I 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…
Reynolds Mountain: Too Pretty for Words
One of the things I’ve realized about Glacier National Park is that they don’t tell you about all of the trails that are out there. You look at the literature they give you, and there’s a lot of hiking, mostly…
Mississippi Watchtower
While visiting the Headwaters of the Mississippi River, a park ranger told us about another of the park’s features: a 100-foot observation tower, located in the middle of Itasca State Park. Having an hour or two to spare, we decided…
Good Views and a Fire Lookout, Too at Numa Lookout
Glacier National Park has always been synonymous in my mind with rain. From my experience, “Partly Cloudy” means “Pouring Rain All Day”. However, on our last trip to the park, Glacier redeemed itself: although it did rain two of the…
Into the Heart of the Cascades: Twisp Pass
On a recent trip to Washington State, we were longing for a glimpse of some real, honest-to-goodness North Cascade scenery. Unfortunately, the Cascades, including North Cascade National Park, were still snowed in, due to heavy snowfall and cool summer temperatures. …
Grand View in Grand Teton
Grand Teton is a beautiful park. The mountains are some of the prettiest in the state (maybe the country), and lovely lakes reflect the peaks in their quiet waters. However, it’s not much of a day-hiker’s paradise—in fact, there are…
Garden of Music: The Toronto Music Garden
Last summer, I attended a conference in Toronto, Canada. We had the afternoon off, so several of us decided to check out the waterfront near the CN Tower. Instead of just seeing boats and walking along Lake Ontario, we discovered…
Arboretum Trail System at Kent Park
About a year ago, I posted about the Kent Park Arboretum in Webster, NY. Well, just for old time’s sake, I recently visited the arboretum again. This time, however, instead of simply looking at the flowers, we continued on to…
Perfect Reflection of Mt Hood
Although I’ve driven past Mt. Hood several times over the years, I had never actually stopped to hike in the area until this past summer. I didn’t regret the decision to stop here: the area is beautiful, and Mt. Hood,…
The Serengeti in the US: Saratoga Springs
In the far south-east part of Death Valley National Park is a dirt road. That’s no big surprise, as there are lots of dirt roads in this section of the park, but on this particular dirt road is another dirt…