You’d better be up for an adventure if you want to see the historic Mount Trumbull Schoolhouse – it’s at least 60 miles of questionable dirt roads to get there. We certainly had a good time visiting, but we were…
Climbing the Ladders to Alcove House
Probably one of my favorite hikes in Bandelier is Alcove House. One of the great things is that it’s not that much longer to take the Main Loop to the Alcove House Trail, so you get to see the cliff…
Climbing Ladders into Caves on Bandelier’s Main Loop
It’s not every day you get to climb a wooden ladder into the home of ancient American Indians. Maybe in Mesa Verde, on an official tour, or another tour with a guide or park ranger standing close by. But on…
Best Day Hikes in Death Valley National Park
Death Valley is a land of extremes – incredibly dry desert, mountains, bristlecone forests, cacti, sand dunes, wildflowers, canyons, old mines, and waterfalls, not to mention rich history, hiking options galore, and the bragging rights of “the lowest place in…
Book Review: Ramble On: A History of Hiking by Jeffery J. Doran
Disclaimer: I have known Jeff through social media for a number of years, and enjoyed and made good use of his websites (see the list here) even before we “friended”. We have also partnered on a number of books. Jeff…
Pueblos, Lizards, and More on the Pueblo Alto Loop
There are members of my group who have wanted to hike the Pueblo Alto Loop for about 23 years. That was when they saw a photo of Pueblo Bonito on the cover of their AAA road map and decided to…
Sneak Peak: Southwestern Variety at its Finest
I just got back from another hiking-adventure trip across the western US! It was different than any before, even as we visited old and new sites across Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and even Utah and Wyoming. There were high…
Rustic Trail North from Glass Beach – Beautiful!
If you want a rustic, realistic coastal trail experience near Fort Bragg (or want a more natural, realistic walk from Glass Beach), I highly recommend the near-social trail that extends north from Glass Beach along the bluff tops to the…
The “Hard” Trail from Glass Beach
Two sections of trail currently strike off from Glass Beach in the town of Fort Bragg, California. After you’ve seen the glass on the beach, you might as well take the “Hard Trail” south along the top of the headlands…
Misty Morning at Fort Clatsop
The Lewis & Clark National Historical Park is a wide-spread park (or really, collection of park units) near Astoria, the far north of Oregon, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. As far as we can deduce, this is…