To have a palette as dazzling as Bryce Canyon National Park in your backyard is tough to beat. Marion Littlefield gets to see the park in so many moods and seasons, and fortunately most of the time he has his camera with him.

This recent shot of Natural Bridge shows that the park is having a pretty good winter, snow-wise.

Visit Death Valley Ranch, home of Scotty's Castle, in Death Valley National Park and your eye can't help but be drawn to Chimes Tower. When construction got under way in November 1928, Albert Johnson already had purchased a 16-tone carillon chime to be installed in the tower.

According to National Park Service records, in April 1930 Johnson purchased nine additional tones and an automatic roll player for the tower. The first set of chimes was installed that year, and a second set was installed in 1946.

With talk swirling that President-elect Obama might be thinking of a 21st century Civilian Conservation Corps, it seems only fitting that we take a look back at the original CCC.

Capitol Reef National Park is best-known for its riveting geology, not its resident wildlife. And yet, if you spend enough time in the park and happen to be in the right place at the right time....

They might not have a white Christmas on the floor of Death Valley, but that doesn't mean they don't celebrate the holidays there!

This wreath is gracing one of the original borax ore wagons that's on display in front of the Furnace Creek Ranch.

If you do find yourself in Furnace Creek for the year-end holidays and need a snow fix, you can gander up at Telescope Peak, which at 11,043 feet tends to collect quite a bit of snow in winter.

Though a bucolic setting these days, in 1777 the Neilson Farmhouse in New York played a role in a major Revolutionary Army victory over British forces. This one-room farmhouse served as a mid-level headquarters building for the American army during the Battles of Saratoga.

Pictured is a row of 100-pound Parrot Rifles within the First Tier Casemates of Fort Sumter National Monument's Right Face. A total of 11 of these cannon were found during excavations by National Park Service archaeologists in 1959, and were unveiled during the Centennial Celebration of the first battle of the fort on April 12, 1961.

Protection for emigrants along the Oregon Trail was the motivation for the U.S. government to establish Fort Laramie near the eastern edge of the Wyoming Territory in 1849. The fort was jump-started with the purchase of buildings from the American Fur Company, which had maintained a trading post along the banks of the Laramie River.

According to the National Park Service:

To really appreciate how the "Needles" District of Canyonlands National Park got its name, you've got to go there and look around. This photo helps, but it's not like being there.

Walking about these towering, multi-colored spires must be what it would be like to walk about the landscape of a foreign planet. And now, while the days are growing short, the temperatures in Canyonlands are perfect for just this sort of "walk about."

Is it North Cascades National Park....or Glacier National Park? This scene could, of course, be seen in either, but this particular one is of mountain goats on Easy Pass in North Cascades National Park. Unfortunately, the National Park Service didn't attach the photographer's name to this photo.