I love hiking. It’s great to get out and stretch your legs, and it’s so rewarding to see a beautiful vista or interesting sight at the end of the trail. However, there are times when it’s nice not to hike, as well. To be able to just walk on the trail or off the trail [...]
Carrizo Plain National Monument is fairly new as national monuments go. The park was established in 2001 from land in Southern California that had been a part of the Carrizo Plain Natural Area. When I visited the monument a couple years ago, I found that it had barely been developed, although there was a visitor [...]
don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like the Flattops Wilderness in northern Colorado. Ever. This pristine wilderness has some of the most grand views I’ve seen, and the top-of-the-world feeling is simply out of this world. I can try to compare it to “Christina’s World” (the painting by Andrew Wyeth), but that’s only part [...]
The Teanaway region of Washington is beautiful (I think I said that in another post, but I’ll say it again here because it’s true…it’s lovely!). However, almost any region has its trails that are really hyped up, but actually don’t give you what you were expecting. Ingalls Pass fits this description nicely. There are views [...]
If you’ve ever read the Ideas on Free Camping page of my website, you know that I much prefer free campgrounds to campgrounds that charge a fee. Part of this is due to the size of my group (many campgrounds have limits as to how many people can camp in a certain campsite), and part [...]
Ok, so we finally did find the Summer Blossom Trail…it took us a while, but we finally did find it! After finishing up the Summit Trail hike the day before, we continued down the road for another two miles and came upon a sign on the left side of the road: “Summer Blossom Trail: Maintained [...]
Driven away from the Mount Baker/North Cascades area due to too much snow, and unable to visit other places on our Washington itinerary due to unfavorable weather reports, I needed to find someplace nice to spend a day. I’d read about a trail in central Washington (which was supposed to have good weather) called “Summer [...]
Mt. Stewart has got to be one of the prettiest mountains in the Teanaway area. It seems to be visible from just about any viewpoint in the area, and it gives you a reference point: “Oh, there’s Mt. Stewart again!” However, the best view I ever got of the mountain was from Longs Pass, just [...]
I visited Hovenweep National Monument inside of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument several years ago, but didn’t find it too exciting. Others in my group liked the square towers and round towers, but I guess I thought I’d seen better Indian dwellings before. However, on a recent trip I visited the Lowry Pueblo in [...]
The Teanaway region of Washington is absolutely beautiful. Snowcapped peaks rise among low-lying hills, with a cross between northern-US desert and alpine forest. As our introduction to the region, we hiked up Teanaway Ridge, a 3 mile trail up to a viewpoint of Mt. Stewart. Although you are farther away here than elsewhere in the [...]
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