Faunal life from 5 million years ago, or older, will come to life Saturday when a paleontologist reveals what she has learned from fossils excavated from Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska.

Pecos National Historical Park in New Mexico is rich in history and stories, from its Spanish mission to the surrounding pueblos, kivas, and Indigenous culture.

My son and I are one percenters – a label unrelated to our income level. We belong to the privileged one percent of the six million annual visitors to Grand Canyon National Park who walk from the rim to the canyon floor.

Woolly stands resolutely in a tiny waterfront park near a pizzeria and historic steel bridge in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, posing for endless photos and subtly trying to encourage people to hike the Ice Age National Scenic Trail a few miles in one direction to the eastern terminus or almost 1,200 miles in the other direction to the western terminus on the Minnesota border.

There are, across the National Park System, dozens and dozens of jewels that don't attract crowds while offering you gorgeous landscapes, deep history, and rich experiences. Here's a look at some of those places that the National Parks Traveler wrote about this year.

In northern Minnesota, tucked up against the Canadian border, thousands of furry engineers are at work.

Thirty-one species of cacti live in the starkly beautiful Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in the Sonoran Desert, along with bighorn sheep, pronghorns, javelinas, kangaroo rats, rare pupfish and all kinds of reptiles and birds. But the green desert is also home to a 30-mile stretch of America’s steel border wall and warning signs had this traveler anxious that “smuggling and illegal immigration may be encountered in this area.”

Each cactus had more personality than the last as we road tripped through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona and admired all the organ pipes, saguaros and senitas. But it was a singular cactus with a striking deformity that stood out.

Author and professor John Elder envisioned the ideals for Vermont’s only national park at the opening of the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in 1998, calling it "...an entirely new kind of park. It must be one where the human stories and the natural history are intertwined..."

Winter's vagaries -- blizzards and periods without snow, sub-zero thermometer readings, and unseasonably warm temps -- can toss you curveballs when it comes to enjoying the season in the National Park System, but if you plan carefully you can be prepared with alternatives.

We had left sunset behind us in the New Mexico village of Cuba and headed up into the Santa Fe National Forest when the cat crossed our path. The splash of the pickup's headlights briefly illuminated the long and sinuous body, with a tail to match, before the mountain lion vanished into the ponderosa pine forest.

Arches National Park in Utah is the undisputed champion of its namesake formations. But another, less celebrated, national park site across the country has one of the highest concentrations of arches in the eastern United States.

Thinking about a trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park? You should. If you’ve never visited this national park in California, you might wonder what you can do once you arrive. Maybe you only have a few days to spend – like three days? What can you see and do during that amount of time? Plenty!

It's not exactly the place where Hell bubbled up, but the steam wafting from the crusty white soil was a reminder that the volcano that created Valles Caldera 1.25 million years ago is not extinct, but rather in a deep, deep sleep.

The more you know, the more you care, the better you can do. It’s a naïve thought, but it’s what I choose to believe, especially in my capacity as Great Smoky Mountains Association’s 2022 Steve Kemp Writer in Residence.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park can be an explosion of rich sensations—wildflowers bursting into colorful bloom; creeks, streams, and waterfalls alternating between quiet serenades and crashing cymbals—and all perfect inspirations for haiku.

Wood Buffalo National Park is Canada's largest national park at 44,807 square kilometres, straddling the border of the Northwest Territories and Alberta. It’s smaller than the U.S.’s largest park, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, but bigger than Switzerland. The park is the world’s largest Dark Sky Preserve and it has a beaver dam so large it’s visible from space.

James Cook envisioned a bride in 1886 when he asked Kate Graham to marry him, but he also came into a ranch that carried a window more than 20 million years into the past that stunned the scientific world.

Dark, heavy skies threaten to unleash a torrent. Undaunted, the single-engine’s propellor rumbles defiantly and roars to life, promising adventure as my float plane taxis upriver from tiny King Salmon, Alaska, headed for the mysterious Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes at Katmai National Park and Preserve.

On an island surrounded by ocean, Cape Breton Highlands National Park is an island itself, of rumpled mountains and thick forest mostly unbroken by the human footprint.