National Parks

Granite peaks meet the Atlantic on Mount Desert Island; sunrise hits Cadillac Mountain first in the US.

Over 2,000 natural sandstone arches sculpted by salt-driven uplift and erosion.

Eroded buttes and one of the richest Oligocene mammal fossil beds on Earth.

Chihuahuan Desert, Chisos Mountains, and a deep Rio Grande river bend at the Mexican border.

Ninety-five percent underwater: mangroves, coral reefs, and shipwrecks south of Miami.

A narrow, 2,000-foot-deep gorge carved into Precambrian schist by the Gunnison River.

Densest concentration of hoodoos on Earth, ringing natural amphitheaters at 8,000 feet.

Mesas, buttes, and canyons carved by the Colorado and Green Rivers into four backcountry districts.

The Waterpocket Fold: a 100-mile warp in the Earth's crust exposing colorful rock layers.

Massive limestone caves dissolved by sulfuric acid; nightly summer exodus of Mexican free-tailed bats.

Five isolated islands with 145 endemic species; the "Galapagos of North America."

Largest intact old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern US.

Deepest lake in the US, 1,943 feet deep, filling the caldera of collapsed Mount Mazama.

Reclaimed river valley between Cleveland and Akron with waterfalls and a historic canal towpath.

Hottest, driest, lowest point in North America: Badwater Basin sits 282 feet below sea level.

Home to Denali, the tallest peak in North America at 20,310 feet, and a complete subarctic ecosystem.

Seven remote reef islands 70 miles west of Key West, anchored by 19th-century Fort Jefferson.

The only place on Earth where American alligators and crocodiles coexist; a 60-mile-wide slow river of grass.

Entirely above the Arctic Circle, no roads, no trails; the second-largest US national park.

Eero Saarinen's 630-foot stainless steel arch commemorates westward expansion from St. Louis.

Tidewater glaciers calve into a bay that was solid ice just 250 years ago; a textbook in glacial retreat.

Carved by Pleistocene ice sheets; the Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass.

A mile-deep, 277-mile-long cross-section of two billion years of Earth history carved by the Colorado River.

The youngest range in the Rockies, rising abruptly without foothills to 13,775-foot Grand Teton.

Bristlecone pines over 4,900 years old grow on Wheeler Peak; some of the darkest night skies in the US.

Tallest dunes in North America (up to 750 feet) trapped against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Most biodiverse park in the system; over 19,000 documented species, including synchronous fireflies.

A fossilized Permian reef now lifted into desert peaks; Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas.

A 10,023-foot dormant shield volcano on Maui with a Mars-like summit crater and rare silversword plants.

Two active volcanoes — Kīlauea and Mauna Loa — where new land is being made in real time.

Forty-seven thermal springs feeding historic bathhouses; the only national park in a downtown.

Fifteen miles of Lake Michigan shoreline with dunes that inspired the science of plant succession.

A remote Lake Superior island with the longest-running predator-prey study (wolves and moose) on record.

Where the Mojave and Colorado Deserts meet; Joshua trees thrive only in this elevation band.

Brown bears fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls and the ash-filled Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.

The 700-square-mile Harding Icefield feeds nearly 40 glaciers spilling into the Gulf of Alaska.

Some of the deepest canyons in North America and groves of giant sequoias including the General Grant Tree.

Arctic sand dunes and the twice-yearly migration of half a million caribou across the Kobuk River.

Two active volcanoes, salmon-rich Lake Clark, and coastal brown bears; reachable only by small plane.

All four types of volcano (shield, composite, cinder cone, plug dome) within one park.

Longest known cave system on Earth, with over 420 mapped miles of passages.

Best-preserved cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans, including the 150-room Cliff Palace.

An active stratovolcano carrying 25 major glaciers — the most of any peak in the contiguous US.

The only US national park south of the equator; protects paleotropical rainforest and coral reefs.

One of the oldest rivers in the world cuts a thousand-foot Appalachian gorge famous for whitewater.

More than 300 glaciers — the most in the lower 48 — across jagged "American Alps" peaks.

Three distinct ecosystems in one park: glaciated peaks, temperate rainforest, and 70 miles of coastline.

Late Triassic fossil logs turned to multicolored quartz, plus a 200-million-year-old riparian ecosystem.

Remnants of an ancient volcano split and dragged 200 miles north by the San Andreas Fault.

Tallest trees on Earth, including the 380-foot Hyperion coast redwood.

Sixty peaks over 12,000 feet and the highest paved through-road in any US national park.

Iconic forests of saguaro cactus — some 200 years old and 50 feet tall — flanking Tucson.

Home to General Sherman, the largest tree on Earth by volume, and Mount Whitney, tallest in the lower 48.

A 105-mile spine of Blue Ridge Mountains traversed by Skyline Drive with 75 overlooks.

Painted badlands and bison herds in the country where Roosevelt ranched and forged his conservation ethic.

Covers 60% of St. John, protecting Caribbean beaches, coral reefs, and pre-Columbian petroglyphs.

A water-based park on the Canadian border, traversed by the fur-trade canoe routes of the voyageurs.

Largest gypsum dunefield on Earth, 275 square miles of brilliant white sand in the Tularosa Basin.

One of the longest, densest cave systems in the world, famous for delicate boxwork formations.

Largest US national park — bigger than Switzerland — with nine of the 16 tallest US peaks.

World's first national park, sitting atop an active supervolcano with half the planet's geysers.

Glacier-polished granite walls — El Capitan and Half Dome — and some of the tallest waterfalls in the world.

A 2,000-foot Navajo Sandstone canyon carved by the Virgin River; The Narrows is hiked in the river itself.