The lay of the land
Wheat hills, a sagebrush basin, a canyon road, a fire lookout, a grain elevator seen from ten miles out — the country itself, and the towns, parks and highways inside it.
Paddling the Boundary Waters
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a country of linked lakes, crossed one portage and one paddle stroke at a time.
Driving the Loess Hills Ridge
The Loess Hills rise above the Missouri River bottoms — a wind-built country of pale dust, steep grass, and roads that follow the sky.
The Sagebrush Basin Is the West's Best Landscape
A claim for the Great Divide Basin in Wyoming, where the uninterested eye sees only sage and wind.
The Lava Fields of Craters of the Moon
Across southern Idaho, the earth opened along the Great Rift and left a black field of cinder cones and lava tubes that still looks new after two thousand years.
The Long Winter of the North Cascades Highway
Every fall the gates come down on State Route 20, and the road over the North Cascades becomes a trail of snow until the spring thaw.
The Long Opening of Going-to-the-Sun Road
Every spring, snowplow crews work for weeks to reopen Glacier's Going-to-the-Sun Road over Logan Pass.
Rain, Moss, and the Hoh
In the Hoh River valley on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, rain builds a forest out of moss, nurse logs, and time.
The Wind That Lives in Livingston
The wind that pours out of Paradise Valley is not an event in Livingston but a condition of it — present, patient, and worked around.
The Road Into Palo Duro Canyon
A cut in the Texas Panhandle, and the paved road that drops from open sky to the floor of an ancient sea.
The Long Arithmetic of US 50
US 50 crosses Nevada through basin after empty basin, and the small towns along it have made an art of being far from everything.
The Haul Road to the Arctic Ocean
From the spruce line at Livengood to the tundra of the North Slope, 414 miles of gravel carry the highway to the edge of the Arctic.
The Caldera That Holds Crater Lake
Where a mountain once stood, Oregon holds a circle of quiet water, the deepest lake in the country.
Racing the Salt at Bonneville
A prehistoric lakebed in western Utah becomes a mirror-bright, perfectly level stage for the fastest machines on land.
Rachel, Nevada, Where the Silence Runs Deep
On the Extraterrestrial Highway the desert outlasts every story, and the smallest town in the basin holds its ground.
The Million Dollar Highway
A two-lane blacktop cuts across the San Juan Mountains, connecting two old silver towns along the edge of a thousand-foot drop.
The Road the Sand Takes Back
A road at the foot of the San Andres must be plowed every day, because the dunes are moving and they do not care.
The Spring Plowing of Trail Ridge Road
Each spring a crew works from both ends of Rocky Mountain National Park's highest paved road, cutting through drifts until the gates open.
A day in a drift boat on the Deschutes
On Oregon's Deschutes River, a drift boat is rigged, rowed and grounded out the same way every day, bow-first into the current.
The Saguaro Above Tucson
On a rocky Catalina Mountains slope above Tucson, a saguaro lifts its arms — waxy skin, water-storing pleats, wooden ribs and all.