Tower Trail, Devils Tower National Monument, August 2024 From the Bighorn Canyon area, I set out across the Bighorn Mountains and visited Little Bighorn Battlefield before leaving the Rockies behind. Traversing a whole lot of nothing between Buffalo, Wyoming and the Black Hills, I made it to Devils Tower National Monument in the late afternoon. …
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Strenuous climb up Lassen Peak Trail to the summit of a recently active volcano with 360-degree panoramic views.
Devil's Kitchen is Lassen's second-largest geothermal area and a thoroughly smelly experience in the park's Warner Valley area.
Sibley Volcanic Loop, Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, March 2020 Despite being located on the Ring of Fire, it is easy to forget California’s volcanic past. Beginning roughly 8-10 million years ago, what are now the Berkeley Hills of the East Bay were the epicenter of a series of volcanic eruptions that flooded the area with …
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“A weird and scenic landscape, peculiar to itself” is how President Calvin Coolidge described the volcanic, lunar-like landscape in south-central Idaho when he created Craters of the Moon National Monument in 1924. In the years before the designation, hearty explorers and geologists had crisscrossed and documented the unique volcanic features of the area, discovering a …
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Oregon’s Crater Lake, America’s deepest lake, is also arguably its bluest. Fed entirely by rain water and snowmelt, this natural wonder and centerpiece of Crater Lake National Park was formed after the explosion of an ancient volcano—Mount Mazama—about 7,700 years ago. Volcanic features dot the landscape around the lake, including the Pinnacles, a set of …
California Route 89—also known as the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway or Lassen Volcanic National Park Highway—spends nearly 30 miles weaving through Lassen Volcanic National Park. In addition to circling the park’s namesake (Lassen Peak, 10, 457’), this scenic drive connects low-lying lakes with high-altitude meadows and geothermal features and provides access to more than a …
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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Live and Let Hike 