Sep 02 2024
Going-to-the-Sun Road is the defining scenic drive of Glacier National Park, crossing nearly 50 miles of northern Montana wilderness between the West Glacier and St. Mary sides of the park. Along the way, the road follows the shore of Lake McDonald, passes through old-growth forest, climbs dramatically along the walls of glacial valleys, crosses the …
Sep 02 2024
Lake McDonald is the largest lake in Glacier National Park and one of the most recognizable landscapes in Montana. Stretching for approximately 10 miles through a deep glacial valley on the park’s west side, the lake is surrounded by densely forested mountains that rise toward the Continental Divide. Its clear water, colorful shoreline stones, historic …
Aug 03 2024
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve is one of Alaska’s most spectacular combinations of glaciers, mountains, ocean, rainforest, and wildlife. Located in southeastern Alaska west of Juneau, the park protects more than 3.2 million acres of fjords, tidewater glaciers, snow-covered peaks, coastal forests, rocky shorelines, and remote wilderness. Unlike national parks centered around scenic highways, …
Jul 20 2024
Zion National Park is one of the defining landscapes of the American Southwest, a place where enormous sandstone cliffs rise above a ribbon of green cottonwoods and the Virgin River winds through a canyon that seems almost impossibly deep. Located in southwestern Utah near the town of Springdale, Zion protects roughly 232 square miles of …
Jul 19 2024
Yosemite National Park is one of the most recognizable landscapes in the United States, a place where immense granite cliffs rise above waterfalls, meadows, pine forests, and the winding Merced River. Located in California’s Sierra Nevada, the park protects nearly 1,200 square miles of mountains, valleys, giant sequoia groves, alpine lakes, high-country meadows, and wilderness. …
Jul 18 2024
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve is Alaska wilderness on a scale that can be difficult to comprehend. Spanning more than 13 million acres, it is the largest national park in the United States, protecting an immense landscape of glaciers, active volcanoes, snow-covered mountains, braided rivers, forests, tundra, historic mining communities, and remote backcountry. Located …
Jul 17 2024
Wind Cave National Park protects two remarkably different landscapes within a single corner of South Dakota’s Black Hills. Above ground, bison, elk, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and other wildlife roam through rolling mixed-grass prairie and ponderosa pine forest. Beneath that landscape lies Wind Cave, a vast three-dimensional maze containing more than 167 miles of surveyed passages …
Jul 16 2024
White Sands National Park protects one of the most unusual desert landscapes in the United States: seemingly endless waves of brilliant white gypsum dunes rising from New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin. Surrounded by rugged mountains and deep blue desert sky, the dunes can look more like snowdrifts than sand, particularly when afternoon light softens their curves …
Jul 15 2024
Voyageurs National Park is a landscape where water replaces roads. Spread across more than 218,000 acres of northern Minnesota near the Canadian border, the park protects a vast network of interconnected lakes, rocky islands, boreal and northern hardwood forests, wetlands, ancient cliffs, and quiet backcountry waterways. For much of the year, boats are the primary …
Jul 14 2024
Theodore Roosevelt National Park protects some of the most dramatic badlands scenery in the northern Great Plains, where the Little Missouri River winds through colorful buttes, grasslands, cottonwood bottoms, and deeply eroded ravines. Located in western North Dakota, the park is divided into three separate areas: the South Unit, North Unit, and remote Elkhorn Ranch …
