Western National Parks

Kings Canyon National Park is the quieter half of the Sequoia and Kings Canyon pair, and for a road trip it comes down to two places: Grant Grove,…

Channel Islands National Park is the one California national park you cannot drive into. It protects five islands off the coast of Ventura and Santa Barbara, plus the…

Wind Cave National Park is two parks stacked on top of each other. Underground, a maze of passages holds most of the world’s known boxwork formations. On the…

Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon holds the deepest lake in the United States, a basin of startling blue water sitting inside the collapsed summit of an…

There are four national parks in Colorado: Rocky Mountain, Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde and Black Canyon of the Gunnison. They could hardly be more different. One is…

There are nine national parks in California, more than in any other state. They range from desert basins below sea level to granite valleys, giant sequoia groves, volcanic…

Mesa Verde National Park protects the cliff dwellings that Ancestral Puebloan families built into the canyon walls of southwestern Colorado. The park counts more than 5,000 archaeological sites,…

Great Sand Dunes National Park holds the tallest dunes in North America, piled against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in south-central Colorado. The dunes rise about 750 feet…

Badlands National Park, in southwestern South Dakota, is one of the easiest national parks to fit into a cross-country drive. A 40-mile paved road leaves Interstate 90, threads…

Mount Rainier National Park is built around a single volcano that rises more than 14,000 feet above Puget Sound and carries more glacial ice than any other peak…

Redwood National Park protects some of the tallest trees on Earth, and it sits right on US-101 in far Northern California, between the Oregon border and the town…

Grand Teton National Park is the easiest add-on in the American West. It starts a short drive north of Jackson, Wyoming, its northern edge sits about 10 miles…

Sequoia National Park, in California’s southern Sierra Nevada, protects the largest trees on Earth. Its star is the General Sherman Tree, the biggest single tree by volume anywhere,…

Glacier National Park, in northwest Montana, is built around one road. Going-to-the-Sun Road climbs 50 miles across the Continental Divide, and its short alpine season decides when most…

Olympic National Park is three parks in one: glaciated mountains in the middle, temperate rain forest on the west side and a long stretch of wild Pacific coast.…

Rocky Mountain National Park sits about 66 miles northwest of Denver, close enough for a day trip and big enough to fill a week. The park straddles the…

Yosemite National Park sits in the central Sierra Nevada of California, about four hours by car from San Francisco and roughly six from Los Angeles. It covers close…

Yellowstone National Park is a road trip park at heart. Almost every famous sight, from Old Faithful to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, sits on or just…