As the National Park Service’s centennial looms, High Country News takes a trip through the West, to uncover some lesser-known parks, consider the stories they tell, and meet the people behind the scenes.
National parks: Where we go and where we don’t
Much of the Park Service’s land in the West is poorly visited and little-known.
In an era of change, a new chapter for the National Park Service
Two new books offer an invitation to the parks — and an argument for their existence.
How not to forget the West’s past atrocities
The national park system does more than celebrate beauty. It also commemorates the ugliest parts of our past.
Irreverent newspaper writers and easy-peasy science
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
NPS unveiled: Meet the people that make the national parks run
Thousands of individuals in parks from Denali to Petrified Forest do little-known but essential jobs.
On the road between here and there
We love Paonia, Colorado, the small town where High Country News is based, but we couldn’t function without our correspondents and editors, who are scattered all over the West. Our far-flung colleagues adventure through the region’s most unusual and beautiful places, reporting and writing the stories you find in the magazine. A lot of great…
Protecting the Oregon Trail from the development it helped create
Dedicated volunteers fight to preserve one of the trails that brought settlers west.
Secrets of the National Park Service
Readers and staff speak out on surprising favorites.
The parks less traveled
I’ll never forget the misty June morning I caught a glimpse of a gray wolf, loping like a ghost dog through the green of Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley. Or the March afternoon I squeezed through the claustrophobic Joint Trail in Canyonlands, emerging sweaty and exhilarated into a surreal landscape of red and white sandstone hoodoos. The…
The tricky allure of unpeopled places
Longing for solitude on the land, and feeling uneasy.
Tracing America’s Borderlands history along the Anza Trail
Immigrants still follow Juan Bautista de Anza’s historic route.
Whiteness reigns in a new film celebrating national parks
The new film National Parks Adventure aims to inspire its viewers, as producer Shaun MacGillivray puts it, “to get off their couches and get outdoors.” Its destination of choice is our national parks, which are celebrating 100 years of management by the National Park Service in 2016. MacGillivray and his crew used every IMAX 3-D…
The beautiful wilds of national parks
Review of “The National Parks: An American Legacy,” by Ian Shive.
At Valles Caldera, a new national park unit takes shape
A preserve was added to the park system, after an experiment in managing federal lands outside the traditional agencies.
Finding the big quiet in Great Basin National Park
A writer revisits the acoustical landscape of the National Park system.