Ithaca Falls, Ithaca Falls Natural Area, June 2023 If it were merely a single strand of the massive, 150-foot-tall falls that was flowing, this would still be an impressive sight. And yet we get much more with Ithaca Falls, easily the tallest, widest, and arguably most stunning of the many waterfalls inside the city of …
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Carpenter Falls, Carpenter Falls Unique Area, June 2023 Situated in a gorge just west of Skaneateles Lake, Carpenter Falls tumbles 90 feet in one drop, making this one of the more impressive waterfalls within an hour’s drive from both Syracuse and Ithaca, New York. A wooden boardwalk, which is wheelchair accessible, extends for 1/10 mile …
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Packrat Trail, Saguaro National Park, November 2022 Southern Arizona’s Saguaro National Park—split into two districts separated by the San Luis Valley—feels in some ways like a local park due to its proximity to Tucson, Arizona’s second-largest city. Taking off from this neighborhood or that, numerous hiking trails wander into the arid, desert landscape, exploring cactus-studded …
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Daemonelix Trail, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, July 2022 Imagine a creature roughly approximating a beaver or large prairie dog but one that digs holes in a spiral nearly 10 feet deep, forming tunnels resembling a corkscrew or drill bit: this is the curious activity of the prehistoric paleocastor, which lived between 20-30 million years …
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Fossil Hills Trail, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, July 2022 Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in northwest Nebraska was established a mere quarter century ago—in June 1997—but its famed mammal fossils date to the early Paleocene Epoch, just after the mass extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Dozens of fossil skeletons were discovered in …
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Fort Falls Trail, Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, July 2022 A pioneer of environmental conservation, President Theodore Roosevelt created, with the stroke of a pen in January 1912, Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge in northern Nebraska, protecting a “preserve and breeding ground for native birds.” The refuge also protects herds of bison and elk—rarities on …
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Smith Falls, Smith Falls State Park, July 2022 “Honestly, it’s not for everyone” – so goes the official tourism slogan for the state of Nebraska, a Great Plains state notable mostly for its fields of corn and the invention of the Reuben sandwich and Kool-Aid. The tourism campaign is tongue-in-cheek, of course, but it may …
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Calumet Bluff Trail, Gavin's Point Dam area, July 2022 During the first summer of the famed Lewis & Clark Expedition in 1804, the travelling company camped for four nights at the base of a high bluff along the Missouri River, described by the party as “composed of a yellowish red, and brownish clay as hard …
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Gavin's Point Nature Trail, Lewis & Clark Recreation Area, July 2022 Created by the Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark Lake spans more than 31,000 on the border of Nebraska and South Dakota. While the massive reservoir conceals the original river embankments, it is paralleled on both sides by Niobrara chalk …
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Spirit Mound Trail, Spirit Mound Historic Prairie, July 2022 With a system of dams effectively flooding much of the Missouri River shoreline where Meriweather Lewis and William Clark once camped during their 1803-6 expedition, there are few places left where one can walk, with certainty, in the footsteps of the famed explorers. One such spot, …
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