photographers, poets, and painters.
There are more than 2,000 locations across the United States the annual America the Beautiful National Pass can be used.
The pass covers entrance fees as well as day use fees for a driver and all passengers in a vehicle in locations where admission is by the vehicle.
It also covers up to four adults for sites that charge admission per person.
And there is no other state with as many national parks you can use the pass at than in California.
Not only are there 10 national parks — two more than runner-up Alaska — but the national parks in the Golden State have the most variety.
They include unique desert ecological systems and glacier carved Sierra valleys to soaring redwoods and a volcano that last erupted 104 years ago.
Two of those national parks — Yosemite and Pinnacles — are easy day trips from the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Yosemite
There is a reason as many as 4 million people from all parts of the globe make their way to the only national park in the 209.
It offers everything from stunning glacier carved valleys surrounded by soaring granite, alpine lakes, towering 14,000-foot peaks, incredible waterfalls, especially between late March and early May, and more than 750 miles of hiking trails within its 1,069 square miles.
You’ve got 1,062 square miles of splendor with much of it just you and nature.
Pinnacles
Pinnacles is California’s newest national park, having been confirmed that status in 2013.
It was declared a national monument in 1908 to protect the remnants of a volcano created 23 million years ago during an eruption on California’s most famous earthquakes fault zone — the San Andreas Fault.
It is a collection of volcanic created features mellowed over the passage of time in the form of cliffs, talc caves, spires, smooth boulders and jagged ridges.
