In these dark times (and I don’t mean short winter solstice days), the holidays upon us, I thought some light reading would be good since practically all my reading these days is about our national decline on one front or another. A book about Yellowstone would be the ticket, and recently one had arrived by an author I didn’t know named Rick Lamplugh. I picked it up on Christmas Eve and dove in, looking forward to a respite and to some degree I got it, though I should have read the subtitle more carefully – “A Year’s Immersion in Grandeur and Controversy. This little book is a primer in both qualities of this iconic park.

Among the wildlife that roam the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, there are clear-cut headliners. The restoration of wolves, the endangered status of grizzlies, and the culling of bison never fail to grasp the attention of readers worldwide. Yet so many more species share this vast landscape, and despite calling it home for 7,000 years, where and how they’ve survived has been uncovered only in the past two decades.

There have been many times as I have visited a national park over the years that I have wondered how the landscape has changed. What was it like in a world before walkways, hotels, gift shops and parking lots? How would it have been to visit Yellowstone before it was a wildlife reserve; the Grand Canyon when it was more of an obstacle than a wonder of the world; Yosemite when you had it to yourself?

Stewart Udall served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969, leading advocacy and politics of conservation and environmental protection in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He was, by all accounts, one of the most significant Interior Secretaries in American history, sharing that status with Harold Ickes, Secretary in the FDR administrations. While very different in background, temperament, and style, both men were masterful politicians who saw their role as stewards of American public lands, and we enjoy many legacies of their work today.

In Crown Jewel Wilderness, environmental historian Lauren Danner masterfully tells the story of the decades of political wrangling over the North Cascades. She examines North Cascades history in the context of national debates about what agency should be the primary provider of outdoor recreation – the Forest Service or the National Park Service – what areas should be national park as opposed to national forest, and who should manage wilderness in places like the North Cascades. Conservationists were skeptical that either agency would consider wilderness preservation a priority. The Park Service was, they thought, too focused on developing the national parks for mass recreation, and the Forest Service was pursuing a multiple use policy focused especially, in the North Cascade region, on logging.

In a large format (10” X 11”), this book combines a photo essay by Peter Goin with three essays by Peter Federici to explore Glen Canyon in the time of climate change. How can that be, you may ask? Is Glen Canyon not submerged under Lake Powell? As Goin and Federici show us, the answer is yes and no.

Stephen Nash wraps up this hard-hitting overview of America’s public lands with the observation that “if we want that waning legacy to endure, we’re going to have to fight hard for it.” As I pondered Nash’s troubling portrayal of public lands I happened to pick up the latest issue of The George Wright Forum, a journal focusing on parks and protected areas, and read a piece by Rolf Diamant in which he quotes historian Dwight Pitcaithley who has written that “the National Park System today is vastly different from the one envisioned and managed by Stephen T. Mather and Horace Albright….The complexity of issues confronted by park and program managers today could not have been envisioned by the first generation of Park Service administrators.” After reading Grand Canyon for Sale I thought, “Pitcaithley is so right!”

Books such as the one David Brill has written are reminders that national park landscapes can be as deadly as they are beautiful.

The Colorado River rolls and tumbles more than 1,400 miles, and drains around 8 percent of the United States; an area of around 244,000 square miles.

While many consider Yellowstone National Park as iconic for its nature, 30 years’ experience of this “wonderlandscape” has led John Clayton to conclude that “Ultimately Yellowstone was [is] a cultural place.” How is this so? While not denying the significance of the natural wonders and beauty of the park, Clayton makes the case that over its 145-year history Yellowstone has achieved status greater than other national parks “by the accumulation of our experiences and values and social interactions – by our culture.”

It has been more than two decades since the wolf recovery operation was launched in Yellowstone National Park, and interest in the predators has not ebbed at all. Park visitors continue to congregate in the predawn and pre-sunset hours in the Lamar Valley on the northern end of Yellowstone. Magazine features and books are still being written about the ongoing fate of the wolves.

When the Yosemite Search and Rescue men and women head out, they might be plucking a hiker from icy waters, evacuating a climber from a sheer cliff, or recovering the body of someone who wasn’t even that lucky.

Springer Mountain, Katahdin, the Presidential Range, and the White Mountains are all iconic, all dramatic, in their own geologic and cultural heft, each with their own stories. And then there’s Grandfather Mountain.