What comes to mind when you hear the words “base camp?” Tents beneath Mount Everest, perhaps? How about something a little closer to home, bordering the incredible turquoise-hued water of Diablo Lake in Ross Lake National Recreation Area, beneath the mountains of the North Cascades? Photographer Rebecca Latson spent a couple of nights at the North Cascades Institute Environmental Learning Center's "Base Camp" and writes about her experience.

With the arrival of summer, the national parks begin to fill with RVs, minivans, SUVs, and tour buses. Fifty years ago, Americans in their wood-paneled station wagons might linger in a national park for a week or two, but today many visitors try to tag as many parks as possible on their too-short vacations. Except at Isle Royale, that is.

I've long been a paddler, but primarily of canoes and occasionally rafts. While I have a few times gotten into a sea kayak and paddled away from shore, I never fully embraced the sport. Until now. Having placed an order for a sea kayak worthy of big lakes and ocean waters, while awaiting delivery I naturally turned my attention to where in the National Park System this new hobby would fit. And the results were fairly breathtaking in the parkscapes they entailed.

Whether you’re traveling by car or by jeep, the approaches to Utah’s Canyonlands National Park rank among the most scenic in the West. Following Utah Highway 211 down Indian Creek Canyon into the Needles District, or jouncing along a rugged backcountry route into the park’s western side, you’re witness to geologic processes acting on a vast scale. There’s another entrance to Canyonlands, though, which runs at river level, and this is the one my wife and I like best. This spring Bessann and I steered our canoe down the Green River into the northern end of the park, heading for its confluence with the Colorado River 50 miles downstream. It was a slower approach, one which let us savor the sights and sounds along one of the Southwest’s great desert waterways.