With so much water running through national parks, it seems the perfect setting to connect today's youth to the out-of-doors. And that's the mission of this year's Paddle Nation Grants.

It took more than two decades, but a rugged, remote, and intriguing area of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona is now open to backcountry travelers.

Run, river, run. That was the sentiment in the fall of 2011 when work began on the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. Taking down the 105-foot-high Elwha Dam and its sibling, the 210-foot-high Glines Canyon Dam, was history in the making. With the Elwha River’s headwaters high in Olympic National Park, it was more than just the removal of concrete.

Gold is an alluring color, whether woven into the feathers of a Scarlet macaw winging through Maya Mountains rainforest or mixed in the gravels of streams that thread beneath the understory of Chiquibul National Park in the Belizean highlands.