A graceful natural rock formation stands astride the point where the Gulf of California meets the Pacific Ocean.

This rural island is home to the ghost town of what used to be the world’s biggest salt mine.

Huge hole looks down onto an underground beach populated with sea lions.

A little-known, but surprisingly large waterfall on the Little Truckee River in the northern Sierra Nevada.

This wilderness hike to a waterfall has an unlikely beginning in suburban Reno.

A well-preserved sheepherding camp now lies in the heart of the Granite Chief Wilderness, in the high Sierra Nevada.

The now-abandoned tunnels were built for the transcontinental railroad on the route where the first wagon train entered California.

A breathtaking 19th-century trail overlooks Lake Tahoe.

Eastern zen meets Western grit in these four little trees growing out of a rock on Lake Tahoe’s Nevada shore.

This WWII-era military installation once held an entire city within its walls - now, its walls are falling down.

This small city where almost everyone lives in the same building can only be reached via North America's longest tunnel.

A retiree's challenge to build an outdoor wonderland out of trash.

Outsider Art Community.

Clean, cold drinking water flows from a nondescript pipe in a roadside rock face.

This popular fishing spot at the outflow of a 4.5-mile long hydroelectric tunnel sports a jetty literally made out of classic cars.

Tour a Cold War-era U.S. military missile launch site in Anchorage.

Colorful boxes placed over the dead are left to rot and crumble.

During the summer, surfers in Alaska take advantage of this inlet’s unusual water patterns.

Considered by many to be one of the most dangerous highways in Alaska.

This abandoned mine offers a glimpse at what life was like for those who came to Alaska seeking Gold Rush riches.

In 1912, this idyllic Alaska landscape was blown apart in the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

This frozen tunnel in central Alaska is both an engineering feat and a valuable climate classroom.

This whimsical stacked cabin looks like something out of a children's book.

One of Alaska's most significant ancient sites, spanning millennia and cultures, is right under the feet of some famously fat bears.