Writing — Page 17

Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana is one of the most dramatic landscapes in North America — alpine meadows, ancient glaciers, turquoise lakes, and wildlife around every bend on the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

California's volcanic spire park with California condors overhead, talus caves, and rock climbing on ancient lava formations moved by the San Andreas Fault.

Nevada's remote national park with 5,000-year-old bristlecone pines, Lehman Caves with 300 shield formations, and Wheeler Peak rising to 13,063 feet.

Exploring Acadia National Park on Maine's Mount Desert Island, where granite summits meet the Atlantic Ocean and the famous carriage roads wind through birch and pine.

Standing among the giant sequoias in Sequoia National Park, California, where the largest trees on Earth by volume redefine your sense of scale and time.

Exploring Yellowstone in October, when the crowds thin and the elk rut fills the valleys with bugling, and the geysers and hot springs feel all the more surreal against the cool autumn air.

Exploring Kings Canyon National Park in California's Sierra Nevada, where one of the deepest canyons in North America meets towering sequoias and pristine granite wilderness.

A trip through North Cascades National Park in Washington, where jagged alpine peaks, the highest concentration of glaciers in the lower 48 states, and jade-green lakes make for some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in North America.

A November drive through Badlands National Park in South Dakota, where sharply eroded spires and layered clay formations rise abruptly from the prairie in a landscape that looks like it belongs on Mars.