The Leigh Lake Trail in Grand Teton National Park is famous and with good reason. If you can get far enough (but not too far) along the trail, the views of the mountains reflected in the lake are just beautiful. …
Mountains and Valleys
I love mountaintops. Most of my favorite hikes have been high-elevation – peaks overlooking the mountains, ridgelines with views to mountains or countrysides, even meadowed mountainsides. Get me above treeline with great views to cliffs and mountains and meadows, and…
The Spectacular Wonders of the Highline Trail
If there’s one classic hike in the National Parks that’s universally hailed as “don’t miss!”, it just might be the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park. Pain-for-gain, it probably has more spectacular views than most other hikes out there. That’s…
Climbing Star Dune in Great Sand Dunes National Park
Great Sand Dunes! Ever since he first saw the dunes in a book when he was five or six, one of my group members wanted to visit. Unfortunately, that first visit didn’t turn out so well due to a sandstorm,…
Climbing Goat Peak near Wanless Lake
While researching trails to hike in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in western Montana last spring, I discovered a couple of things: 1) While there are many trails in the Cabinets, you can’t find good information about most of them, and…
Icebergs & Views at Iceberg Lake
As many of you know, I’m not huge into alpine lakes. They’re nice enough if they have a good view around them, but a lake for a lake’s sake is not my idea of fun. (But maybe that’s because I…
Cliff Lake and Climbing St. Paul Peak
The Cabinet Mountains Wilderness is considered one of the most remote areas to hike in the lower 48 states. It’s true that it’s pretty remote – at least in terms of the full spectrum of wild animals that call the…
Copper Lake and Chicago Peak – Remote Cabinet Mountain Views
One of the more view-saturated hikes we took in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness actually has almost no trail. There is a trail – at least as far as Cliff Lake – but if you want to see everything in the…
Swiftcurrent Lookout – So Long a Hike, So Worth It!
I’m pretty much convinced that the Swiftcurrent Pass Trail to Swiftcurrent Peak is one of the most, if not the most, spectacular hike in Glacier National Park. (And yes, it might very well beat out the Highline Trail – at…
The Swiftcurrent Amphitheater – So Spectacular!
The most spectacular hike in Glacier National Park – and the most spectacular I’ve ever taken from Many Glacier – might very well be the hike up to the Swiftcurrent Lookout. The path passes three beautiful alpine lakes, a very…