Top 10 Hikes in 2024

Grinnell Glacier, Glacier National Park, August 2024 Well, better late than never? We are now halfway into 2025, but, alas, work and other priorities produced a heavy backlog of blog posts from hikes in 2024 that I was only able to complete in the past few months. Yet the tradition of looking back on the …

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Mount Saint Helena (Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, CA)

Mount Saint Helena, Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, February 2024 Long before the Napa area became renowned for wine-making, author Robert Louis Stevenson—of Treasure Island fame—spent an extended stay here on the slopes of Mt. St. Helena, one of the highest peaks in northern California’s Mayacamas Mountains. The trip in 1880 inspired The Silverado Squatters …

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Bald Mountain Loop (Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, CA)

Towering above California’s wine country, Bald Mountain (2,729’) is the highest point in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and one of the tallest peaks in the Mayacamas Mountains, a subset of the Coast Range in the North Bay. While the main draw of Sugarloaf Ridge is the nearby 25-foot seasonal waterfall, hearty hikers can trek to …

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Table Rock Trail (Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, CA)

In his oft-forgotten 1883 travelogue The Silverado Squatters, Robert Louis Stevenson of Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde lore writes of a “sylvan solitude,” where “the silence was unbroken but by the great, vague voice of the wind.” Far from his native Scotland, the adventure-hungry wordsmith is here describing the quiet, pine-studded mountains …

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