ZapappyExploreOpen ExploreBrowse the published Explore collection for United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Look first for warty toad with a pale stripe down the back and no cranial crests, then confirm it in high-elevation wetlands, ponds, and willow edges in the southern rockies. Those two clues make Southern Rocky Mountain Boreal Toad much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for large chipmunk with dark facial stripes and warm ochre sides, then confirm it in rocky foothills, canyon walls, and open woodland in the central southwest. Those two clues make Colorado Chipmunk much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for dense black spotting and orange-red throat slashes beneath the jaw, then confirm it in cold clear south platte headwater streams behind barriers to nonnative trout. Those two clues make Greenback Cutthroat Trout much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for red-orange throat slashes, warm flanks, and spotting concentrated toward the tail, then confirm it in cold western-slope headwaters in the colorado and green river basins. Those two clues make Colorado River Cutthroat Trout much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for small dark fritillary with orange-brown patterning above treeline, then confirm it in snow-willow patches on very high san juan mountain slopes. Those two clues make Uncompahgre Fritillary much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for small tawny skipper associated with blue grama and prairie gayfeather, then confirm it in dry open ponderosa woodland in the south platte canyon system. Those two clues make Pawnee Montane Skipper much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for purple wings with broad dark margins and orange spots near the hindwing tails, then confirm it in gambel oak woodland and scrub in colorado and the four corners region. Those two clues make Colorado Hairstreak much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for blue-violet sepals, white petals, and long backward-pointing spurs, then confirm it in montane and subalpine meadows, open woods, and moist rocky slopes. Those two clues make Rocky Mountain Columbine much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for low mat-forming penstemon with pale lavender flowers on unstable shale, then confirm it in oil-shale talus on the roan plateau near parachute. Those two clues make Parachute Beardtongue much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for tall spikes of white, pink-flecked flowers above narrow leaves, then confirm it in mancos shale barrens around pagosa springs. Those two clues make Pagosa Skyrocket much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for small purple bell-shaped flowers on a low glandular plant, then confirm it in sparsely vegetated clay slopes in north park. Those two clues make North Park Phacelia much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for tiny low annual with cream tubular flowers and noticeably hairy leaves, then confirm it in cracking clay badlands near de beque and the roan plateau. Those two clues make DeBeque Phacelia much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for small ribbed cactus with straight central spines and pink spring flowers, then confirm it in gravelly river terraces and desert shrublands of western colorado. Those two clues make Colorado Hookless Cactus much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for stiff sharp four-sided needles and gray-brown furrowed bark, then confirm it in cool stream valleys and moist mountain slopes in the central and southern rockies. Those two clues make Colorado Blue Spruce much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Look first for needles in bundles of five dotted with white resin flecks, then confirm it in wind-exposed high-elevation slopes of colorado, new mexico, and arizona. Those two clues make Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Utah’s dinosaurs, minerals, ecosystems, and living Native cultures unfold through a terraced museum whose architecture reads like an uplifted slice of the Wasatch foothills.
The Virgin River threads beneath Navajo sandstone walls, hanging gardens, slot canyons, and high plateaus—but a good visit depends as much on shuttle timing, heat, and water as scenery.
A cairn-marked climb crosses open sandstone, passes Wolfe Ranch and Ute rock markings, then rounds a narrow ledge into the immense natural amphitheater beneath Delicate Arch.
Utah’s endemic prairie dog is a compact, highly social burrower whose upright sentinels animate the high meadows of the state’s southwest.
Utah’s state flower rises sparsely from dry ground, each cup-shaped bloom carrying a purple eye and a yellow, hairy band that guides pollinators inward.
Five millennia of art meet exhibitions that ask how objects acquire meaning, ownership, and responsibility inside Utah’s state art museum.
More than seventy aircraft turn aviation history into a study of engineering, labor, war, and Hill Air Force Base’s continuing role in northern Utah.
Utah’s new state history museum brings more than nine hundred objects into four galleries about becoming, building, connecting, and inspiring a complicated state.
A silver-mining town’s machinery, jail cells, disasters, labor, and transformation into a ski destination fill the former city hall on Main Street.
Dinosaurs, Ice Age life, archaeology, and geology remain tied to the Castle Country landscapes where museum researchers recovered them.
A compact community museum links the Moab Valley’s Indigenous histories, geology, ranching, uranium boom, and tourism without flattening them into scenery.
Fossils, geologic time, and a walk-through dinosaur garden make Vernal’s field house both a regional museum and a launch point for Dinosaurland.
Art, documents, personal belongings, migration technology, and changing exhibitions interpret a global faith from its institutional center beside Temple Square.
More than two thousand documented arches rise among fins, balanced rocks, and Entrada sandstone above the Colorado River corridor.
Frost and summer rain carve the Paunsaugunt Plateau’s pink limestone into the world’s largest concentration of hoodoos.
The Colorado and Green Rivers cut an immense maze of mesas, canyons, needles, and remote backcountry that no internal road connects.
The Waterpocket Fold lifts tilted rock beside orchards, petroglyphs, canyons, and the historic settlement of Fruita.
A high sandstone neck leads to a sheer overlook where river bends, salt anticlines, and Canyonlands unfold two thousand feet below.
Soft Entrada sandstone erodes into a broad basin of squat, mushroom-shaped goblins that visitors can explore at ground level.
A causeway reaches the Great Salt Lake’s largest island, where bison, shorebirds, beaches, ranch history, and mountain trails share a saline landscape.
White and red Navajo sandstone, dark lava flows, tubes, dunes, and desert life compress a remarkable geologic cross-section into one canyon.
Salmon-colored sand moves through a notch between plateaus, supporting recreation and a tiger beetle found nowhere else.
Sipapu, Kachina, and Owachomo span White Canyon, where flowing water—not arch-style weathering—cut openings through stone fins.
Nearly roadless plateaus, slot canyons, badlands, and fossil-bearing formations spread across a monument larger than many national parks.
Walter’s Wiggles and a chain-assisted sandstone ridge lead to a famous perch with severe exposure and no room for casual risk.
Hikers travel directly through the Virgin River between thousand-foot walls, where flow, cold water, footing, and flash floods govern every decision.
Two Bryce trails combine into a steep descent through Wall Street or Two Bridges and a gentler return among Queen’s Garden formations.
A demanding backcountry circuit crosses passes, open grassland, and the narrow Joint Trail among the Needles district’s striped sandstone spires.
A short but exposed climb leaves Highway 24 for a 133-foot sandstone bridge, Fremont granaries, and broad Waterpocket Fold views.
The trail rises from shaded Big Cottonwood Canyon to Lake Blanche beneath Sundial Peak, gaining nearly three thousand feet in under four miles.
A long alpine route climbs meadows, switchbacks, and a final exposed ridge to the 11,752-foot summit of Mount Timpanogos.
A sandy route follows perennial Calf Creek past beaver habitat, granaries, and pictographs to a cool alcove and high waterfall.
Fremont and Ute rock imagery, habitation sites, ranches, and a historic freight road extend through a long canyon often misnamed for its length.