The hike to the Clingmans Dome Observation Tower Hike is a short but steep half mile hike with an 311 foot elevation gain. It is an incredibly popular path—old and young stop to catch their breaths at the many benches along the path. While we leaned into the incline and trudged up the steep path even we were huffing and puffing with the high elevation exercise.
It has been nearly a year since we last came to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The first time was specifically to enjoy fall, this time was a pleasant coincidence, returning from the Overland Expo.
The Blue Ridge Parkway stretches 469 miles along the crest of the Blue Ridge mountains between North Carolina and Virginia. The parkway was constructed to connect the Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The resulting thoroughfare is it the longest road planned as a single unit in the United States and the longest linear park. Most any iconic shot of the Smoky Mountains was taken from along this route.
The most important thing to remember about Mackinac Island is to call it "Mackinaw Island." It would be a devastating faux pas to pronounce the silent "c." After that, one might want to make some airy allusion to dinner at the Grand Hotel, which charges any non-hotel guest $10 just to enter the grounds. Mackinac Island is a place of meticulous refinement. While it may be suspended between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan the island's classic victorian mansions and elegant hotels tell a different tale. This 3.8 square mile island might as well have been plucked from some east coast seaside village and dropped in Lake Huron.
The bluffs, spires, and gorges of the Badlands National Park are thanks to delicate rock which is easily eroded by wind and rain. One of the locations that these dramatic formations are best experienced is along the Window Trail.
Notch Trail is not for those afraid of heights. It doesn't help that the rope ladder to the butte shelf is easier to climb up than down. But for those with the constitution to scramble the 1.5 mile loop along a butte outcropping, there are magnificent and exclusive vistas to be experienced
The Badlands National Park has a wealth of short hikes for visitors to enjoy. The Cliff Shelf Nature Trail is only a half mile boardwalk loop trails through a small juniper forest and sporting views of eroded sandstone buttes.
Badlands National Park can get remarkably hot in the summer. Granted, it's no Death Valley, but the idea of an extended hike in the midday heat is unwelcome. So, the quarter mile loop of the Fossil Exhibit Trail is an opportunity to get out and stretch ones legs without working up a sweat.
Buffalo may wander through Sage Creek Campground. Tent campers are warned that buffalo may try to scratch themselves against the tends. It's all fun and games, though, until the buffalo roles.
The 2.8 mile dirt around Devils Tower National Monument trail has moderate dips and rises and wanders outside of tree cover, making it a more difficult hike than Tower Trail but only an moderate overall challenge.