Mountaintop adventures
October 10, 2023
I left Gatlinburg well before dawn, in hopes of getting up and into Great Smoky Mountains National Park sans traffic jams. This basically worked. I wound my way through the pitch darkness of the forest, en route to the high ridge crest at Newfound Gap. The lack of views did not bum me out: I’d be coming back the same way later that day.
Continue reading “Charlies Bunion (Great Smoky Mountains NP)”
August 5, 2023
I drove up from Mammoth Lakes. I passed the massive Mono Lake in total darkness, turning off the main road and climbing towards Tioga Pass. Around 5 am I entered the park, passing through Tuolumne Meadows and towards the upper rim of Yosemite Valley. Finally, I arrived at a small dirt parking area, where my hike began.
Continue reading “Mount Watkins—stunning views above Yosemite Valley”
October 3, 2022
I woke up bright and early for a sunrise (ish) hike in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. By now, I had spent the better part of a week soaking in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. I flew into Queenstown and worked my way north, including a sunset hike near Mount Cook the evening prior. But these tall, rugged, glacier-clad peaks continued to feel nothing short of stunning.
Continue reading “Sealy Tarns Track”
November 28, 2021
The United States has no shortage of amazing, beautiful volcanoes. And some of them, while dormant, are very much not extinct. Some have erupted within the past century.
All that said, you shouldn’t visit most of these places expecting to see a molten lake of lava. Unless of course, you are visiting Kīlauea! Kīlauea has been erupting, nearly continuously, for the past 40 years. As luck would have it, I found myself on the Big Island of Hawaii at an opportune moment to witness its fresh, spewing lava first-hand. (The name Kīlauea in fact means “spewing”).
Continue reading “Kīlauea Iki Trail (Hawaii Volcanoes NP)”
August 27, 2021
The great state of Colorado spans 10,000′ in elevation and over 450 miles in extent. Its geography and climate span an equally impressive range. A single day’s drive can take you from the high eastern plains to red rock desert, with the spine of the Rockies in between.
Continue reading “High Dune (Great Sand Dunes NP)”
August 27, 2021
Mesa Verde National Park features elaborate cliff dwellings and myriad archeological sites. The structures, excavations, and artifacts span over a thousand years of ancestral Puebloan history. The park divides into two large sub-mesas. Chapin Mesa hosts crowd favorites like Cliff Palace and Square Tower House. But the quieter Wetherill Mesa features its own set of large cliff dwellings, like Mug House, Step House, and Long House.
Continue reading “Long House (Mesa Verde NP)”
August 27, 2021
Mesa Verde National Park features a unique blend of stunning scenery and over a thousand years of archeological treasures. Ancestral Puebloan people built elaborate cliff dwellings on this high cuesta just beyond the Rocky Mountains.
Continue reading “Petroglyph Point Trail (Mesa Verde NP)”
August 27, 2021
During my recent visit to Mesa Verde National Park, I took a ranger-guided tour of Square Tower House. The “house” consists of a set of stone dwellings built into a cliffside by the ancestral Puebloans. The park contains roughly half a dozen major dwelling sites periodically open to the public in some fashion. Square Tower in particular features the tallest ancient structure in the park.
Continue reading “Square Tower House (Mesa Verde NP)”
August 26, 2021
Colorado boasts an impressive roster of four national parks. Everyone knows Rocky Mountain National Park. It ranks among the most popular in the country, with roughly 4.4 million visitors in 2021 alone. But way over in the southwest corner of the state lies Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde ranks as Colorado’s least-visited, but arguably one of the nation’s most unique.
Continue reading “Mesa Verde National Park”
June 3, 2021
They say the early bird catches the worm. But in Moab, Utah, the early bird catches brisk hikes to incredible sunrises—and way fewer crowds. And so I found myself breezing past a shuttered entrance booth at Arches National Park around 4:30 in the morning.
Continue reading “Delicate Arch at Sunrise (Arches NP)”