Sporting one of California’s finest talus caves and shoreline access to a picturesque, rock-hewn reservoir, the Bear Gulch Cave Trail is one of the most popular hikes in Pinnacles National Park. Here a jumble of boulders, so large and tightly-packed that it blankets the ground with darkness, forms subterranean passages home to a resident colony …
Continue reading Bear Gulch Cave – Rim Trail Loop (Pinnacles National Park, CA)
Originally the work of volcanoes 23 million years ago, the rocks of today’s Pinnacles National Park were moved, upended, chiseled, and weathered by water, wind, and the infamous temper of the San Andreas Fault in central California. The result is a wild paradise of formations, boulders, spires, and talus caves, less than a two-hour’s drive …
Continue reading Condor Gulch – High Peaks Trail Loop (Pinnacles National Park, CA)
At 3,849 feet, Mount Diablo is one of the highest and most prominent peaks in the San Francisco Bay Area and perhaps the most well-known mountain in the East Bay. Taking its name from a linguistic accident in the early 19th century, this “Devil’s Mountain” makes for a very long and imposing climb for modern …
Continue reading Mount Diablo via Eagle Peak and Mitchell Canyon (Mount Diablo State Park, CA)
The San Francisco Bay Area in northern California is a fantastic launching point for redwood hunters, with accessible groves of these mesmerizing trees within an hour and a half both north and south of the Golden Gate. While the largest groves lie further north, the Santa Cruz Mountains between the Bay Area and Santa Cruz …
Continue reading Purisima Creek Redwoods Loop (Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, CA)
As glaciers carved the various canyons of Grand Teton National Park, they pushed enormous heaps of rocky debris down to the base of the sharp peaks, forming what geologists and climatologists today call moraines. In the centuries—millennia—that passed, the retreating glaciers left behind still, blue lakes, and vibrant evergreen forests and meadows blanketed the moraines, …
- Civil War Series - Well before he rose to prominence as an Illinois politician and 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln spent much of his boyhood on a modest farmstead at Little Pigeon Creek in southern Indiana. It was here that young Abe, from 1816 to 1830, came of age: he worked …
Continue reading Lincoln Boyhood Loop (Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, IN)
Of the many hikes in the Peaks of Otter Recreation Area—part of Jefferson National Forest in central Virginia—the most popular is the Sharp Top Trail for its stunning views of the area. A second walk to consider, however, is the nearby Fallingwater Cascades Trail, which explores a shaded stream valley just off the northbound Blue …
Continue reading Fallingwater Cascades Trail (Jefferson National Forest, VA)
What precisely happened on May 28, 1754 at Jumonville Glen in southwestern Pennsylvania remains unknown to this day. British forces led by a young Lieutenant Colonel George Washington claimed that, when they encountered a French contingent encamped at the base of a cliff, the French fired first. The French forces, commanded at the time by …
Continue reading Jumonville Glen Trail (Fort Necessity National Battlefield, PA)
The roughly one-mile circuit hike in Maryland’s Swallow Falls State Park would be impressive enough if its only attraction was the last remaining stand of virgin hemlock and white pine trees in the state. But in addition to this exquisite forest, the Swallow Falls Canyon Trail also passes four waterfalls, cuts under towering sandstone cliffs, …
Continue reading Swallow Falls Canyon Trail (Swallow Falls State Park, MD)
- Civil War Series - 1861 was a rough year on the battlefield for Union forces in the Eastern Theater. After the Civil War commenced at Fort Sumter in April, the young Federal Army suffered a significant setback at the First Battle of Bull Run in July. Although the Confederate Army failed to push the …
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