North Cascades National Park, Washington

© Ethan Welty/Tandem Stills + Motio

America’s backyard. North Cascades National Park

North Cascades is one of three national parks in Washington state (the others are Olympic and Mount Rainier). North Cascades is also the state’s newest national park, created in 1968. It is perhaps the most rugged park in the lower 48 states, containing more than 500,000 acres of steep mountain peaks, vast forests, as well as the headwaters of many waterways. It boasts the most expansive system of glaciers in the US outside of Alaska. Most of the park is protected as wilderness so there are few roads, structures, or signs of human impact. It is relatively isolated even though it’s within 100 miles (as the crow flies) from the metropolises of Seattle and Vancouver, Canada. This proximity of wilderness to human development reminds us why we created the NPS, to preserve some of the nation’s most special places in their natural state.