Cathedral Rock Trail
Steep slickrock, route markers, hand-and-foot moves, and a high saddle make Cathedral Rock one of Sedona’s most concentrated climbs.
United States: places and wildlife — page 36
Browse the published Explore collection for United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
The Wave at Coyote Buttes North
Cross-bedded Navajo Sandstone folds into extraordinary curves within permit-controlled backcountry that has no constructed trail.
Arizona National Scenic Trail
A continuous foot, horse, and bike route links deserts, sky islands, canyons, forests, communities, and the Grand Canyon from Mexico to Utah.
Havasu Falls Trail
A long desert descent reaches Supai and travertine-blue waterfalls on Havasupai land, where every visit is governed by tribal permits and community rules.
Antelope Canyon
Narrow light-filled passages on Navajo land reveal cross-bedding, flash-flood erosion, and a tightly managed visitor experience.
Horseshoe Bend
A short exposed walk reaches a sweeping Colorado River meander where geology, heat, crowd flow, and cliff safety matter as much as the famous view.
Meteor Crater
A privately operated visitor center and rim viewpoints explain a 50,000-year-old meteorite impact, planetary geology, and the history of proving the crater’s origin.
Grand Canyon Skywalk
A glass horseshoe extending from Eagle Point is one component of the tribally operated Grand Canyon West experience, with its own transport and photography rules.
Desert Botanical Garden
Five thematic trails connect Sonoran Desert ecology, global succulent diversity, conservation research, seasonal bloom, art, and practical water-wise design.
Boyce Thompson Arboretum
Desert plants from around the world grow beneath Picketpost Mountain along shaded creek, cactus, heritage-tree, and high-desert trails.
Tucson Botanical Gardens
Seventeen themed gardens, desert plants, barrio history, butterflies, art, and shade reward careful observation on a five-acre Tucson site.
Tohono Chul
Native gardens, desert trails, galleries, a bistro, and cultural programs turn forty-nine Tucson acres into a patient study of place.
Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix
Pond, waterfall, stone, tea garden, fish, pruning, and borrowed skyline show how Japanese garden principles were adapted through Phoenix–Himeji friendship.
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
Zoo, botanical garden, aquarium, natural-history museum, and art gallery combine around Sonoran Desert habitats west of Tucson.
Phoenix Zoo
Four major trails, Arizona species, elephants, primates, children’s areas, and conservation work fill a large outdoor zoo beside red sandstone buttes.
Reid Park Zoo
Elephants, giraffes, lions, South American species, conservation programs, and a new Asia expansion fit into a manageable city-park campus.
Bearizona Wildlife Park
A drive-through forest and walk-through Fort Bearizona present bears, wolves, bison, otters, raptors, and conservation programs near Williams.
OdySea Aquarium
Sharks, rays, penguins, sea turtles, freshwater ecosystems, and immersive viewing connect global waters inside a large Scottsdale attraction complex.
Cactus Wren
Arizona’s brash desert wren advertises itself from cholla with bold white brows, spotted plumage, and a mechanical chugging song.
Abert’s Towhee
A secretive lower-desert towhee scratches beneath mesquite, revealing a black face, warm undertail, and brief accelerating song.
Kaibab Squirrel
A white flag of a tail and tufted ears identify this squirrel found naturally only in the Kaibab Plateau’s ponderosa forest.
Mount Graham Red Squirrel
This endangered high-elevation squirrel survives in one isolated Arizona mountain forest, storing conifer cones in cool, damp middens.
Arizona Gray Squirrel
A broad pale-edged tail and warm reddish back distinguish this large squirrel of Arizona’s oak-lined mountain canyons.
Arizona Ridge-nosed Rattlesnake
Arizona’s small mountain rattlesnake favors cool, rocky pine-oak canyons and shows pale facial stripes across an upturned snout.
Apache Trout
Arizona’s native golden trout survives through tribal and agency restoration in cold White Mountain headwaters with stream-specific fishing rules.
Gila Topminnow
This tiny livebearing fish persists in warm desert springs and cienegas where introduced mosquitofish, drought, and altered flows threaten recovery.
Little Colorado Spinedace
A subtle silvery minnow carries an outsized conservation story within the pools and connected flows of northern Arizona’s Little Colorado basin.
Two-tailed Swallowtail
Arizona’s enormous yellow state butterfly patrols canyon streams and gardens, flashing black tiger stripes and two tails on each hindwing.
Arizona Giant Skipper
A brief monsoon-season flight reveals this robust agave specialist, whose hidden larvae spend most of their lives inside host plants.
Saguaro
The Sonoran Desert’s towering column stores rain in pleated stems, shelters cavity nesters, and feeds wildlife with crown flowers and red fruit.
Arizona Cliffrose
This endangered evergreen shrub survives on unusual pale mineral soils, opening creamy flowers before producing long, feathery seed plumes.
Nichol’s Turk’s Head Cactus
A low blue-green barrel armed with heavy curved spines hides among southern Arizona limestone and blooms pink after warm-season rain.
Blue Palo Verde
Arizona’s state tree sheds tiny leaves during drought, photosynthesizes through blue-green bark, and erupts in pollinator-rich yellow spring bloom.
Arizona Sycamore
Mottled white trunks illuminate rocky canyon streams where this broad-crowned southwestern tree provides shade, cavities, and riparian structure.
Arizona Cypress
Blue-gray scale foliage, fibrous bark, and persistent round cones identify this fire-adapted conifer of Arizona’s rocky mountain canyons.
Nevada Museum of Art
Nevada’s only AAM-accredited art museum connects contemporary practice, photography, environmental research, and the landscapes artists change or document.
Valley of Fire State Park
Nevada’s oldest state park joins crimson Jurassic sandstone, pale domes, narrow passages, petrified wood, and ancient petroglyphs in the exposed Mojave Desert.
Hoover Dam
This 726-foot arch-gravity dam reveals the Colorado River through engineering, electricity, labor, water policy, Art Deco design, and a shrinking reservoir.
Greater Sage-Grouse
At dawn, males turn a quiet sagebrush flat into a popping, swishing arena—a display sustained by much more habitat than the lek itself reveals.
Desert Bighorn Sheep
Nevada’s state mammal turns steep desert rock into refuge, using gripping hooves while tracking sparse forage, shade, and water across isolated ranges.
The Mob Museum
A restored federal courthouse uses evidence, testimony, and original rooms to separate organized crime history from Las Vegas mythology.
The Neon Museum
Read Las Vegas through rescued signs. Restored pieces glow beside stabilized but unlit signs, making preservation choices visible.
National Atomic Testing Museum
Nuclear history without the mushroom-cloud shortcut. The museum is most useful when a device or instrument is read beside the decision system that…
National Automobile Museum
Automobiles as design, labor, and social change. More than two hundred vehicles from the Harrah collection are staged along period streets, but…
Nevada State Museum
Nevada history inside a former U.S. Mint. A recreated underground mine is useful only when connected back to ore bodies, labor, milling, and…
Nevada State Railroad Museum
Nevada rail history that still moves. Restoration work makes the museum as much about boilers, brakes, joinery, and maintenance as polished…
Lost City Museum
An archaeological museum built beside the evidence. Original excavation-era buildings, reconstructed pueblo rooms, pottery, fiber, tools, and a…
Clark County Museum
Southern Nevada history across a real street. Interiors make water, cooling, transport, and household labor unusually concrete.