A veritable layer cake of stunning Colorado Plateau scenery unfolded in front of our eyes as we entered Zion National Park in southern Utah, driving in from the east on Zion-Mount Carmel Highway. The road cut through a layer of…
Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah is nature’s sculpture garden, where hiking paths allow visitors easy access to fancifully shaped geologic wonders. Not a canyon in the usual sense of the word, it’s rather a plateau atop 14 amphitheaters of…
Sometimes the smaller parks few people have heard of provide the most delightful surprises. That was the case with Great Basin National Park, a 77,000-acre park set in a rather desolate-looking desert near the Utah-Nevada border. The Great Basin region…
With 800 miles of trails in Yosemite National Park, the hiking choices seem daunting. Even the relatively small Yosemite Valley area can keep avid hikers on their feet, with trails ranging from short and sweet to long and strenuous. Our…
We made our way from San Francisco through the orchards and foothills to Yosemite National Park. Sixteen years earlier I had backpacked in the Tuolomne Meadows section of the park, but for the first time my destination was the Yosemite…
Some 35 miles north of San Francisco, land and sea meet in a mosaic of biologically rich habitats — ocean, shore, estuary, grassland and upland forest — at Point Reyes National Seashore. This diversity of habitats and the peninsula’s location…
Of the four parks we visited within the Cascade Mountain Range — North Cascades, Mount Rainier, Crater Lake and now Lassen Volcanic — we spent the least amount of time at the one closest to home in Arizona. However, our…
Jointly managed by the National Park Service and the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the four-park Redwood National and State Parks complex protects evergreen forests, oak woodlands, prairies, rivers, and almost 40 miles of Northern California coastline. Of course,…
Where the mighty Columbia River spills out into the Pacific Ocean near Astoria, Oregon, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark made history in mid-November of 1805 when they ended the first half of their historic journey. The expedition had covered…
Despite our excitement about visiting Crater Lake National Park — which many people throughout the year had told us was their favorite park — we somewhat dreaded our arrival there in early October. The forecast had called for rain, snow…