During a trip to South Dakota last summer, I had the opportunity to visit two National Park Service (NPS) units that each have a cave as the primary feature. While Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument are separated by only 30 miles, to a visitor’s eye, the caves are very different. Jewel […]
Category: Hiking
Death Valley National Park- a Beautiful Desert
The name Death Valley conjurers up visions of a hot, dry, arid, ugly and lifeless place for most people. It is indeed the hottest, driest, and contains the lowest elevation point in the U.S. Death Valley National Park is located in the Mojave Desert. During the summer months, the temperature is frequently 120 oF (49 […]
Easy to Reach Waterfalls Near Mt. Shasta
There are four beautiful and easy to see waterfalls in the Mt. Shasta region of northern California that can be visited in a single day. Three are on the upper section of the McCloud River in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and the fourth is in McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park. The McCloud River waterfalls and […]
Gold Butte National Monument
National parks are places that have been set aside to protect an environmentally or culturally important area. There are currently 63 national parks, and I have been able to visit 40 of them. Although everybody has heard of our national parks, many people have no idea that there are 129 other parks termed national monuments […]
Echo Basin – In Search of Wildflowers
Late June through July is the prime wildflower season in the high meadows of the Oregon Cascades. I decided to hike the Echo Basin Trail in the Willamette National Forest on a wildflower quest. This trail is located between the Santiam and Tombstone Passes in the “Old Cascades”, a geological region of mountains that are […]
A Super Easy Waterfall Hike
Sweet Creek Falls Although Sweet Creek Falls is the ultimate prize, this 2.2 mile roundtrip out-and-back trail is a beautiful and easy hike along a creek that cascades and tumbles through a canyon in the Coast Range near Mapleton, Oregon. The hike stretches to 2.4 miles if you climb to the upper viewpoint of Sweet […]