George Masa, a slender Japanese man with a big grin who hiked throughout the mountains of western North Carolina and east Tennessee in the 1920s and early 1930s, left behind a remarkable photographic chronicle of the landscape soon to become Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

How many of you have seen images of a fiery ribbon of water cascading over the sheer granite cliff face of El Capitan in February? It’s quite the sight, right? Because of the crowds that gather for this annual event, Yosemite National Park in California will require day-use entrance reservations for the last three weekends of February 2025 to manage the Horsetail Fall event.

Another house has toppled into the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, where staff is monitoring other houses at risk of collapsing into the surf.

The National Park Service taps Kevin Heatley to lead the park.