Last summer, while hiking in the Tetons, I needed a short hike with a nice view. Deciding that the description of Mount Leidy fit nicely, we set out on an adventure. The road was both worse and better than expected,…

Deserted View of the Tetons on Mount Leidy

Santa Elena Canyon: Get Your Rock into Mexico
I don’t know why, but my group has a fascination with throwing rocks across rivers into foreign countries. It’s not animosity. Perhaps it’s because they like the challenge of trying to throw that far, or perhaps it’s like a piece…

Beautiful, Beautiful Bonneville Pass
How could I ever have missed a hike as pretty as Bonneville Pass? All I can say is that Wyoming must have been holding out on us—I had no idea the state had views like this, let alone so close…

Truckhaven Rocks: Views, Scrambles, and Geology!
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park has many things that most places don’t, but Truckhaven Rocks sticks out in my mind. Why? Maybe it’s the desolate scenery. Or the eerie silence. Or the fact that it’s usually deserted. Or the lack of…

Tower Falls
Usually I write about the best I’ve run across while traveling, but sometimes it’s good to include a few places I don’t recommend or only found marginally interesting. It’s not that I don’t recommend Tower Falls (and I’d highly recommend…

Jockey Hollow: Wick House and Soldiers’ Huts
As I’ve said many times before, history is something that I enjoy. I like going to places where I can see where history happened and get an idea of what these places look like and looked like when history was…

Climb Mount Rearguard
Want a little adventure? A hiking adventure that has little or no trail through top-of-the-world scenery to the top of a craggy peak in the middle of nowhere? If this sounds like fun, than Mount Rearguard may be the hike…

A Little Mountain near Mount Rearguard
Ah…Top of the world views! I recently found a new place that offers them! A place I’ve never been before and—because of the road—I may never visit again. However, the views were spectacular: snowcapped peaks, mountain lakes, snowfields, rocks, and…

Walk through Train Tunnels: Manitou Railroad Grade
Do you like history? How about train tunnels? Or is a hike through the mountains more your thing? Along the mostly-unknown Manitou Railroad Grade near Colorado Springs, CO you can experience all these things, as well as much more. The…

The Splendor of Garnet Canyon
Garnet Canyon in Grand Teton National Park is spectacular. I mean, really, really spectacular. Other hikes (such as Table Mountain) are beautiful, but they don’t have the jaw-dropping splendor of Garnet Canyon. As you’re hiking along, you keep looking up,…