I’ve always though of two things when I hear the word “Yosemite”: lots of crowds, and waterfalls. However, in my two former trips to Yosemite Valley, I’d never gotten it through my head that it’s also very pretty. There are…
Big Bend Balancing Rock Arch: Grapevine Hills Trail
In Big Bend National Park is a valley that seems full of rocks. Unlike the Chisos Basin, this part of the park is defiantly desert, but with rocks and boulders strewn everywhere, up the hillsides, in the valley, and my…
Nicest Trail to the Window: Oak Springs Trail
“The Window” in Big Bend is a very popular destination. Every year thousands of people climb down the steep trail from the Chisos Basin Visitor Center to the small V opening in the wall of a cliff, where all of…
Six-Story Limestone Lexington Arch
Great Basin National Park in itself is a less-visited park than many in the national park system. Add to this fact that most of the people who do visit go to see Lehman Caves, climb Mt. Wheeler, and/or see the…
Prettiest Hike in Organ Pipe: Bull Pasture
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument may be known as much for being directly on the Mexican boarder as for the cactus that gives it its name. From almost anywhere in the park, you can look south and see into a…
Hoodoos in a Desert Meadow: Chesler Park
Chesler Park is one of my favorite places in Canyonlands National Park. It’s so pretty and awe-inspiring with red and white sandstone towers and hoodoos rimming a desert meadow filled with desert grass and low scrub. Chesler Park is the…
Highest Paved Trail in Rocky Mountain: Toll Memorial
The Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park is an awesome feat of engineering. The road itself twists and turns its way up the side of a mountain, then across the tundra and down the other side, giving drivers—or…
Other Earthly “Caves” in Cathedral Gorge
Imagine a vista that looks like a cross between Bryce Canyon, The Slots (Anza-Borrego Desert State Park), drip-castles we made out of watery sand at the beach, and something totally other-earthly. Something you’ve seen in a movie about another planet. …
Prettiest Scenic Drive I’ve Found in Utah: The Potash Road
One evening in May, we decided to drive to the end of Rt 270 from Moab, Utah, to find a place to camp. After the Potash plant, the road becomes dirt, but it’s a fairly good road as dirt roads…
Nevada’s Only Glacier & Bristlecone Pine Forest
Nevada has only one glacier. I’ll admit that I didn’t think it had any, although the state does have a few mountain ranges running through it. The one-and-only is situated below Wheeler Peak, the highest mountain in Great Basin National…