Winter isn’t the best season to be outdoors in the East, but what better season to truly appreciate what the Colonials endured 240 years ago?

Winter wonderlands come in many shapes, forms, and temperatures in the National Park System. They can be pine forests shrouded in snow, or turquoise waters swimming with green parrotfish, blue tangs, and silvery barracudas. You can climb ice walls at Acadia National Park, kick-and-glide or skate to an overlook of Half Dome and the Yosemite Valley, or find your way to the 13,159-foot summit of Wheeler Peak atop Great Basin National Park.

Eighteen acres of meadow will be burned at Valley Forge National Historical Park in the coming weeks as officials see if fire can successfully be used to combat invasive plant species.

Dogwood. Black Gum. Sassafras. These are just some of the native species seedlings that have been spotted in the forests of Valley Forge National Historical Park, where a significant reduction in the white-tailed deer herds has allowed these trees to recover from overbrowsing.