Participate in the National Park Service Wellness Challenge at Missouri’s National Parks
The National Park Service has introduced a new way to experience Missouri’s national park sites with the National Park Service Wellness Challenge. The Wellness Challenge promotes the unique health resources found in our national parks, and asks visitors to participate in physical, mental and learning wellness activities unique to each park. Missouri is the pilot state for this program.
In the St. Louis region, participants can take part in the Wellness Challenge at Gateway Arch National Park, Ste. Genevieve National Historical Park and Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site.
Here’s how it works: Each national park site offers nine Wellness Challenge activities, organized within three categories: physical wellness, learning wellness and mental wellness. To get started, participants can pick up a Wellness Challenge Guide at any Missouri national park site. When an activity in each category is completed, participants can get their guide stamped by an NPS ranger or download a digital badge to mark their achievement at https://go.nps.gov/NPSWellnessChallenge.
More information about the NPS Wellness Challenge, including a list of Missouri’s national park sites and challenge activities, is available online. 21 stamps can be collected in all from the Show Me State’s national parks!
Here are the National Park Service Wellness Challenge activities at Gateway Arch National Park:
- Physical Wellness
- Walk up the Arch Grand Staircase or move up the accessible ramps
- Walk, run, bike or roll around over five miles of the park’s paved trails
- Stroll along the historic St. Louis Riverfront Trail
- Learning Wellness
- Earn a Junior Ranger badge
- Watch the award-winning documentary “Monument to the Dream,” chronicling the construction of the Gateway Arch
- Explore the Museum at the Gateway Arch
- Mental Wellness
- Take in the views from the top of the Arch via the Tram Ride to the Top
- Visit the reflection ponds to the north and south of the Arch and relax and soak in the environment
- Stroll through the paved paths of the Explorer’s Garden located in the North Gateway area of the park