National Parks

Colorado Once Lost Pikes Peak to Texas in a Bet

A friendly wager raised the stakes to a whole new elevation.

Denali, Ongtupqa, and Other Native American Names for Landmarks

Mount McKinley was recently renamed Denali, but it's not the only one with a Native American name

The Grand Canyon is Full of Mercury

Researchers find high levels of mercury and selenium in plants and animals along the Colorado River

Red Rocks Park, Jefferson County, Colorado.

The Parks Service Just Added Four New National Historic Landmarks

Masonic memorials, bison jumps and parks

Why Do Hundreds of Macaws Gather at These Peruvian Clay Banks?

Brightly colored parrots of the western Amazon basin display a behavior not seen anywhere else

How Did Nobody Notice Five Million Pounds of Rock Fall Off Half Dome?

The park is always changing, but this time nobody realized it

Conservationists Want You to Stop Building Rock Piles

Cairns have a long history and purpose, one that newer stacks sometimes subvert

Obama Just Established Three New National Monuments Covering Over a Million Acres

Art, fossils and natural beauty

Here’s Why Scientists Want to Flood the Grand Canyon

Without sediment flowing through the canyon, it loses sandbars vital to the river ecosystem

A screenshot of Lynn Hill climbing El Capitan in Street View.

Scale El Capitan From Your Couch Using Google Street View

The latest expansion of the Maps project takes users up Yosemite’s iconic climb

Some parks, like Assateague National Seashore, have already come up with plans to deal with the effects of climate change and how their visitation rates could shift in response.

How Will Climate Change Affect National Park Attendance?

A new analysis of the effect of global warming on tourism has things heating up in some areas, staying lukewarm in others

The dusty white rock of the Las Vegas Formation, near the edge of Tule Springs National Monument, bakes in the midday heat.

Discover a Fossil Jackpot Off the Las Vegas Strip

Remains of mammoths, camels and other beasts of the Ice Age tempt visitors out of Sin City and into Tule Springs National Monument

The cemetery at St. Philomena’s church in Kalaupapa

Should a Colony Where Leprosy Patients Were Once Exiled Become a Tourist Destination?

The discussion gets sticky with concerns over how to respect the largely Native Hawaiian residents past and present

Just a mile down one of the park’s most popular and accessible trails, hikers reap views of Dream Lake.

When Colorado Was (And in Many Ways Still Is) the Switzerland of America

A hundred years ago, city slickers looking for wild times in Rocky Mountain National Park invented a new kind of American vacation

How Feral Donkeys Saved a Lost Hiker’s Life in Death Valley

But not everyone loves shaggy wild donkeys

The Wonderland Club Hotel in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Abandoned Settlements Inside National Parks

Once vibrant places, these relics now linger inside America's great natural treasures

The Great Kobuk Sand Dunes with the shadows of the Arctic midnight sunset, Kobuk Valley National Park.

Welcome to the Tundra: Kobuk Valley, One of America's Least-Visited National Parks

Dramatic weather and impassable terrain shouldn’t stop you from visiting this park

Should People Be Allowed to Boat Through Yellowstone?

Conservationists and recreational paddlers are split on whether to open up remaining National Parks waterways to boaters

A herd of domesticated beefalo in Montana. After interbreeding, free-ranging beefalos currently causing problems in the Grand Canyon appear both physically and genetically close to native bison.

A Beefalo Invasion Is Causing Trouble in the Grand Canyon

Hundreds of the hybrid animals are drying up water resources and messing with the ecosystem, eliciting calls for culling

Animal furs on display at Grand Portage National Monument

The 18th Century Fur Trade Polluted Lake Superior's Shore With Mercury That's Never Gone Away

The area’s elevated mercury levels aren’t healthy for fish, birds or humans

Page 15 of 18