Gold in them thar hills: Aspen season in the Rockies
October 23, 2024 In all my visits to Colorado and Rocky Mountain National Park over the years, I’d never seen aspens turning gold or elk bugling. Now I have, thanks to a late September trip. Twice we drove from Denver into the mountains to hike trails under shivering golden leaves ...
Wild creatures and smoke-shrouded scenery at Glacier National Park
August 31, 2023 We arrived at Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana in mid-May. It was our northernmost destination on our 5-week RV road trip across the West. As we drove north from Yellowstone, the sky grew bleary with haze and then gray with smoke from Canadian wildfires. Road signs ...
Majestic mountains, wildlife, and Mormon Row at Grand Teton
August 24, 2023 During our RV road trip across the West, we visited Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming, a majestic place where blue, snow-streaked mountains rake the sky above a scenic valley. The Teton Range was formed along a fault line, where, 10 million years ago, colliding tectonic ...
Moose, goose, grizzlies, and more Yellowstone wildlife, part 3
August 17, 2023 Yellowstone National Park was my favorite of all the parks we visited during our spring RV trip through the West. Why? Because the wildlife-watching there is epic! That’s my favorite thing to do, far more than hiking, which I’m always a little nervous about in grizzly country ...
Bison kick up their heels at Yellowstone, part 2
August 15, 2023 Yellowstone is the only place in the United States where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times, the national park service tells us. And in that time, bison have really learned how to play — apparently right from birth! Calves just wanna have fun We were in ...
Grizzlies and geysers at Yellowstone, part 1
August 13, 2023 As we drove toward the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park, I twisted my telephoto lens onto my Nikon and held the camera in my lap. Twenty-three years earlier, on a late afternoon drive in Yellowstone, we’d seen a grizzly sow and twin cubs dash across the ...
Bison, wild horses roam at Theodore Roosevelt National Park
August 11, 2023 After seeing Badlands in South Dakota, we drove north to see the badlands of western North Dakota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Named after the 26th U.S. president, the park memorializes Roosevelt’s love for the region, where he ranched during the late 1800s, and its role in ...
A good day in Badlands National Park
August 09, 2023 The Badlands. The Bruce Springsteen song pulses through my brain. We headed into Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota in early May during our RV road trip through the West. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the desolate beauty of the place appealed to me ...
Back to Devils Tower
August 03, 2023 We reached northeastern Wyoming and Devils Tower National Monument in early May on our RV road trip through national parks. I’d had a “close encounter” with the stone monolith back in 2018, but my husband had never seen it. As we approached, it looked picture perfect, with ...
Wall of bones at Dinosaur National Monument
August 01, 2023 It may not be Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, but Dinosaur National Monument does have a lot of Jurassic-era dinosaurs. Dinosaur fossils, that is. The fossils jut from a slanted wall of rock, protected inside a climate-controlled exhibit hall at this remote park in northwest Colorado that stretches into ...
Windows to the sky at Arches National Park
July 24, 2023 North Window Arch In early May, during our national-parks RV trip, we spent a day exploring Arches National Park in eastern Utah. The place is a wonderland of hole-punched, fin-like, and soaring rock formations, including more than 2,000 documented stone arches. Located near Moab, with its hotels, ...
Hiking and off-roading at the Needles in Canyonlands
July 17, 2023 Canyonlands National Park spreads across 337,598 acres in southeastern Utah, divided into 3 districts by the Green and Colorado rivers: Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze. In early May, after exploring popular Island in the Sky, we drove to the Needles on another day ...
Canyonlands: Purple canyons and cliff-clinging Shafer Trail
July 12, 2023 Terracotta sand and rock stubbled with green. Terraced buttes of mauve and lavender. Blue mountains with snowy, sawtoothed peaks. A vast sky and stomach-dropping abyss. Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah offers awe-inspiring western vistas, beauty, and adventure and was my favorite among the Utah parks we ...
Capitol Reef National Park petroglyphs, orchards, and pie
July 06, 2023 At Capitol Reef National Park in south-central Utah, ancient layers of stone stand exposed in a red-rock desert. Formed into turrets, reefs, and domes by geologic uplift and then the slow erosion of water over millennia, the park’s layered rock tells the history of the Earth to ...
Scenery for a million miles at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
July 02, 2023 Is 1.8 million acres big enough for you? That’s the size of sprawling Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, one of our stops on our spring RV trip out west. Utah felt like one big park to us — it contains 5 national parks plus 8 ...
Waterfalls, wildlife, and wonder at Zion National Park
June 21, 2023 Utah and its wealth of national parks drew us west on our 5-week RV trip this spring. Zion National Park in southwestern Utah sparkles as one of its crown jewels. For anyone wishing to beat the heat in canyon country, April is prime visiting season. We arrived ...
