Mesa Verde is unique in the national park system, the only national park created specifically to preserve archaeological values.

The first time Camilla saw a caterpillar, she mistook the creature for a more fantastical apparition: a dragon wearing sunglasses.

One of the world’s most magnificent forests, the California Redwood belt was a two-million-acre ecosystem containing many of the world’s largest and tallest trees.

The climate crisis receives much coverage these days, mostly focused on extreme weather, sea level rise, and dislocation of people by climate-related stresses like drought and wildfire. Declining polar ice and its impact on polar bears gets some coverage, bringing the Arctic into the story, but few of us understand the scope of the impact climate change is having above the Arctic Circle or why we should be concerned about what is happening up there.

Dead pool on the Colorado River is defined as the level of Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam when the lowest tunnels on the dam allowing water to be released into the Grand Canyon would be above the reservoir level and part of the reservoir would remain, a stagnant pool.

In the late 1970s, wolf biologist Diane K. Boyd tracked a lone female wolf named Kishinena in country around the North Fork of the Flathead River in Montana. As Doug Chadwick writes in his Foreward to this book, most people think wolves were first introduced in the mid-1990s in Yellowstone National Park, but by that time Diane and her colleagues had been studying them on the North Fork country, in Glacier National Park and surroundings, for well over a decade.

The National Trail System in the United States spans many thousands of miles of foot trail. The crown jewels of that system, of course, are the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail.

A Walk in the Park is a marvelous adventure story well told, but also a serious treatment of many issues facing Grand Canyon and other national parks.

In addition to photography, contributing photographer Rebecca Latson enjoys cooking and history. Amy Bizzari’s “The Civilian Conservation Corps Cookbook” allowed her to engage in all three activities and write about it for the Traveler.

In the more than 150 years of national park history in the United States, a short four-year chapter hardly seems significant, and it surely would have vanished into obscurity were it not for one man's determination not to let it fade away.

The latest edition of a book that explores the history of rangers in the land-management agency illustrates problems with law enforcement in the National Park Service, but comes across as one-sided and with an axe to grind.

The Bears Ears in southeastern Utah are iconic landforms that have leapt to the American consciousness in an epic battle over how public lands should be used.

David Brill is one of the Smokies’ great living storytellers. He is a writer in the outdoor–adventure field, but his work doesn’t shy away from the contemplative, the quiet moments when wild places arouse in us feelings of solitude, solace, communion, and awe.

Cracked takes on the big and complex issue of dams, their impact on rivers worldwide, the weakening rationales for maintaining dams already built or for building more, and how people are working with some success to “crack” these monolithic structures.

You can never have enough guides to the national parks.