Robert Cross

CAPITOL REEF NATIONAL PARK, Utah--Just as Bryce Canyon isn't a canyon, Capitol Reef is not a reef. Pioneers thought the imposing line of an exposed uplift called the Waterpocket Fold...

The outstanding features of Zion and Bryce clearly differ. Zion overpowers. Bryce serves as an example of nature's finesse. And so it goes: Capitol Reef with its great stone walls;...

Established as a national park: Sept. 12, 1964. Area: 337,570 acres. Visitors: 448,769 in 1995. Entrance fees: $4 per vehicle or $2 per individual hiker/bicyclist (good for seven consecutive days)....

1.2 billion years ago: Molten lava pours from cracks in the earth's crust; land sinks, forming Superior basin and bedrock that exists today. 2 million years ago: Ice sheets cover...

Wilderness serenity is the main attraction here, so individual sights are difficult to separate from the whole. An encyclopedic list of highlights soon would lapse into the ephemeral: the scent...

Established as a national park: March 3, 1931. Officially dedicated Aug. 27, 1946. Area: 571,790 acres, 80 percent of it water. The island is about 45 miles long and 7...

GETTING THERE I flew a Northwest Airlines DC-9 jet from Chicago to Minneapolis and connected with a Northwest Link (Mesaba Airlines) 32-seat DHC Turboprop flight from Minneapolis to the Hancock/Houghton,...

ISLE ROYALE NATIONAL PARK,Mich.--If the orange stuff splashed across the rocks really had been copper, and if this 45-mile-long archipelago of volcanic basalt really did hold valuable ore, Mark Gleason...

BAR HARBOR, Maine --Little New England, ever tight and clubby, has found room for only one national park. That, of course, would be Acadia. Reservations advised. Plaid trousers optional. Keep...

Most of Acadia National Park has been whittled out of formerly private land holdings on Mt. Desert Island, Schoodic Peninsula and a few spits of land offshore. Because nearly all...