The beginning of winter found me feeling torn between the sleepy comforts of home and the satisfying challenges of rugged wilderness camping. As usual, the mountains won. “I’m headed north on Highway 15 out of Silver City, New Mexico,” I had texted my family. “No service for a few days, until I get back.”

Tracing the route through the forests and skirting lakes that the voyageurs followed in the 1700s provides ample reminder that the natural world provides an important part of the human landscape at Grand Portage and many other historic sites.

There is in the southern Arizona desert a structure known locally as Sivan Vahkih. Nearly four stories tall, it's the remaining focal point of a culture that had figured out centuries ago how to tame this unforgiving landscape.

For those allergic to snow, ice, and sub-freezing temperatures, there is an escape to national parks in the lower half of the United States, parks that offer sweeping panoramas, interesting wildlife, warm and even hot temperatures, and lots to do.

There is in New Mexico a national monument that protects a headland, or bluff, that for centuries has attracted travelers seeking to quench their thirst. But even before that this place was home to an ancient culture that once touched many corners of the Southwest.

What motivates people to hike as far as they can as fast as they can? For many who live near Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the answer can be found on the trails.

Winter, the season with cold, snow, short days and long nights, can be a challenging season to explore the National Park System. Yet it also holds surprises that reveal themselves in shimmering lights darting across the night sky, in tracks of what passed the night before across the snowscape, and in congregations of wildlife.

El Morro and El Malpais national monuments preserve rugged, demanding landscapes that nevertheless attracted travelers, from ancestral Puebloans to early 20th century homesteaders. Today visitors study the signatures at El Morro, or peer into the lava tubes that worm beneath El Morro's surface. But there's also the backcountry of both that attract visitors who look for beauty, solitude, and perhaps a connection with those who came long before.

There soon will be a sensory experience that more visitors to Redwood National and State Parks will be able to have safely, now that a project to build a trail to one of the world’s most magnificent groves of redwoods is well under way.

There is just one road through Petrified Forest National Park, a road that most visitors stick to as they stop at overlooks, maybe hike to Agate House, and check out the Rainbow Forest Museum. But if you're adventurous, the Painted Desert with its backcountry trails holds surprises if you take the time, and have the skills, to explore this wild side of the park, as Barbara Jensen did.

While on assignment for the Traveler, photographer Rebecca Latson visited Redwood National and State Parks in California. She returned from her trip with many photos and the realization that while Redwoods is mostly about the trees, this collaboration of national and state parks also offers prairie and coastal venues, all with enough to do and see for at least three days.

The distinctive silhouettes of the “Three Sisters” are an Albuquerque landmark, low peaks on the high West Mesa. Part of Petroglyph National Monument, this free day use area is jointly managed by National Park Service and the city. Instead of turning left out of the visitor center parking lot to go find ancient rock carvings, I turn right in search of volcanoes.

There are well-known units of the National Park System, and then there are those that are publicity forsaken outposts. But that doesn't make them any lesser. Indeed, they are overlooked jewels. Barbara Jensen, a self-described wanderer, recently found her way to one of those jewels.

My wife and I are staring at a lizard that must be four feet long, holding our breath in astonishment. Light tan in color, this creature is vividly outlined against an overhanging wall of sandstone. Painstakingly chipped out of the rock by some nameless Native American artisan, it has been on display here for at least seven hundred years, or longer than the Giotto frescos in Florence’s Santa Croce church.

As efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay continue, with the help of the National Park Service, there's also an effort underway to see a Chesapeake Bay National Recreation Area added to the park system.

The park’s website tries to warn you off. “Sections of this trail are extremely steep and there is limited flat or level hiking.” As a result, “The route is extremely strenuous and is not recommended for inexperienced hikers.” Many people do not finish the route because they underestimate the challenges; some require rescue.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park is home to the world’s most extensive Permian fossil reef, the four highest points in Texas, various ecosystems, and historic stories of bloodshed and survival all waiting to be explored. From forested mountains and desert dunes, Guadalupe Mountains offer various ways to explore the area through hours of hiking and backpacking trails not for the faint of heart, or via beautiful settings of flora and wildlife within reach of families.

When the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican-American war that was waged over the United States’ annexation of Texas, it contained an agreement that the Rio Grande River defined the international border between the United States and Mexico. However, this treaty also created the Chamizal dispute.

Cuando el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo de 1848 puso fin oficialmente a la guerra mexicano-estadounidense que se libró por la anexión de Texas por parte de los Estados Unidos, contenía un acuerdo de que el río Río Grande definía la frontera internacional entre los Estados Unidos y México. Sin embargo, este tratado también creó la disputa Chamizal.

Big Cypress National Preserve doesn't have the same name attraction as its next door neighbor, and that's not a bad thing. Enter its realm and you might find one of the world's most unique orchids, a forest of "dwarf" trees hundreds of years old, and a wild kingdom of raucous birds and toothy reptiles.