Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is the second largest wilderness area in #Arizona. A campaign by the Arizona Boy Scouts helped establish the refuge in 1939 to protect desert bighorn sheep and other wildlife. The refuge’s name – Kofa – comes from an acronym for one of the area’s most notable mines, the King of Arizona gold mine. Photo of mountains, palo verde & brittlebush by Brian Powell (http://ift.tt/18oFfjl).

Have you ever seen lightning make such crazy shapes? This bolt looks like a Tyrannosaurus rex getting ready to chomp a formation at Blue Mesa in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. Monsoons usher in summer lightning, so explore safely and be sure to check the weather. Photo by Hallie Larsen, National Park Service.

Under the sunshine of an Alaska summer, glacial runoff flows over rocks and swells streams and rivers across the state. The waters allow salmon to make their annual spawning runs, which in turn feed the bears and eagles of Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. This pristine wilderness is a nature lover’s paradise. Photo by Zachary Spira-Bauer (http://ift.tt/18oFfjl).

The Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness is a rolling landscape of badlands in New Mexico, which offers some of the most unusual scenery found in the Southwest. Time, water and wind have etched a fantasy world of strange rock formations made of layered sandstone, shale, mudstone, coal and silt. The weathering of the sandstone forms hoodoos – carved rock in the form of pinnacles, spires, cap rocks and other unusual forms like these “cracked eggs” recently captured by photographer Matt Beckmann under a purple sunset. Photo courtesy of Matt Beckmann.

Summer in the PNW? Yes, please! And there’s no better place to explore than North Cascades National Park in Washington. The park is part of more than 2 million acres of wilderness, including nearby Mount Baker Wilderness (pictured here). Enjoy the solitude, peace and challenge that hiking in this beautiful park and surrounding wildernesses offer. Remember to walk lightly in all wilderness areas, so that many generations more may discover this place too. Photo courtesy of Dene Miles.