Water is scarce in the desert. What little you do find is usually seeping from a tiny crack in the bright red sandstone or a murky, stagnant puddle of rainwater lazily evaporating into the arid heat. Rivers can be clear but are quick to muddy after any precipitation. The Colorado River is, more often that […]
Having just visited Hawaii, I was curious about the island chain and all its volcanoes. I’ve read a few general things about the volcanoes in my travel guidebooks, but I wanted more details. Which ones are active? Is it possible to reach the summit on all of them? Which ones are accessible by car or by […]
Lost cities don’t exist. They are confined to the bottoms of oceans and 19th-century jungles. As children, we all eventually give up on looking for buried treasure in backyards, or undiscovered, ancient ruins down the block because at this point humanity has been around long enough to stumble over most of them. Long before I […]
Many have heard about the state highpoints quest and contemplated it over a beverage or two. An experienced mountaineer or even someone who is fit and very determined could do most of the peaks. You could even get a little help, like on Rainier where climbers often use a guide service. Denali in Alaska however, is in […]
There is a reason why the Ansel Adams photographs of the Snake River and the Tetons have become some of his most recognizable works. The dramatic contrast between the flat river valley and the steep peaks is stunning. Grand Teton stands erect at 13,770 feet and Jenny Lake, at its base, sits at 6,783 feet. […]
Mount Stuart looks out over the Teanaway and Yakima River valleys in rural Kittitas County, Washington. From the summit, the views extend from Mt. Adams to Mt. Baker and practically every inner-Cascade range in between. Stu is one of the tallest non-volcanic peaks in the state at 9,415 feet and said to be a solid chunk […]
In our book, 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Seattle, Andrew Weber and I barely mention one of the coolest and most unique hikes in the region. It just gets one paragraph as a “Nearby Activity” tagged onto the hike description for Lime Kiln Trail, but it deserves much more. The reason the trail didn’t get […]
The Southern Sixers are 53 peaks in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee that all stand above 6,000 feet in elevation. Other than Mount Washington in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire, these mountains are the only 6,000-footers east of the Mississippi. This relatively tight cluster of high summits offers an enticing opportunity […]
Want to join a club where the only membership fee is bagging peaks? If you live in the Northeast and love to hike, then put this one on your to-do list. Each of the 46 peaks on this historic list is in Adirondack Park in upstate New York. Why is this list historic? Well, when […]
This is the second installment of a series of articles examining protection of Cedar Mesa and the proposed Bears Ears National Monument. In his 1996 book In Search of the Old Ones, adventure writer David Roberts described stumbling across Moon House, which he called “The most striking Anasazi ruin I had ever seen”: I had […]
