“A thousand Yellowstone wonders are calling, ‘Look up and down and round about you!’” In an 1885 essay, John Muir waxed rhapsodic about the nation’s first national park, then just 13 years old. Yellowstone’s wonders still were little known except to Native Americans who had been on the land for millennia; East coasters assumed it was a “park” akin to New York City’s Central Park. At its 150th birthday, Yellowstone is an eternity away from that wrongheaded view, and enmeshed in raft of modern-day complexities never envisioned its youth.

Lake Powell hasn't been this low since the early 1980s, and the country's second-largest reservoir is expected to shrink even more before the spring snowmelt begins.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization on Thursday expressed great concern over the fate of World Heritage Sites in Ukraine as Russia continued its military invasion of the country.

They can be as annoying as mosquitoes, buzzing high overhead and encroaching on the national park experience for visitors on the ground. At Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, the sounds of helicopters hauling "flight-seers" can intrude on those watching, and listening to, the eruptions within the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater of Kīlauea volcano or hiking Kīlauea Iki Trail.