Many national parks preserve aspects of the past, and in the case of Fossil Butte National Monument, that past goes back 55 million years ago, a time when the landscape of western Wyoming was very different from the windswept plains we see today.
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.
With the travel season not too far off, you should be planning your national park adventures. If you're looking for a great scenic drive, we offer the following for your consideration.
A few acres here, a dozen over there, perhaps a thousand at a time. Those increments are slowly growing the National Park System, a system that just jumped by more than 4,200 acres in size thanks to The Conservation Fund.
Think twice during your visit to Petrified Forest National Park about walking away with a colorful shard of petrified wood, for that "hot rock" just might bring you a world of hurt.
What did the Colorado Plateau look like 250 million years? That's a question geologists hope to shed some light on via an ambitious project that is pulling rock cores up from as much as 1.5 kilometers down into the plateau's belly.
It's summer, shade is not something you find in abundance at Petrified Forest National Park, and you don't want to head out on a long hike with the mercury peaking above 100 degrees. So where do you go? To the Giant Logs Trail.
Petrified Forest National Park will grow by nearly 4,300 acres later this year thanks to a collaborative effort by two conservation groups, but much more work needs to be done to "complete" the park that protects an incredibly rich array of geological and archaeological resources.