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While "National Parks Adventure" was filmed in more than 30 parks across the country, it is Utah's stunning wild areas that play a lead role in the 43-minute 3-D film.
At one point, even the narrator, actor/director Robert Redford, tells viewers that Utah has 13 national parks and monuments — "precisely why I chose to live here."
The film opens nationwide on Friday, Feb. 12, and coincides with the National Park Service's 100th anniversary. In Utah, the film can be seen at the Clark Planetarium's IMAX Theatre in Salt Lake City and Zion Canyon Giant Screen Theatre in Springdale.
It follows world-class mountaineer Conrad Anker; his stepson, adventure photographer Max Lowe; and family friend and artist Rachel Pohl as they hike, climb and explore their way across America's wild — and beautiful — national parks. There are stops in the Redwood Forest, Niagara Falls, Hoover Dam, Glacier, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the Everglades.
Utah's national parks — namely Arches, Zion and Bryce — are center stage.
"We had little hints that they spent a lot of time in Utah," Vicki Varela, Utah's managing director of tourism, said of the filmmaker Greg MacGillivray and his crew. "But we fared better than we expected."
Varela was especially happy that the film shows "the spectacular destinations" outside Utah's national parks. "The whole region is as remarkable or more remarkable," she said.
In addition to the landscapes, the film follows America's preservation history, which was jump-started in 1903 when President Theodore Roosevelt spent two weeks camping in Yellowstone National Park, visiting the Grand Canyon and sleeping under the stars at Yosemite.
The experience convinced Roosevelt, joined by John Muir, a naturalist and early preservation advocate, that America's wilderness areas needed protection, something he put into law when signing the landmark Antiquities Act in 1906.
A decade later, on Aug. 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act creating the National Park Service, a new federal bureau in the Department of the Interior responsible for protecting all the national parks and monuments.
Unbeknown to the U.S. presidents, they also were helping to create many dark sky preserves, areas free of artificial light pollution, said Jim Ireland, the National Park Service coordinator for Utah.
"One hundred years later, the national parks are some of the best places to see the stars at night," he said, noting that Canyonlands and Capitol Reef national parks and Natural Bridges National Monument are among Utah locations certified as International Dark Sky Parks.
Before Friday's release, hundreds of schoolchildren from around the Wasatch Front visited the Clark Planetarium to see "National Parks Adventure."
Dave Nimkin, the senior director of the National Park Conservation Association, said he hopes the film inspires the next generation.
"We can't take it for granted," he said. "We have a responsibility to protect these places."
'National Parks Adventure 3D'
Three adventurers hike, climb and explore America's national parks, with Utah landscapes taking center stage. Narrated by actor Robert Redford, the film is released as part of the National Park Service's 100-year anniversary.
Where • Clark Planetarium, 110 S. 400 West, Salt Lake City; 385-468-7827 or clarkplanetarium.org
When • Opens Friday, Feb. 12
Running time • 43 minutes
Also showing • Zion Canyon Giant Screen Theatre, Springdale
Details • nationalparksadventure.com