On a clear day, you can see the imposing, snow-topped Mount Rainier from Seattle some 50 miles away. But the 14,410-foot white monster of a peak is even more humbling when it stares you in the face along Mather Memorial…
There’s no denying that water is the lifeblood of Olympic National Park, whether it crashes in from the ocean, falls from the sky in sheets of rain, collects in tranquil lakes or tumbles down forest cascades. On our third day…
In the far northwest continental United States, the Pacific Ocean caresses — and sometimes wallops — the shores of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. A vast swath of land on the peninsula is protected wilderness as part of Olympic National Park, which…
With more than 300 glaciers still intact, North Cascades National Park has more glaciers than any other park in the Lower 48 states. But the its magic goes well beyond rugged Cascade Mountain Range scenery. Together with the adjacent Lake…
A major storm with freezing rain scuttled our plans in Glacier National Park for an entire day. The following day, however, we were determined to make up for lost time by getting a very early start. Our plan was to…
Montana’s Glacier National Park sat high on our Project 100 wish list because, with climate change models predicting the disappearance of the glaciers there by as early as 2030, we wanted to see some of these thickened masses of ice…
Thankfully, by the time we were ready to leave Grand Teton National Park, the road north to Yellowstone National Park had reopened from August’s Berry Fire. It didn’t take long to get to Yellowstone’s south entrance, from which we passed…
The eastern two-thirds of the country has some lovely scenery. But it’s not until you get out west that the really stunning scenery comes into view. And I mean hit-over-the-head-with-an-iron-skillet stunning. The scale of the mountains and canyons out west…
On the drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, darkening clouds threatened overhead and furious winds blew our little car around mercilessly. Each time a tractor trailer passed us, it felt like being slapped by an invisible giant’s…
Jewel Cave is even longer than Wind Cave, its perhaps more famous sister located about 35 miles to the west. In fact, it is the third-longest cave after Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and the Sac Actun/Dos Ojos system in Mexico.…