Sep 14 2024
Beneath the mountains and sagebrush of eastern Nevada lies a world that feels completely removed from the landscape above. Lehman Caves, one of the signature attractions of Great Basin National Park, contains intricate stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, flowstone, helictites, cave popcorn, and hundreds of unusual formations known as cave shields. The cave system extends for …
Sep 14 2024
Hiking is the best way to understand just how enormous Grand Canyon National Park really is. From the rim, the canyon can look almost like a vast painted landscape, but descending even a short distance reveals layer after layer of cliffs, ridges, side canyons, desert vegetation, and changing rock formations that cannot be appreciated from …
Sep 14 2024
At the bottom of Grand Canyon National Park, almost a vertical mile beneath the South Rim, a cluster of rustic stone-and-wood buildings sits beneath cottonwood trees beside Bright Angel Creek. This is Phantom Ranch, one of the most unusual lodges in the National Park System and one of the few places in America where simply …
Sep 14 2024
The North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park offers a quieter, cooler, and more remote way to experience one of America’s most famous landscapes. Forests of ponderosa pine, aspen, spruce, and fir extend almost to the canyon edge, scenic roads lead to viewpoints thousands of feet above the Colorado River, and far fewer visitors make …
Sep 14 2024
Gateway Arch National Park may be one of the smallest national parks in the United States, but it contains an extraordinary amount of American history within its compact St. Louis riverfront setting. Its centerpiece is instantly recognizable: a gleaming stainless-steel arch rising high above the Mississippi River and downtown skyline. Yet there is far more …
Sep 14 2024
Gateway Arch National Park is better known for stainless steel, American history, and the St. Louis skyline than for wildlife. Yet the landscaped grounds surrounding the Gateway Arch support a surprisingly varied community of animals, including squirrels, eastern cottontail rabbits, coyotes, raccoons, Virginia opossums, bats, peregrine falcons, migratory warblers, butterflies, dragonflies, bees, and dozens of …
Sep 13 2024
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve protects one of the largest and least-developed landscapes in the United States, a place where the boreal forests of interior Alaska gradually give way to shrub tundra, alpine vegetation, wetlands, wild rivers, and the open Arctic landscapes north of the Brooks Range. Calling Gates of the Arctic …
Sep 12 2024
Shark Valley is one of the easiest places in Everglades National Park to experience the famous “River of Grass” without a boat, strenuous hike, or long drive deep into South Florida. Located along the Tamiami Trail west of Miami, this popular section of the park gives visitors access to a 15-mile paved loop through freshwater …
Sep 11 2024
Wildlife at Dry Tortugas National Park lives in a world dominated by water. Almost 70 miles west of Key West, seven tiny islands rise from an enormous expanse of shallow tropical sea, coral reef, seagrass, sand, and open ocean. Fort Jefferson may be the park’s most immediately recognizable landmark, but most of the protected landscape—and …
Sep 11 2024
Sand dunes are among the most recognizable landscapes in Death Valley National Park, yet they occupy surprisingly little of this enormous desert wilderness. Despite the popular image of Death Valley as an endless sea of sand, less than one percent of the park is covered by sand dunes. Most of the landscape consists instead of …
