Bushwhacking across landscapes can be dangerous, particularly if the footing is steep and covered with talus -- areas of loose rock. At Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, a Missouri man died when he slipped while crossing a talus slope and fell 70 feet into a shallow arm of Lake Powell.

How often do you cook a turkey dinner on a houseboat? The opportunity arrives this Thanksgiving, when a houseboat rental at Glen Canyon, Lake Mead, or Lake Amistad national recreation areas will also get you a turkey for the big day. Plus, the rental comes at 40 percent off.

A longstanding problem for fisheries in the Upper Colorado River Basin is the competing demands for water. It's needed for irrigation, it's needed to generate power, and it's needed, not surprisingly, to sustain fisheries. With drought a frequent visitor to the states of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, how that huge watershed is cooperatively managed is critical for all these demands.

Canyonlands National Park is one of the most rugged national parks, with a harsh summer sun that bakes the dry, canyon-riddled landscape. But those deep canyons’ steep rocky slopes, which offer ample grasses and shrubs, and an openness that puts predators at a disadvantage, are an optimal environment for bighorn sheep. In fact, Canyonlands’ bighorn population has been so stable that Utah’s wildlife biologists long relied on it for stock to re-establish herds elsewhere in the state.