Park City Mountain Resort, Utah (Gerry Wingenbach)

So I tell my blog conductor I should do a mid-season roundup. You know, tout the great ski season in Europe. Remind you about the avalanche of snow in New England. The gorgeous Southwest days at Angel Fire and Taos in New Mexico. Link the blizzard of spring deals that are popping up like crocuses on resort home pages. Get out of my myopic Utah, Colorado, British Columbia-centered world and heed the rest of the ski planet. I tell her I’ll do it. And I will. Someday.

I got the roundup idea from Mary, my ski school supervisor at Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR). She called me in for my mid-season review (couple of Bs, couple of As, better than I deserved). I’ll take the A for enthusiasm—that’s the go-to play for a ski instructor. What else could Mary do? I hedged my job by bringing my puppy to the review. Can you believe she had dog treats?

Mary is the most charming person I know that can still do business. She could make a zillion bucks selling high-end resort real estate. But she’s got a skier’s soul.

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I’ve read about Addo Elephant Park, had to prick up the ears to friends enthuse about their visits, studied numerous awe-inspiring pictures taken at Addo Elephant Park, but never visited. It just seemed that much too far away from our base in Cape Town. But our recent road trip to Hogsback put paid to that assumption. Addo made its way onto our itinerary with little trouble, given my passion for elephants and the thrill at my son being able to see these beasts of the land up close.

The major plus of the park is its proximity to Port Elizabeth. Literally, the passage there takes an hour. It’s an interesting journey too, in the sense that the road is pretty desolate, not in an ideal condition, and exits PE along the R335 littered with strategically placed government houses and fences decorated with plastic bags …

One is never quite prepared for the impact of seeing an elephant in the flesh, almost infront of you.

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Parks Canada and the Banff Gondola proudly announce the opening of a NEW Winter Wonderland Playground in Banff National Park, something for all ages! Visitors and locals alike be possible to enjoy outdoor ice skating in Banff National Park.

An ice rink will be located at the base of the Banff Gondola just in time for the holiday season. Starting Tuesday December 29th, the complimentary ice skating rink will be open daily from 10am-4pm with evening skating till 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays. Skate rentals are available on-site and Starbucks has warm beverages to keep you toasty. Come celebrate the season with friends and family enjoy a skate, warm up by the fire pits, or just sit back and relax with a passionate drink surrounded by spectacular views of the Canadian Rockies!

Click here to read more upon the body this new winter wonderland playground and ice skating in Banff National Park.

In a country with such natural beauty and diversity it is no wonder that three U.S. National Parks have been declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites - Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon National Park, one of the world’s earliest, was designated since of that kind in 1919 and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

A 1938 poster depicting the Grand Canyon. Image: Library of Congress.

The Grand Canyon National Park boasts stunning vistas that even the best photographs can’t adequately capture. About the size of Delaware, but located in Arizona, the Park is big enough to contain exposed rock that in the same manner with old as two billion years and has enough diverse microclimates that people can be hiking through snowdrifts and sunbathing onward the river bank on the same day.

John Wesley Powell  is credited with leading the first occurrence through the Grand Canyon in 1869 on the Powell Geographic Expedition. Powell, a U.S. soldier and trained geologist, explored the Colorado River and the surrounding areas, gathering information and providing recommendations to developers back east.

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The Kruger Park in South Africa has two main seasons; a dry winter from April – October, and a wet summer from November – March. So the sort of is the most expedient. see the various meanings of good time to travel to Kruger? The park is known as an all-year destination, but the different seasons will have a definite impact on your safari. So when you are planning your safari, you should keep two things in mind: What season will you be traveling, and which part of the Kruger Park will be the best for that fit by habit? In this post I decree try to help you with this part of your safari planning!

Winter in the Kruger Park

The winter is known to be the best time of the year for safaris in Kruger. Though, that depends on the fact that your prefer abundant wildlife over beautiful scenery. The winter is also the dry season in Kruger, which means that the leaves fall of the trees and rivers and waterholes dry up. Only some permanent waterholes stay wet, and it is around these that you will spot the hordes of animals. And that is exactly the reason why the winter is best for wildlife watching.

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Running a national park and trying to protect some of the last remaining mountain gorillas left in the world, in the midst of chaos, is no easy task. The rangers working in Virunga National Park in the DRC are really doing a phenomenal job and the great thing for those of us living far away, is we can read about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, every day.

The park has set up a web site that allows rangers to blog their daily outings. Whether its to chat about newborn gorilla babies; fighting rebels; scorching down charcoal kilns; making tourists wear sheltering masks in the same manner they don’t pass on germs to gorillas, and other fascinating entries. The blog also acts as a put upon the right track funding source, you can see where your money is going, even if you just have $20 to spare. Check it out for yourself, and please donate a little money if you can.