u/Ethereal_really

Ascending to 14,410 feet above sea level, Mount Rainier stands as an icon in the Washington landscape. An active volcano, it is the most glaciated peak in the contiguous USA.

Scientists believe Ursus arctos evolved in Asia hundreds of thousands of years ago and then spread to Europe and North Africa. The brown bear is a relative newcomer to North America, having arrived in what is now the US state of Alaska a mere 100,000 years ago. Our furry friend here is resting their head on a log in an estuary on Admiralty Island, part of Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska. This island is said to have the highest density of brown bears in North America, and is also called 'Fortress of the Bears' for its robust ursine population. Why the crowds? It might have something to do with the island's massive summer salmon runs.

Angels Landing stands nearly 450 metres tall in the US state of Utah's Zion National Park. Hikers with a firm constitution can make their way up the narrow trail to the summit – sometimes with just a chain-rail as a guide. But oh, what a view for those who make the effort: Zion Canyon yawns below. In 1926, Walter Ruesch, the first superintendent of the park, oversaw the construction of a section of the Angels Landing Trail. Although he had no previous engineering experience, Ruesch planned the steep 21-switchback path out of Refrigerator Canyon up to Angels Landing. The section of the trail, now affectionately called Walter's Wiggles, was first built to enable horse access to Cabin Spring.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in the south of the US state of Utah contains an expanse of stunning rock formations. The monument, established in 1996, spans more than 7,500 square kilometres and is one of several national parks and reserves located along the Grand Staircase. The layers of sediment, stacked like stair steps, date back as far as 600 million years. Many of these layers include fossils of long-extinct creatures, and the area is a hotspot for paleontologists – in 2002, a gryposaurus fossil, roughly 75 million years old, was found near the monument's border with the neighbouring state of Arizona.