Sep 19 2024
Hiking is the heart of the experience at Isle Royale National Park. There are no roads connecting the island’s destinations, no cars carrying visitors from overlook to overlook, and no easy way to shortcut a long day once you are deep in the backcountry. Exploring Isle Royale means traveling on foot or by water through …
Sep 19 2024
Mount Baldy is one of the most dynamic landscapes in Indiana Dunes National Park. Rising more than 120 feet above Lake Michigan, this enormous sand dune is constantly being reshaped by wind, waves, vegetation, storms, and changes along the shoreline. Unlike a fixed hill, Mount Baldy is a moving dune. Sand blows across its exposed …
Sep 19 2024
The Cowles Bog Trail is one of the most ecologically significant and surprisingly challenging hikes in Indiana Dunes National Park. Over 4.7 miles, the trail passes ponds, marshes, wooded wetlands, black oak savannas, forested dunes, open sand, and finally a secluded stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline. The variety is remarkable. A hike that begins beside …
Sep 18 2024
Hot Springs National Park is unlike almost any other national park in the United States. Instead of surrounding a remote mountain range, canyon, or wilderness, the park rises directly from the center of Hot Springs, Arkansas, where historic bathhouses line the city’s main street and naturally heated spring water still flows from the slopes of …
Sep 18 2024
The wildlife of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is unlike that of almost any other national park in the United States. Thousands of miles of open Pacific Ocean isolated the Hawaiian Islands from continental ecosystems, allowing the animals that successfully reached these remote volcanic islands to evolve in remarkable ways. Native birds dominate the park’s wildlife …
Sep 18 2024
Haleakalā National Park’s famous bamboo forest is one of the most memorable hiking experiences on Maui. Towering green bamboo surrounds a raised boardwalk, stalks sway overhead, and breezes create an unusual chorus of creaks, knocks, rattles, and hollow clacks as the bamboo moves against itself. The forest lies along the Pīpīwai Trail in the lush …
Sep 17 2024
Haleakalā National Park may be best known for volcanic craters, spectacular sunrises, and the otherworldly summit of Haleakalā, but the park has an entirely different personality on the wet eastern side of Maui. In the remote Kīpahulu District, streams descend from the slopes of the volcano through lush forest, plunge over towering cliffs, and form …
Sep 17 2024
Watching sunrise from Haleakalā is one of Maui’s most famous experiences. Long before daylight reaches the beaches below, visitors climb more than 10,000 feet into the Summit District of Haleakalā National Park, where the first light of morning spreads across volcanic ridges, cinder cones, clouds, and the Pacific Ocean. On a clear morning, the experience …
Sep 15 2024
El Capitan is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Rising abruptly above the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas, its massive limestone face marks the southern end of the Guadalupe Mountains and has guided travelers through this remote landscape for generations. At 8,085 feet above sea level, El Capitan is the …
Sep 15 2024
Wildlife in Guadalupe Mountains National Park is remarkably diverse for a landscape that can appear, at first glance, to be an enormous expanse of dry West Texas desert. Black bears roam high-elevation forests, mountain lions move silently through canyons and desert slopes, mule deer browse near springs, elk inhabit the mountains, and hundreds of bird …
