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Volume 5 of our new supersized magazine is here. May 4, 2021
A little more than a year ago (a week or so after all our lives turned upside down), I had a conversation with
Road & Track executive editor Dan Pund about a trip we both took in 2012 to a very remote, and very exquisite, hotel on the border of Utah and Arizona. It’s called Amangiri, and the trip has become a thing of lore in the car-magazine world. We were there for only a night, between road tests of the 2013 Range Rover, but we both have vivid memories of the breakfast, a practically divine interpretation of huevos rancheros. It was almost almost beyond description.
Photo: Kevin Russ/Stocksy)
Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico: Join a guided tour of the Ancestral Puebloan ruins at this Unesco World Heritage site, then bed down in the shadow of ancient cliff dwellings.
Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, Utah: Gawk at fossil-stuffed, multihued rock layers stacked like prehistoric pancakes that trace 275 million years of human and geologic history.
G1:
A viewing platform at Cumberland Island National Seashore (
Photo: Stephanie Zell/Getty)
Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia: Consult a tide table, then kayak across Cumberland Sound to pitch your tent at one of five campgrounds scattered around this barrier island.
Under Canvas accommodations (Bailey Made)
The latest outpost is from glamping operator Under Canvas. The company, known for finding picture-perfect locales near national parks, has outdone itself with this one, which opened in April (from $299). Perched on a canyon-rim plateau, with views of the adjacent monument and Lake Powell’s azure waters, the camp’s 50 safari-style tents are spread across 220 acres. There’s yoga, hiking, and paddleboarding, tours of the lake by raft or kayak, and other adventures.
For an over-the-top, bucket-list splurge, head five miles south to Camp Sarika, a new offshoot of nearby resort Amangiri, which has come to epitomize desert luxury since opening in 2009. With the launch of Camp Sarika last summer, guests have the option of staying in one of ten canvas-clad pavilions that include a living room and one or two bedrooms, and open onto a sprawling deck, plunge pool, and fire pit (from $3,50
A view of the night sky from the Antelope Canyon, Page, Arizona. Photo: Ameer Basheer/Unsplash
Americans invented the idea of national parks. They sing of amber waves of grain and sublime purple mountain majesties. They’ve made the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Yellowstone shrines of national identity and idealise nature in speeches, literature, painting, photography and architecture.
And yet American lands today are torn by conflicts over science, religion, identity and politics, with contradictory conceptions of nature at the heart of a broken national consensus.
To Native Americans, nature and culture are inseparable, and the identity and the history of a tribe is thoroughly interwoven with specific places, such as Rainbow Bridge or the San Francisco Peaks. In contrast, many White Americans embrace wilderness, defined as nature that is free of human presence, with no roads, telephone lines or electricity. The wilderness is, to them, eternal and pre-human, an idea at odds with b
On April 5, Gov. Spencer Cox declared April Dark Sky Month in Utah. Though you wouldn’t know it from the light-polluted urban centers, Utah is actually one of the best places in the world to observe the night sky, no telescope required. The state’s declaration committed to preserving dark sky places plus the health benefits and tourist dollars they bring.
Utah has 23 locations accredited by the International Dark Sky Association. The sheer number of dark sky parks in Utah the highest concentration in the world makes Utah an unofficial stargazing capital. Recognition from the IDA isn’t a simple task. Officials go through a lengthy application process to earn the distinction, which, according to the association, goes to “land possessing an exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights and a nocturnal environment that is specifically protected for its scientific, natural, educational, cultural heritage and/or public enjoyment.”