Sep 07 2026
Crater Lake National Park is famous for the astonishing blue lake occupying the collapsed summit of ancient Mount Mazama, but some of the park’s best scenery is experienced away from the roadside overlooks. Hiking trails climb volcanic peaks, follow the caldera rim, cross wildflower meadows, descend into forested canyons, and lead to waterfalls and strange …
Sep 01 2026
White Sands National Park is striking during the day, but the landscape changes completely after sunset. Beneath moonlight, the brilliant gypsum dunes can glow almost silver-white, shadows stretch across the rippled sand, and the surrounding Sacramento and San Andres Mountains fade into the darkness. Experiencing White Sands at night requires more planning than simply staying …
Aug 29 2026
Moro Rock is one of the most dramatic viewpoints in Sequoia National Park. Rising above the Giant Forest on the western edge of California’s Sierra Nevada, this massive granite dome offers sweeping views toward the Great Western Divide, deep mountain canyons, forested foothills, and—on exceptionally clear days—far beyond the boundaries of the park. Reaching the …
Aug 28 2026
Pinnacles National Park packs an unusual amount of adventure into a relatively small corner of central California. Trails climb through volcanic spires, squeeze beneath house-sized boulders in dark talus caves, cross oak woodland and chaparral, and rise onto narrow ridges where California condors may soar almost at eye level. The park has more than 30 …
Aug 25 2026
Giant Forest is the heart of Sequoia National Park and one of the most extraordinary forests anywhere in the world. Hundreds of mature giant sequoias rise above the Sierra Nevada landscape here, including the General Sherman Tree, the largest known living single-stem tree on Earth by volume. The grove contains far more than one famous …
Aug 23 2026
Emerald Lake is one of the classic hiking destinations in Rocky Mountain National Park. Reached from the Bear Lake Trailhead, the route climbs through subalpine forest past Nymph Lake and Dream Lake before ending beneath the dramatic walls of Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain. The scenery-to-effort ratio helps explain why the trail is so popular. …
Aug 15 2026
Bear Lake is one of the most recognizable destinations in Rocky Mountain National Park. Sitting at approximately 9,475 feet above sea level, the subalpine lake is surrounded by spruce, fir, lodgepole pine, and dramatic mountain scenery, with Hallett Peak and the Continental Divide forming an impressive backdrop. Unlike many of Rocky Mountain National Park’s famous …
Aug 15 2026
Denali National Park and Preserve protects more than six million acres of mountains, tundra, taiga forest, braided rivers, glaciers, and largely roadless wilderness in the heart of Alaska. At its center rises North America’s highest mountain, a massive snow-and-ice-covered peak reaching 20,310 feet above sea level. Yet Denali is much more than its famous mountain. …
Aug 14 2026
West Virginia may have only one site carrying the formal National Park and Preserve designation, but the National Park Service protects a surprisingly diverse collection of landscapes, rivers, trails, and historic places across the Mountain State. From the sandstone cliffs and whitewater of New River Gorge to the Civil War and civil rights history of …
Aug 05 2026
Washington is home to three national parks, and together they protect an extraordinary cross-section of the Pacific Northwest. Mount Rainier National Park surrounds the highest mountain in the Cascade Range and some of the most celebrated wildflower meadows in America. Olympic National Park combines glacier-covered mountains, temperate rain forests, old-growth forests, lakes, rivers, and more …
