The Mountain Farm Museum is an oasis of calm in the chaos of the Great Smokey Mountains, America's most visited National Park. Located on the North Carolina side of the park, this living history museum doesn't experience the same traffic density as similar attractions like Cades Cove. The Museum shares a parking lot with the Oconaluftee Visitor's Center with plenty of easy parking.
After tearing through the American west, it is a relief to finally take a bit of time to relax in the Alabama Hills. Those familiar with the location are envious. Those who are not familiar probably question what a place called “Alabama Hills” is doing outside of the state of Alabama. But, I assure you, you are familiar with these hills, even if you didn’t already know it.
Travel from Nucla, Colorado to the Utah border on the Rimrocker off-road and OHV trail. This overlanding route features rough terrain, sharp switchbacks, and steep cliffs.
Dive into the roughest stretch of the Rimrocker Trail from the Utah border to Moab, Utah: full of encroaching scrub-brush, rough rocky road, and majestic mountains.
Call it "Cowboy's Chaps", "Old Maid's Bloomers", or "Salt Wash Arch", the Delicate Arch is Arches National Park's largest freestanding arch.
We wing things. That's what we do. I've made a map of places we would like to go to and then base our routes on our final destination and what mapped points fall between our current location and destination. Exactly how our trip plays out each time is something we play by ear. In this case, we had ten days to travel to Oregon. Half way in, we discovered that we would be swinging by Arches National Park. Arches ranks as one of the most exciting National Parks that neither of us has ever visited. So, of course, we went.
The Devil's garden boasts a notably high concentration of arches, spires, and fins (narrow rock walls) in Arches National Park. Between the main loop and its many offshoots to iconic spots such as the landscape arch and the Double O Arch, hiking the Devil's Garden Trail can take anywhere from 1.9 to 7.9 miles with easy and difficult routes. If you are only going to make one spot in the Devil's Garden, it should be the Landscape Arch.
Most cars tackle the rough and rocky route to Zapata Falls for Zapata Falls, a relatively short but technically complicated hike/wade to an enclosed waterfall. In fact, there is even a parking lot at the base of the road, allowing hikers with low clearance cars to park and hike to the trailhead. But, for those with high clearance rigs and tolerance for profoundly bumpy roads, there is also a campground with breathtaking views.
The Sierra Nevada mountains range is host to a stunning range of natural diversity. With the ocean to the west, the desert to the east, and glacial mountaintops in between, there are new surprises to be encountered with each change in ecosystem. At about 4,700 feet in elevation and just off Alpine State Highway is a collection of giants that can grow to 325 feet tall and 33 feet wide - some as old as 2,000 years. Despite a turbulent, tragic, and occasionally uncertain history, these giants are now protected for all to enjoy in the Calaveras Big Trees State Park.
No Hands Bridge off highway 49 is a hiking destination crossing the North Fork of the American River in the California's Auburn State Recreation Area.