Chilling on the California Coast
Shut down for months by the pandemic, we thrilled at stepping back onto the trail last week deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Ticks lurked. Covid-19 loomed. Poison oak loitered in the underbrush. It was glorious! Continue reading “A Walk in the Santa Cruz Mountains at Pescadero Creek Park Eases COVID-19 Blues”
If visiting an uplifted riverbed choked with 150-million-year-old dinosaur bones isn’t enough of a thrill at Dinosaur National Monument, be sure to hike the gouged and twisted landscapes of the Sound of Silence Trail. Continue reading “A ‘Wall of Bones’ and Tortured Landscapes at Dinosaur National Monument”
Chill air, an icy trail and high wind beneath blue skies greeted us at 10,400 feet as we stepped off to take on the Lookout Lakes Trail in Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. No problem. But an earworm of the classic “Smokey Bear” song nearly drove us nuts. Continue reading “A Rather Blustery Lakeside Hike High in Wyoming’s Medicine Bow Mountains”
Scotts Bluff National Monument is named for Hiram Scott, a fur trade clerk who died nearby in 1828 after taking ill on the trail home to Missouri. We visited this fall on the road home to California with considerably less drama. We hiked to the top. Nobody died.
Continue reading “Westward Ho on the Saddle Rock Trail at Scotts Bluff National Monument”
Roadside attractions were plentiful on our drive across the American West this fall. Most were quirky, some historic, a few disappointing. But our favorite was Carhenge in Alliance, NE. We visited at sunrise.
Continue reading “Sunrise at Carhenge: Nebraska’s Nod to Stonehenge Revs Our Imaginations”
Last in a series: “It’s just a hike. It’s just a hike,” our guide Rob insisted as he prepped us for our trek up the Ascencio Valley to the namesake towers of Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. Then why did he have to say it twice?
Continue reading “Assessing the Ascencio Valley Trail at Torres del Paine: Is it ‘Just a Hike’?”