分类必应美图下的文章

银河下的圣埃伦娜峡谷，德克萨斯州大弯国家公园 Santa Elena Canyon under the Milky Way in Big Bend National Park, Texas (© Stanley Ford/Shutterstock)

Big sky at Big Bend

Seventy-six years ago today, on June 12, 1944, Big Bend officially became a US national park. The park covers more than 800,000 acres in West Texas along the Mexico border. This vast area—big enough to swallow Rhode Island—contains mountain, river, and desert ecosystems, including the largest protected area of the Chihuahuan Desert in the United States. Far removed from any urban centers and the light pollution that comes with them, Big Bend boasts some of the darkest skies you'll find in the lower 48, earning it a designation as an International Dark Sky Park. Even after 76 years, Big Bend still glows.

格里博耶多夫运河和滴血救世主教堂，俄罗斯圣彼得堡 Griboyedov Canal and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in Saint Petersburg, Russia (© Tomas Sereda/Getty Images)

A midsummer twilight's dream

The Russian language classifies light and dark shades of blue as separate colors—which comes in especially handy if you venture north to Saint Petersburg in midsummer. The seaport metropolis sits less than 500 miles outside the Arctic Circle, so at the height of summer, the twilit 'blue hour' coveted by photographers lasts virtually all night long as the sun hovers just below the horizon. It's a phenomenon dubbed the 'White Nights' and it usually lasts from mid-June 11 to early July.

This particular view peers past the dark blue ('siniy') waters of the Griboyedov Canal at the dramatically named Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Framed against a light blue ('goluboi') sky, the church's colorful exterior is almost as dazzling as the motley mosaics covering the walls inside. The Griboyedov Canal, cutting south and west through a district dense with museums, theaters, and parks, is part of Saint Petersburg's intricate system of man-made waterways that earn the city one of its nicknames: 'Venice of the North.'

以圣保罗大教堂为背景的千禧桥，英国伦敦 London Millennium Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background, London, England (© Scott Baldock/Getty Images)

The Millennium at 20

The view you're seeing was first made possible exactly 20 years ago, but a photo from the same spot on June 10, 2000, might've come out a tad blurry. That's because when the London Millennium Bridge opened to flocks of pedestrians on that date, it wobbled so much it was closed after just two days. But the bridge reopened with improvements in 2002, and today it's stable in terms of not only lateral g-force but also photo-op popularity.

Famous for its hodgepodge of bleeding-edge design and preserved historic architecture, the London cityscape is full of anachronistic scenes like this. The bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral, seen a few blocks north across the Thames, were built about 300 years apart (just a fraction of London's nearly 2,000-year history). If we could about-face, the contrast of eras would be even more pronounced: Behind us near the bridge's south end lies a reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre neighboring the Tate Modern, an art museum converted from a mid-20th-century power plant.

锯齿原野中的Baron湖，爱达荷州 Baron Lake in the Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho (© Patrick Brandenburg/Tandem Stills + Motion)

Gem-state views

Idaho is called the Gem State for the its abundance of precious and semi-precious gems, but the moniker could also apply to its many lesser-known, yet spectacular natural landmarks–hidden gems like you see on today's homepage. This is Baron Lake in the rugged Sawtooth Wilderness of central Idaho. It's just a snippet of the nearly 5 million acres of designated wilderness that belong to the Gem State. Other highlights include Hells Canyon, the deepest river gorge in North America—at 8,000 feet deep, it surpasses even the Grand Canyon. And in southern Idaho you'll find Shoshone Falls, which towers 45 feet higher than Niagara Falls, earning it the nickname Niagara of the West.

费尔南迪纳岛海岸的加拉帕戈斯海狮，厄瓜多尔科隆群岛 Galápagos sea lion off the shore of Fernandina Island, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador (© Tui De Roy/Minden Pictures)

A day for the oceans

The Galápagos sea lion is found in two places in the world—its namesake locale and the Isla de la Plata just off the coast of Ecuador. They're often spotted playing and surfing in the waves. They're gregarious on land, too, sometimes even grabbing a snooze on a town bench. Although a common and beloved sight in the islands, Galápagos sea lions are endangered, and their numbers are susceptible to changes in ocean temperatures, which that can limit their food supply.

Enter World Oceans Day. Celebrated annually on June 8 and recognized by the UN, the holiday aims to focus global attention on the health of our oceans. This year's theme calls for world leaders to commit to protecting 30% of the seas and 30% of the land by 2030 to help ensure species diversity, like our friendly Galápagos sea lion, and safeguard life as we know it. #BigGoals

La Pertusa教堂，西班牙莱里达 Hermitage of La Pertusa, Lleida province, Spain (© bbsferrari/Getty Images)

A hermitage with a view

If this vivid landscape has you feeling pulled into the photo, take a deep breath before you look right or left. Or maybe just fix your gaze on the medieval brick ruin ahead—the Hermitage of La Pertusa in northern Catalonia, Spain. Glance sideways and you'll be greeted by sheer vertical drops to the basin of the Canelles Reservoir, across which lies the region of Aragon—historically a powerful kingdom that ruled Catalonia and much of the Mediterranean.

An actual visit to this spot would require traversing a steep, rocky trail to the narrow outcrop that hosts the hermitage, once the chapel of a long-collapsed Romanesque castle. But imagine the reward: a vista of the beauty Catalonia offers beyond busy Barcelona.

锡安国家公园中的Walter's Wiggles小径，犹他州 Walter's Wiggles trail in Zion National Park, Utah (© Dennis Frates/Alamy)

The long and wiggling path

In 1926, Walter Ruesch, the first superintendent of Zion National Park oversaw the construction of one of the park's most ambitious trails. It took 258 helicopter flights to haul in the concrete needed to construct the steep 21-switchback trail out of Refrigerator Canyon up to Angels Landing, but the view from the top makes it all worthwhile. Walter's Wiggles, one of the most difficult and dangerous trails in the park, was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1987.

But you don't need to haul tons of concrete or carve into the sheer sides of a remote canyon help carry on the tradition of trail-building. Today is National Trails Day, a day 'to come together in partnership to advocate for, maintain, and clean up public lands and trails.'

Usually this means heading out to a local wilderness area and joining others to clear or maintain some trails, but this year (as you may have noticed) is a little different. The American Hiking Society has organized a digital campaign to inspire individuals to unite for the protection of trails and access to public lands—without endangering one another.

同步发光萤火虫照亮了大烟山国家公园中的森林 Synchronous fireflies illuminate the forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee (© Floris van Breugel/Minden Pictures)

By the light of the fireflies

Every year between late May and mid-June, synchronous fireflies gather into a sparkling, rhythmic lightshow in the forests of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. As part of their 2-week mating display, the female lighting bugs synchronize their flashes with nearby males so that every few seconds waves of light ripple through the woods. While Photinus carolinus is only one of at least 19 species of fireflies that live in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, synchronous fireflies can be found in a few other places on Earth as well, particularly in Southeast Asia.

Each species of firefly has a characteristic flash pattern that helps the males and females recognize each other. In most species, like this one, the males fly and flash, while the females generally stay still and respond with a flash of their own. It's not clear why some species of fireflies flash synchronously, although some hypotheses involve diet, social interaction, and altitude. No matter why they do it, the flashing of lightning bugs is a magical sight to see—and we can all use a little magic sometimes.

A bridge too Fawr

How much quaintness can be crammed into one picture? We're pushing the limits with this verdant summer scene in North Wales, looking across the Conwy River from its east bank in the town of Llanrwst. Past the Pont Fawr (Big Bridge) in the foreground, the shrubbery-shrouded cottage dubbed Tu Hwnt I'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) seems to sprout straight from the grass. Built in the 15th century as a farmhouse, it's now a traditional Welsh tearoom serving up scones to locals as well as visitors bound for nearby Snowdonia National Park.

The Pont Fawr is itself the stuff of history: Built in the 1630s, it's often called the 'Inigo Jones bridge' after the pioneering early modern architect who, legend has it, designed the triple-arch span that today carries motor traffic. A one-way bottleneck along an otherwise two-way main road, the bridge's humped shape tends to obscure oncoming cars, earning it yet another local nickname: Pont y Rhegi (Bridge of Swearing).

两名山地车骑手在白缘公路上沿着谢福小道的转弯处骑行，犹他州峡谷地国家公园 Two mountain bike riders make their way down the Shafer Trail switchbacks on White Rim Road in Canyonlands National Park, Utah (© Grant Ordelheide/Tandem Stills + Motion)

For the love of bikes

In honor of World Bicycle Day, we share a bird’s-eye view of two mountain bikers traveling on the Shafer Trail switchbacks of White Rim Road in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. In 2018, the UN officially recognized 'the uniqueness, longevity and versatility of the Bicycle, which has been in use for two centuries, and that it is a simple, affordable, reliable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means of transportation.'

German Karl von Drais is credited with creating the first version of a bike in 1817; it was a heavy wooden contraption that the rider pushed forward with his or her feet. It had many names—the 'draisine,' velocipede, and dandy horse--and it was a fad for a few years, but eventually the bike was banned because it was too dangerous (no brakes!).

The bicycle has gone through many iterations since then, from the less-than-comfortable 'boneshaker' in the 1860s, followed by the 'penny-farthing' with its huge front wheel, to today’s popular fatbikes and e-bikes. During one of America’s biking booms, in the 1970s, more bikes were sold than cars. Today bicycles remain as popular as ever, so whether it’s for recreation or transportation, the bicycle is here to stay.

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