"Beyond Sightseeing: You'll Love The Sound Of America's Best Parks"

"Every place has its own sound. A small group of scientists is hard at work recording the natural sounds of national parks all across the U.S. — more than 70 soundscapes so far.

For our series on the centennial of the national parks, we traveled to Colorado, to find out how they create these portraits of sound.

We started at Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. The dunes loom into view like a 30-square-mile patch of the Sahara desert that somehow ended up at the foot of snow-capped mountains. A hailstorm was pounding down, so we ducked into the park's visitor center to talk to biologist Kurt Fristrup, mastermind of the park service's soundscape project."

Bill McQuay and Christopher Joyce report for NPR's Morning Edition June 29, 2016.