Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California is most famous for its hellish and tormented volcanic landscape—but you would never know it on the park’s beautiful and green Paradise Meadows Trail. This 2.8-mile out-and-back follows a cascading tributary of Hat Creek as it tumbles through verdant hillsides and lush conifer forests and then culminates at …
Continue reading Paradise Meadows Trail (Lassen Volcanic National Park, CA)
Situated on a high plateau in the heart of West Virginia’s Appalachian country, Dolly Sods Wilderness in Monongahela National Forest offers alpine-like meadows and sweeping vistas that are virtually unparalleled in the mid-Atlantic. Once one of the state’s best kept secrets, Dolly Sods is now a popular backpacking destination and boasts a maze of interlocking …
Continue reading Blackbird Knob Loop (Dolly Sods Wilderness, WV)
- Revolutionary War Series - Morristown National Historic Park’s Jockey Hollow—once a sprawling winter camp for George Washington’s Continental Army in 1777 and 1779—is now a popular hiking destination for local New Jersey residents. Shielded from British forces by the Watchung Mountains, Jockey Hollow was a strategic location where Washington could train and prepare his …
Continue reading Yellow Trail (Morristown National Historical Park, NJ)
- Civil War Series - On May 5, 1862, as Confederates clashed with the Union Army nearby, Redoubts 1 and 2 remained silent during the Battle of Williamsburg, the first pitched battle of the Civil War’s Peninsula Campaign (March-July 1862). These redoubts constituted the far right flank of Confederate Col. John Magruder’s “third line” of …
- Civil War Series - On July 21, 1861, Union troops crossed northern Virginia’s Bull Run in pursuit of what was supposed to be the nascent Civil War’s first and only decisive battle. Spirits were high; Gen. Irvin McDowell, tasked by President Lincoln to oversee the offensive, led a hodgepodge of Northern volunteers, enlisted for …
Continue reading First Manassas Trail (Manassas National Battlefield Park, VA)
Live and Let Hike hit its stride in 2016, nearly tripling the number of visitors and page views seen in 2015. I also passed a new milestone—my 200th blog post—and greatly expanded the geographic breadth and depth of hike descriptions, including posts from Colorado, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, DC, and Quebec. Taking a break …
- Civil War Series - Occupying prime position atop a high hill in northern Washington, DC, Fort DeRussy was mostly quiet during the Civil War. But for two days in July 1864—when Confederate General Jubal Early’s Second Corps attacked the city, the war’s only raid on Washington—the artillerymen at the fort unleashed more than 100 …
More than a dozen hiking trails crisscross northern Virginia’s Sky Meadows State Park, situated on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains—and there is perhaps no better hike in the park than the moderately strenuous circuit described here. Scenic vistas abound as hikers make their way up South Ridge, head northeast along a section …
Continue reading South Ridge-Ambassador Whitehouse Trail Loop (Sky Meadows State Park, VA)
Maryland’s Sugarloaf Mountain, the area’s best known example of a monadnock, features a network of zigzagging trails, just an hour’s drive from Washington, DC. While climbing Sugarloaf itself is the park’s key attraction, the Blue Trail (a.k.a. Northern Peaks Trail) triples the fun with rocky climbs to three nearby summits, plus a short detour to …
Continue reading Northern Peaks Trail & White Rocks (Sugarloaf Mountain, MD)
The area between Virginia’s Sky Meadows State Park and West Virginia’s Harper’s Ferry boasts a section of the Appalachian Trail (AT) billed as the “Roller Coaster,” one of the AT’s toughest, up-and-down grinds. This 5-mile out-and-back to Raven Rocks covers a piece of the Roller Coaster, a hilly affair that ends at a scenic vista …
Continue reading Appalachian Trail to Raven Rocks (North Blue Ridge area, VA/WV)
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