★ Wonders
Grand Teton National Park
Worth making time for
The national park idea was invented in America, and these ten parks are the reason it endures. Each one protects a landscape so singular that no other place on earth can stand in for it. Together they are the canon.
Yellowstone
The world's first national park. Half the planet's geysers erupt here, alongside rainbow hot springs and bison herds that never left.
Yosemite
A glacier carved valley walled in granite. El Capitan and Half Dome rise thousands of feet over waterfalls that run strongest in May and June, and each February the Firefall sets Horsetail Fall glowing orange at sunset.
Grand Canyon
Two billion years of earth history exposed in banded rock a mile deep. Standing on the rim is the closest most people will come to seeing deep time with their own eyes.
Glacier
Jagged peaks and turquoise lakes under glaciers that are vanishing within our lifetimes, crossed by the Going to the Sun Road through prime grizzly country. A see it while you can landscape.
Zion
A canyon so narrow in places that the river is the trail. Sandstone walls tower overhead and glow red at sunset, and the Narrows hike wades straight into the heart of it all.
Grand Teton
Mountains that rise straight off the valley floor with no foothills, mirrored in still lakes below the barns of Mormon Row. It sits right next to Yellowstone, and the two make one classic trip.
Olympic
Rainforest in the morning, Pacific sunset at night, glaciated peaks in between. No other American park packs this much variety inside one boundary.
Denali
North America's tallest mountain makes its own weather, and only about 30 percent of visitors ever see the summit. The 92 mile park road doubles as a wildlife census of grizzlies, wolves, caribou, and moose.
Death Valley
The hottest, driest, and lowest place in North America, and one of its most beautiful. Salt flats below sea level, singing sand dunes, and some of the darkest night skies in the country. Winter is the secret season.
Arches
More than 2,000 natural stone arches in one red rock desert, led by Delicate Arch, one of the most photographed rock formations in America. Sunrise here is the essential hour.
Ten parks, ten landscapes that exist nowhere else. This is the short list that started it all.
