May 10 2026
Beneath the Chihuahuan Desert of southeastern New Mexico lies an underground landscape far larger and more complicated than most visitors realize. Carlsbad Caverns National Park protects more than 119 known caves, ranging from enormous systems extending for more than a hundred miles to small passages that remain almost entirely untouched. Yet most visitors experience only …
May 05 2026
The Big Room is the centerpiece of Carlsbad Caverns National Park and the underground experience nearly every first-time visitor should make time to see. Located roughly 750 feet beneath the Chihuahuan Desert of southeastern New Mexico, this immense chamber covers about 8.2 acres and contains an extraordinary collection of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, flowstone, pools, …
Jan 11 2026
Sagarmatha National Park protects one of the most extraordinary mountain landscapes on Earth. Located in the Khumbu region of northeastern Nepal, the park rises from forested river valleys to the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on the planet. Between those extremes are glaciers, turquoise lakes, deep gorges, high mountain passes, Buddhist monasteries, Sherpa …
Jan 10 2026
The Appalachian Mountains form one of North America’s great natural corridors, stretching from the southeastern United States through the Northeast and continuing into eastern Canada. Unlike the sharp, youthful peaks of the Rockies, the Appalachians are ancient mountains shaped by hundreds of millions of years of uplift, erosion, rivers, glaciers, and changing climates. Several of …
Dec 14 2025
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is a place where the scale of Alaska becomes almost difficult to comprehend. Mountains rise directly from vast river valleys, active volcanoes tower above forests and tundra, glaciers flow for miles through wilderness, and a remote coastline meets the Gulf of Alaska beneath the St. Elias Mountains. Covering roughly …
Nov 16 2025
Amboseli National Park is one of Kenya’s most recognizable wildlife destinations, famous for large elephant herds moving across open plains beneath the distant summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Located in Kajiado County near the Kenya–Tanzania border, the park protects a relatively compact core of a much larger ecosystem made up of dry lake beds, savanna, wetlands, …
Sep 04 2025
Hidden beneath the ponderosa pine forests of South Dakota’s Black Hills is one of the longest known cave systems on Earth. Jewel Cave National Monument protects an enormous underground maze of winding passages, narrow crawlways, chambers, sparkling calcite crystals, unusual mineral formations, and powerful airflow that suggests the known cave may represent only part of …
May 25 2025
Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America and one of the defining landscapes of Death Valley National Park. At 282 feet below sea level, the basin spreads across the floor of Death Valley in an immense expanse of salt, mud, mineral crust, and temporary pools framed by some of the park’s highest mountains. …
Apr 17 2025
Yellowstone National Park is famous for geysers, bison, wolves, waterfalls, and geothermal landscapes, but from late spring through summer another transformation takes place across the park. Meadows turn yellow with arrowleaf balsamroot, lupines bring swaths of blue and purple to open slopes, red and orange paintbrush grows along trails, glacier lilies emerge beside melting snow, …
Apr 16 2025
Zion National Park is one of the great landscapes of the American Southwest, a place where the Virgin River cuts through towering walls of Navajo Sandstone to create narrow slot canyons, hanging gardens, desert waterfalls, forested plateaus, and some of the most recognizable hiking routes in the National Park System. Located in southwestern Utah, Zion …
