Our favorite travel stories from national parks of the west
Yellowstone was the first (1872), Wrangell-St. Elias is the biggest (13.2 million acres) and Death Valley is the hottest (up to 134 degrees). We’re talking about national parks, of course. Here are tips, tales and pictures from western parks we’ve checked out recently.
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A handwritten sign in the Bear Valley Visitor Center didn’t offer much hope for a colorful sunset: “99% chance of fog tonight,” it advised, followed by the postscript: “This is likely an underestimation.”
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The bald eagle was soaring on an air current above frosty Lake Crescent, its wings spread wide, white head and electric-yellow beak tilted slightly down.
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Like many great love affairs, mine began in childhood.
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Walk in the footsteps of Billy the Kid and Apollo astronauts at this national monument in New Mexico
As you drive through this crossroads of the Southwest, it’s difficult not to notice the sawtooth-ridged mountains bracketing the city to the east.
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Most days, in most ways, this park’s Upper Geyser Basin is a geothermal outlaw biker beach party — belching and splashing at all hours, with a sulfuric whiff of menace riding the breeze.
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The California border was just behind us, and Times photographer Mark Boster and I were roaring up a rain-soaked Oregon highway past fog-shrouded forests and green-stubbled boulders.
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They were just a couple of greenhorns from Pittsburgh, but the Kolb brothers knew the greatest photo op in the West when they saw it.
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It took me several trips here to realize this, but if you know where to look and time it right, Death Valley is one giggle after another.
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Half Dome in Yosemite National Park is a California icon, and there’s more than one way to look at it — from the unrounded side, for example.
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It was the first full day of my redwood country road trip, about 180 miles north of San Francisco.
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The moment had arrived.
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I wasn’t thinking about condors as I drove through the dusty foothills of Central California approaching Pinnacles National Park.
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In the Alaska of my mind, it is always summer.
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It’s a 90-minute drive from Durango, Colo., to Mesa Verde National Park.
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The four main islands of Channel Islands National Park are as close as 13 miles off Ventura County’s coast, yet neither my husband, Michael, nor I had been there.
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Joshua Tree and environs offer camping, hiking, unusual sites (the famed Integratron), hotels, restaurants, watering holes and spas, where you can take a well-deserved soak.
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To make the most of the sights and trails at Utah’s Arches National Park, head there in the spring, fall and winter months.
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There is just one paved road in Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah.
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After watching dawn break from the lip of the Hawaiian volcano, a brave writer joins other bicycle adventurers for a 27-mile whoosh down to the sea, hairpin turns, singing spokes and all.
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Shaped by millenniums of wind and water, this vast geological museum, 3,000 square miles of wildly varied topography, rivals the wonders of the Grand Canyon.
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Situated between Interstates 15 and 40, the preserve boasts solitude, Joshua tree forests, snow-dusted peaks and desert horizons, and it may be our best-kept secret.
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Finding a great campsite can be a challenge. Hint: Drive beyond the giant tree.
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Alcatraz Island, Calif. — EACH day at sundown, when the last tour boat departs this desolate, wind-swept outpost, one lonesome soul is left behind.
