#anza-borrego-desert

#anza-borrego-desert

The Million Dollar Highway is a narrow, two-lane road that runs above a deep gorge, with sheer rock walls on one side and an unguarded drop on the other. Drivers experience awe-inspiring views of 14,000-foot peaks as they navigate this perilous route.

"This is truly one of the most iconic landscapes in America," said Chance Wilcox, California desert program manager for the National Parks Conservation Assn., as he stood atop a rocky slope within the project footprint.

Goblin Valley State Park is often overlooked and relatively undiscovered, making it a perfect alternative for those seeking solitude away from crowded tourist spots like Bryce Canyon.

Before state Route 62 was built, there was seamless 95-mile-long habitat connectivity between the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino mountain ranges, extending from the I-10 south of Joshua Tree National Park to the I-15 near the Cajon Pass. Now, plans for two new wildlife crossings across the highway aim to bring back some of that connectivity, while potentially saving a local population on the brink of extinction in the process.

Get up early to drive into the hills and park in the main lot, which opens 30 minutes before sunrise. This will leave you with enough time to make your way to the peak through the wildflower-scattered trails and watch the sunrise over the Bay.

The state park is more remote and rugged. We offer a more dispersed and self-guided experience. It's also a more relaxed choice for paddling trips, it's popular among birdwatchers, and it's also one of the best places in Texas to stargaze-after all, West Texas has the darkest skies in the state.

For 2025, there was good news and bad news: overall, these areas were visited 323 million times over the course of the year. That's the good news; the bad news is that this figure was down ever so slightly - specifically, 2.7% - from a record-setting 2024.

The Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, a place for learning, exploration and building community located in a beautiful building right on the beach in Santa Cruz.

As a SoCal resident, I visit Anza-Borrego at least once a year to explore the sandstone Slot canyon and surrounding desert, keeping an eye out for animals like chuckwalla lizards and bighorn sheep. Despite its incredibly dry environment (the park averages just four to eight inches of rain a year, and summertime temps routinely hit the hundreds), Anza-Borrego teems with life and opportunities to explore one of the nation's most unique ecosystems.

Named after the legendary Big Sur female pioneer and rancher, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park stands out even among the rest of the region's attractions. The park features stands of centuries-old redwood trees and provides a haven for a variety of California wildlife, though it's best known for the 80-foot-high McWay Falls, an impressive cascade that drops directly from a sheer cliff to the sandy beach below.

Western water law is based on the prior appropriation doctrine, which gives the first entity to make "beneficial use" of water the right to keep on using that amount, even if that means that upstream "junior" users' spigots will get shut off. By the early 1900s, a rapidly growing California was enthusiastically diverting the Colorado River, with huge irrigation districts gobbling up the senior water rights.

Many glamping places are right off the highway. With Backland, we wanted an immersive nature experience-total comfort, with unobstructed views. The camp sits on an immense and grassy meadow ringed by an unnamed forest. Ten nature suites looked more like futuristic Quonset huts than white tents.

Out of an abundance of caution, access is being paused to give wildlife space and allow for ongoing monitoring. The investigation involves scientists from UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, along with California State Parks, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Department of Public Health, the California Marine Mammal Stranding Network, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA Fisheries.

Longer days, blooming flowers, and increasing temperatures make spring the perfect time for an escape to one of the 63 major US national parks. After traveling solo to all of them, there are a few I think are especially worth seeing between the months of March and June.

Welcome to Shangri-La-Dee-Da. This aptly named 58-acre estate offers its future owners a real shot at reinvention. They could become stewards of (a rather large chunk of) the Earth; they could raise, ride and train horses. Maybe they'll decide to grow grapes and make their own wine. Or, they can become event planners or hosts, offering our one-of-a-kind location for celebrations. Conceivably, they could do all of these things at 3970 Leavesley Road in Gilroy - that's the magic of the Shangi-La-Dee-Da.

But as he swept his flashlight through the dark waters, something unexpected emerged. Inching through the beam of light, an alien creature crawled across the surface of the sand, resembling an inch-long cluster of ghostly leaves fringed with silvery filigree and capped with a pair of antennae-like stalks. It immediately caught my eye, said Gosliner, Invertebrate Zoology Curator for the California Academy of Sciences. I've been diving there for 30 years and this one immediately struck me as different.

If that sounds like a dry lab statistic, here's the part you'll actually remember: Lyme is one of those infections that can make you feel like you got hit by a truck. Feverish. Wiped out. Achy. Foggy. And it can start as the kind of "I'm just run down" stretch that people blow off for a week or two - especially when it's winter and everyone's tired anyway.

This quaint little town, surrounded by green pastures and granite cliffs, is the northern gateway to the High Sierra. Bridgeport always evokes nostalgia and is one of my favorite views of the Eastern Sierra. In my younger years, it was all about the resorts, and Bridgeport was a place to stretch the legs on the way to Mammoth Mountain. Now, I look more to the backcountry trailheads, and Bridgeport has become an alluring area along the 395 corridor.

Now, in a recent study published in Geology, retired University of New Mexico geologist Karl Karlstrom and his colleagues conclude that the asteroid's impact shook Marble Canyon hard enough to dislodge great chunks of stone and send a landslide tumbling into the river. The debris formed a natural dam that backed up the Colorado for over 50 miles to near present-day Lees Ferry.

By midwinter, Los Angeles is defined less by cold than by light. Cool, clear mornings give way to afternoons shaped by the low winter arc of the sun, painting the mountains in long shadows and the sky in improbable color. And as that low light settles in, my whole body shifts in spirit. Somewhere deep in the limbic system, a synapse fires like a flare, tracing the old circuitry of migration and memory - that annual pull toward the wide-open deserts of the American Southwest.

A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints. The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail walked not by humans but traversed and carved by elephants, a creature still misunderstood, vilified and hunted for its cataclysmic-like ability to reshape land, and sometimes communities.

This is the first Ornate Nile monitor that our animal control officer and patrol officers have encountered," she said.

For the last decade, wildlife biologists have been using remote camera and scat surveys to track the movements of the fox in the southern Sierra. For the last three years, they have been carrying out intensive trapping efforts. But the fox has proved stubbornly difficult to capture. The speedy and delicate species is extremely wary of humans. The few remaining individuals live in barren, rugged terrain at high elevations.

If they survived the summer and reached adulthood, they would become some of the fastest land animals on Earth. Adult pronghorn, a bit smaller than deer, can run seven miles in just 10 minutes, achieving short bursts of nearly 60 mph, much faster than horses or wolves. With their long thin legs and oversized hearts and lungs, they are built to cover ground in the wide-open sagebrush basins of Wyoming, my home state.

Some travelers love vacations that involve doing absolutely nothing-trips where lounging by the beach or pool, napping, reading, or going for a light swim are the most rigorous activities on the agenda. Other travelers, however, crave trips that are a bit more ... active, whether that means hiking, biking, or parasailing. If you fall into the latter category, you should consider heading to Wyoming for your next trip, according to Wander.

Each city was scored across five weighted factors using publicly available data sources: average winter temperatures (NOAA), trail accessibility, average number of reviews, average trail ratings (AllTrails), and the number of campgrounds in the state (Camping USA). After looking at all the available information, Extreme Terrain named Tucson as the No. 1 destination for a nature getaway this winter. According to the findings, it won out thanks to its "excellent trail access and highly rated hikes."

I trekked it in December 2023 with plans and a permit to camp at Bright Angel Campground, a scenic cottonwood-shaded hideaway just near the famed Phantom Ranch (the only lodging on the world wonder's floor). Then, two days before my trip, a miracle happened: One last-minute reservation became available for Phantom Ranch. The ranch digs typically book out over a year in advance, but if you're lucky, you can either get in via the lottery or a last-minute opening. This made the grueling but gorgeous hike down and up the steep South Kaibab Trail even more memorable.

"One time is enough." That's what I'd heard countless times about visiting Las Vegas before making the trip myself. I'd always wanted to go, if only to have that once-in-a-lifetime experience. Turns out, one time wasn't enough. I've been five times now, and I have no doubt there will be a sixth. The nightlife and gambling aren't what keep me coming back, though. These days, I skip the casinos and explore nature instead - and one of my favorite places is about 45 minutes outside the city: Valley of Fire State Park. There was no turning back once I found a side of Vegas I didn't know I was missing