One of the most accessible units of the National Park System has to be Montezuma Castle National Monument, which protects a 1,000-year-old cliff dwelling less than 10 minutes off Interstate 17 in Arizona.
If you're planning on visiting Saguaro National Park in southern Arizona, be sure to bring a reusable water bottle, as the park has banned the sale of disposable bottles of water and soda.
The budget proposal presented by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan is called The Path To Prosperity, but along the way to prosperity it could decimate many communities that have economic interests vested in national parks, according to an Office of Management and Budget analysis.
Late last year, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, asked the National Park Service to conduct a Reconnaissance Survey to see if certain areas in West Virginia "were suitable to become a new unit in the National Park System." Senator Manchin has now asked the NPS to end the survey and has withdrawn his support for "including these lands in the National Park System." Are prospects for this new NPS area dead?
History, both protecting vestiges of it and interpreting it, is one of the central missions of the National Park Service. But a new report says the agency is largely failing that mission, both from a lack of investment as well as from an approach to telling history almost with blinders on, and that history in the parks is considered to be "endangered."
In his first app for the iPad, national parks photographer Ian Shive explores how he captures the best expressions of the American wilderness and leaves you with some helpful tips that can help you hone your photographic skills.