Author's posts
Jun 14 2024
Gateway Arch National Park
Gateway Arch National Park is unlike any other national park in the United States. Instead of mountains, forests, canyons, or desert wilderness, this compact urban park occupies approximately 91 acres on the Mississippi Riverfront in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. Its centerpiece is the soaring Gateway Arch, a 630-foot stainless-steel monument that has become one of …
Jun 13 2024
Gates of the Arctic National Park
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve protects one of the largest, wildest, and least developed landscapes in the United States. Spread across the central Brooks Range of northern Alaska, this immense Arctic wilderness contains jagged mountains, glacier-carved valleys, tundra, boreal forest, hundreds of lakes, six designated Wild and Scenic Rivers, vast caribou habitat, …
Jun 12 2024
Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park protects one of the most unusual landscapes in the National Park System: an immense subtropical wetland where water moves almost imperceptibly across a nearly flat sheet of limestone toward mangrove estuaries, the Gulf Coast, and Florida Bay. Instead of mountains, cliffs, or deep canyons, the defining feature here is water—its depth, timing, …
Jun 11 2024
Dry Tortugas National Park
Dry Tortugas National Park protects one of the most remote and unusual landscapes in the National Park System: seven tiny islands surrounded by nearly 100 square miles of turquoise water, coral reefs, seagrass beds, shipwrecks, sea-turtle habitat, migratory bird colonies, and the massive red-brick walls of Fort Jefferson. Located roughly 70 miles west of Key …
Jun 10 2024
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park protects a landscape of almost unbelievable extremes. Here, the lowest point in North America lies 282 feet below sea level while snow can cover 11,049-foot Telescope Peak only about 15 miles away. Summer temperatures routinely climb above 120°F on the valley floor, yet high mountain forests shelter ancient bristlecone pines. Vast …
Jun 09 2024
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Cuyahoga Valley National Park protects a surprisingly wild corridor of forests, waterfalls, wetlands, sandstone ledges, historic farms, canal ruins, and river habitat between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. Unlike national parks created around a single monumental landscape, Cuyahoga Valley is woven directly into one of the most populated regions of the Midwest. Neighborhoods, highways, farms, rail …
Jun 07 2024
Congaree National Park
Congaree National Park protects the largest intact expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States. Just southeast of Columbia, South Carolina, this remarkable landscape contains towering loblolly pines, enormous bald cypress and tupelo trees, slow-moving blackwater creeks, oxbow lakes, sloughs, wetlands, upland pine forest, and more than 20,000 acres of federally …
May 25 2024
The Best Short Hikes in Glacier National Park under 5 Miles
Glacier National Park may be famous for challenging backcountry routes and all-day mountain adventures, but you do not have to hike ten or fifteen miles to experience its waterfalls, alpine meadows, wildlife, forests, and dramatic mountain scenery. Some of the park’s most memorable places can be reached on hikes measuring less than five miles. Short …
Jan 30 2024
Birds of Yosemite National Park: Species, Birdwatching & Where to See Them
Yosemite National Park is best known for granite walls, giant sequoias, waterfalls, and sweeping Sierra Nevada scenery, but it is also an exceptional place for birdwatching. From peregrine falcons circling the cliffs of Yosemite Valley to western tanagers flashing through summer forests, birds occupy nearly every major habitat in the park. The diversity comes largely …
Jan 27 2024
Petrified Forest National Park
Petrified Forest National Park is one of the most unusual landscapes in the American Southwest. Spread across the high plains of northeastern Arizona, the park protects vast deposits of brilliantly colored petrified wood, striped badlands, sweeping grasslands, ancient petroglyphs, historic buildings, fossils, and a surviving piece of Route 66. The name can be slightly misleading …
