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Special Issue
Special Issue
America's National Parks

They are the sacred birthright of all Americans. Since the establishment of Yellowstone in 1872, these national treasures have been preserving the special corners of our land—places of wonder, exhilaration, and peace.

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Related Features: America's Parks & Protected Places
Yosemite Free Solo
Yosemite's Superclimbers
They’re hanging on by a fingertip—without a rope.
Stone Tablet
America's Lost City
Cahokia was born with a bang and died of unknown causes.
Native Lands
Reviving Native Lands
U.S. tribes strive to undo years of environmental abuse.
Lone Redwood
Redwoods: The Super Trees
Explorer Mike Fay took an 1,800-mile hike through the redwood forest, seeking its salvation.
Yellowstone Thermal Blast
Will Yellowstone Blow Again?
Its volcano last erupted 640,000 years ago. The future is anyone's guess.
Washington
Backyard Arctic
Nightmarish winter weather turns New England's Mount Washington into the killer next door.
Ozark Trail
High in the Ozarks
An uncrowded trail traverses the Arkansas highlands.
Napali Cliffs
Nā Pali Coast
Golden beaches and soaring cliffs make this rugged edge of Hawaii a paradise on Earth. But tourists and trash take a toll.
Death Valley
Death Valley
In America's hottest and lowest place, dust can turn day into twilight, and rocks move unseen across the desert.
Snowy Mountains
Crown of the Continent
By 2030, Glacier National Park may have lost all its glaciers.
Tongass Logging
Tongass National Forest
Lumber mills still harvest old-growth trees in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
Prairie Wildflower
Splendor of the Grass
In the Flint Hills of Kansas, the nation's last great expanse of tallgrass prairie anchors a world renewed by fire.
Canyons
Canyonlands
In the vast expanse of corrugated rock that spreads across the American Southwest, time is measured in millennia.
Big Bend Waterfall
Big Bend
Straddling Texas and Mexico, the Big Bend region is high in biodiversity and low in footprints.
Glen Canyon Arizona
National Parks
Today there are almost 400 units in the parks system, and nearly 300 million Americans alive to enjoy them.
Skeleton Desert
Life in the Desert
One of North America's hottest deserts, the Sonoran is 100,000 square miles of plants, animals, and landscapes.
Blue Mist
Smoky Mountain
The quiet splendor and patchwork history of the popular national park offers lessons.
Cathedral Desert
Glen Canyon Revealed
A sustained drought has shriveled Lake Powell in the Southwest to expose a wonderland.
Sun Field
California's Wild Crusade
Can America's most populous state save room for the endemic plants and animals?
Grand Canyon Lightning
The Grandest Canyon
It's the most iconic of American landscapes, yet the Grand Canyon still has the power to surprise.
Forest Trees
Acadia National Park
From rusticators to Rockefellers, the people who created this Maine park are as colorful as its fall foliage.
Eel Algae
Hawaii's Outer Kingdom
Wildlife as beautiful as art splashes across the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Bryce Canyon
Wide Wild West
Time carves stone into spires on the Colorado Plateau, spread across four states, where wind, water, and weird rule.