Across the country, all National Park Service entrance fees will be waived during National Park Week (April 16-24, 2016) and you’ll find special activities, starting with National Junior Ranger Day Saturday, April 16, when parks and monuments host kid-oriented activities, debuting the new Centennial Junior Ranger booklet and badge.
Throughout National Parks Week, many parks will also host Every Kid in a Park events, which encourages fourth-grade students to visit national parks and other public lands by offering a free annual pass. This year’s National Park Service Centennial is a great time to go.
Just in New Mexico, a popular spring break and summer family destination, you have your choice of 10 national monuments that offer a wide range of experiences – climbing up ladders to peer into ancient pueblo dwellings, sliding down the huge sand dunes at White Sands National Monument, exploring the history of the Manhattan Project and the beginning of the atomic age at the newly designated National Historic Park in Los Alamos. Learn all about stalactites, stalagmites and bats at Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
The petroglyphs are amazing – a turkey here, a face there, one that looks like an alien – there are nearly 1,000. Archaeologists believe the ancestral pueblo people are descended from groups of hunters and gatherers who came here more than 10,000 years ago; they lived here roughly between the 1100s and 1500s. The Bandelier park museum is a good place to learn more before you head out into the park.
Hemlock Cliffs might be a small area, but it’s rugged. To get to the clearing on top of the water fall, hikers walk along a narrow path not far from the edge of the cliff. Single-file is a must. To reach the creek bed, hikers descend a collection of large stones that passes for stairs.
If the stones are wet or covered with leaves, they’re slick. One misstep could lead to a concussion. Traversing the beginning of the trail near the waterfall and a section farther down the creek near a giant basin carved out of the sandstone from centuries of erosion is more like bouldering than hiking, but it’s worth the physical exertion.
In the early spring warmth, the icicles have started to melt, making the cliffside glitter under the clear blue sky. Even when there’s not a cloud in sight, it sounds like it’s raining and the ground is damp from the melting ice. A few green spots are starting to pop out.
It’s not just the recreation that makes Hemlock Cliffs a unique place. The U.S Department of Agriculture Forest Service recognizes Hemlock Cliffs as a designated special place for its archaeological and botanical value.
Native American artifacts from as early as 10,000 years ago have been unearthed in the area, and historians believe the ancient people used the caves carved into the sandstone as shelters. For plant lovers, wintergreen, a rare type of mint, wild geranium, French shooting stars, liverwort, mountain laurel and, of course, hemlock trees all grow in the creek bed.
Dave Page knows a thing or two about boot care. He’s owned a boot repair shop in Seattle for the past 40 years (aptly named Dave Page, Cobbler). Dave and his employees have worked on thousands of hikers. They are also authorized repair agents for 18 outdoor brands. Here are his top five maintenance tips:
Here’s more about breaking in your hiking boots
A group of determined Alaskans hopes to create an 800-mile trail that will trace the state’s famous pipeline from Arctic Sea to Pacific tidewater.
Alaska’s wildlands are famous for their lack of official paths — even national parks like Denali and Wrangell-St. Elias remain mostly track-free. Now some Alaskans want to change that in a big way. The just-announced Trans-Alaska Trail would offer ambitious hikers a chance to walk 800 miles across the state from the Pacific coast town of Valdez to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Sea. The route would cross the massive Chugach, Alaska, and Brooks Ranges, and offer hikers hardy enough to brave it heroic doses of giant glaciers, empty taiga, and tundra teeming with wildlife along the way.
That such an ambitious idea is remotely possible largely rests on the fact that it (mostly) already exists. The trail would follow an existing gravel service pad for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS). Pipeline operator Alyeska currently uses it to service the structure; the company allows recreational access on a case-by-case basis.
The pipeline itself tunnels underground and out of sight for about half its length. For the other half, where Arctic permafrost prevents burial, it snakes across the landscape next to the trail, often suspended above ground to accommodate migrating caribou and earthquakes alike.
But making the Trans-Alaska trail real would require cooperation from federal, state, native, and private landowners.
The Western New Mexico University Outdoor Program will have its first gear swap from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 16, 2016 at the Big Ditch Park, in conjunction with the Continental Divide Trail Coalition Trail Days.
Silver City is the first Continental Divide Gateway Community, a designation that in-part recognizes the town for its forward thinking in protecting the regions rich natural, cultural and recreational resources.
Western New Mexico University is unique among New Mexico universities, with easy access to more than 3 million acres of National Forest within hiking distance of campus. In fact, Western New Mexico University is one of the few universities in the country where the Science Department actively incorporates applied field studies, and why not? The main campus is located in one of the most ecologically diverse regions of North America.
“While many people live in Silver City because of the outdoors, some individuals possess virtually no experience in, or with, the natural world. The Outdoor Program staff felt that a gear swap would be a really great way to have a robust conversation about the outdoors and what it means to live in this unique area. People don’t have to have a lot of money to spend time in the outdoors, and a gear swap is a great way to recycle gently used outdoor equipment, getting gear into the hands of people who are looking for a good deal,” says the program Director.
Made possible with a grant from the Montana Office of Tourism, the Montana Wilderness Association have now launched Montana’s first online, statewide hiking guide, hikewildmontana.org.
The website, which has had over 70 MWA volunteers contribute to its development, already features more than 200 trail descriptions with more to come.
“Exploring our state’s natural wonders and accessing public lands is part of who we are as Montanans,” says Gov. Steve Bullock. “I am pleased that our state’s Office of Tourism was able to help Montana Wilderness Association create a 21st century tool for a tradition that is important to Montanans and essential to our quality of life.”
Hikewildmontana.org allows users to hike trails recommended by local residents, locate trails on an electronic map, choose a path based on distance and elevation gain, review trail conditions added by recent hikers and add their own trip reports, discover natural wonders and contribute their own trail descriptions.
In addition to providing trail information, hikewildmontana.org offers information about businesses near trailheads that offer outdoor supplies, as well as food, accommodations and other amenities.
Rebuilding hiking trails and restoring the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias are among nearly three dozen projects being funded by a $15 million donation to Yosemite National Park from The Yosemite Conservancy.
The project to protect the Mariposa Grove will improve natural water flows, re-establish sequoia habitat and create accessible trails.
Conservancy donors are also funding work to restore the meadow habitat of pollinators, such as bees, butterflies and hummingbirds, which play an essential role in healthy ecosystems.
Several major trails will be improved, including stretches of the John Muir Trail along the Tuolumne River, the Matterhorn Canyon section of the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Yosemite Falls Trail.
Funding will also restore populations of rare frogs and turtles, and protect the Sierra Nevada red fox, great gray and spotted owls and black bears.
Here’s a wine country secret that can help you raise your glass and your heart rate. Along with the Napa Valley’s famous wine-tasting trails, there are miles of scenic trails of the hiking variety, beckoning visitors who want to exercise more than their palates.
“There are so many great places up here,” says John Conover, partner and general manager of Odette Estate winery and an avid hiker.
From the mellow stroll of the Napa Vine Trail on the valley floor to more rugged hauls into the hills, hiking options have expanded in California wine country, and so has interest in wine country walking.
“It used to be people would come to Napa just asking about wine and food,” says Conover. Now, tasting-room visitors frequently ask about outdoor options as well, something he attributes to the general interest in staying fit.
Wine country visitors who want a taste of the outdoors have lots of options.
Here’s a sampling of some wine country trails…
Bryce Canyon National Park is one of Utah’s — and even the world’s — most stunning and colorful landscapes.
Generally speaking Bryce Canyon’s glowing hoodoo amphitheater is viewed from the rim, but as breathtaking as Bryce Canyon is from above, it is mesmerizing from within. And there’s perhaps no better way to experience Bryce Canyon’s landscape than by hiking the Navajo/Queen’s Garden loop.
“Why is it called Queen’s Garden?” you may ask. The name actually comes from a popular hoodoo along this section of Bryce Canyon’s trail system that bears some resemblance to a portrait of England’s Queen Victoria. Hiking this loop also offers a view of Bryce Canyon’s most famous formation “Thor’s Hammer.” However, these two features don’t even begin to highlight the incredible geological oddities you’ll encounter while hiking among Bryce’s towering hoodoos.
It’s because of the unique geology that the combined Navajo and Queen’s Garden trails have been called “The Best 3 Mile Hike in the World”, and if you spend much time hiking, you’ll realize how daring a claim that is.
The Cradle of Forestry in America historic site will begin the 2016 season on April 9 with a living history event, “Old Time Plowing and Folkways.” David and Diane Burnette from Haywood County will demonstrate how their Percheron draft horses work the land the old way. Weather permitting, they will plow the Cradle’s vegetable garden along the Biltmore Campus Trail and teach a skill that was once familiar to many.
The Cradle of Forestry’s living history volunteers will demonstrate their crafts among the historic buildings, including wood working, basket weaving, chair caning and crafting corn husk dolls. Toward the end of the day, fiddle tunes will fill the air by the garden.
The Cradle of Forestry will be open daily, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., from April 9 – November 6. At various times during the season, living history volunteers will demonstrate wood carving, fiber arts, blacksmithing, traditional music and making corn husk dolls. The Giving Tree Gift Shop at the Cradle offers many of their creations as well as forest related books, maps, gifts and snacks.
A full schedule of events is planned in 2016 including Migratory Bird Day April 30, the Songcatchers Music Series Sunday afternoons in July, and Forest Festival Day October 1. Visit www.cradleofforestry.com for a full event schedule, details and updates on interpretive programs and exhibits.
Admission to the Cradle of Forestry is $5.00 for adults and free for youth under 16 years of age. America the Beautiful passes, Golden Age Passports and Every Kid in a Park passes are honored. The Cradle of Forestry in America Interpretive Association provides free admission on Tuesdays.
Admission includes the new film, First in Forestry- Carl Alwin Schenck and The Biltmore Forest School, hands-on exhibits and scavenger hunts. It also includes historic cabins, antique equipment and forest scenery on three paved trails, the Adventure Zone designed to reach children with autism and engage young families, and guided trail tours and living history demonstrations when available.
The Cradle of Forestry is located on Hwy. 276 in the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, six miles north of Looking Glass Falls and four miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway. For more information call 828-877-3130 or go to www.cradleofforestry.com.
Caution: “Smuggling and illegal immigration may be encountered in this area.”
Visitors to state and national parks, monuments and memorials in Southern Arizona have undoubtedly seen these signs posted along popular hiking trails. The sites near the Mexico border are great spots to find hiking, bird watching and camping, but also provide the perfect place for undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers to cross into the U.S.
However, visitors are now unlikely to see any illegal border activity. One reason: Border Patrol now has an operating base inside the national park unit facilities, which has led to more officers being assigned to help reduce illegal border activity.
A safer area includes Organ Pipe National Monument, which is west of the Tohono O’odham Nation in western Pima County. The 517 square-mile park stretches almost 30 miles across the Mexico border and was created in 1937 to preserve a pristine example of Sonoran Desert habitat. The monument — which boasts of hundreds of miles of scenic drives, dozens of miles of hiking grounds, and campgrounds — is home to many endangered Sonoran animals.
Smuggling and illegal border crossing became such a problem by 2003 that most sections of Organ Pipe were closed off to the public. That year, it also was named one of 10 deadliest national parks. Illegal border crossers and drug smuggling not only threaten the safety of visitors to the park, but they also damaged the health and safety of these unique ecosystems.
In 2014, Organ Pipe reopened all areas of the monument to the public, with more than 210,000 people visiting the park that year. Organ Pipe has also seen a reduction in border activity due to a higher presence of Border Patrol officers and overall decreasing trends in illegal border activity.
For Portlanders, “getaway” might be a bit of a stretch when it comes to Mount Tabor, but whether you live around the city or are touring it for the first time, the scenic city park is a perfect place to get away from the urban environment – without really leaving it at all.
Built atop an old volcanic cinder cone, Mount Tabor is beloved by runners, walkers, cyclists, stroller-pushers, hikers and even soap box racers. Paved roads, staircases and trails form a network of pathways throughout the park, weaving through a forest of tall firs and wide open meadows.
Finding your way to the top is as easy as wandering uphill, but for those who want some guidance there are three official hiking loops: the Red Trail, Green Trail and Blue Trail – all starting and ending at the kiosk by the main parking area in the northwest corner of the park. The Red and Green trails offer shorter, easier walks, but if you’re able to climb hills and stairs, you can’t beat the 3-mile Blue Trail loop, which offers a comprehensive tour of scenic Mount Tabor.
On Valentine’s Day, Luke “Strider” Jordan entered Guadalupe Mountains National Park in West Texas, taking his first step on a 2,100-mile journey that will end in early May in the Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge near Kenmare, North Dakota, close to the Canadian border.
When he gets there, he’ll be the first hiker to finish the nascent Great Plains Trail. He’ll spend this weekend passing through the Wildcat Hills and Mitchell Pass on his way to Agate Fossil Beds and points north.
It’s not the energetic 25-year-old’s first extended hike. He got the inspiration for the trip by walking the North Country National Scenic Trail, which stretches approximately 4,600 miles from Crown Point in eastern New York to Lake Sakakawea State Park in central North Dakota. “That was my first major hike, three years ago,” he said. “This is my second big trail adventure.”
The Great Plains Trail doesn’t have the same official designation as the North Country Trail or the better-known Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails. But if a teacher in Longmont, Colorado, has his way, it someday will, putting some of western Nebraska’s premier scenic attractions in the national spotlight. Steve Myers hopes to share his enthusiasm for the Great Plains with the rest of America by creating a national trail from border to border along Jordan’s route, utilizing existing trails.
Unlike the other well-marked trails, the Great Plains route is likely to be wide-ranging and generalized, allowing for shortcuts and side trips, and utilizing foot trails, two-tracks and county roads, steering hikers toward highlights rich in scenery and American history.
The Green Mountain Club (GMC), maintainer of Vermont’s Long Trail and Vermont’s hiking trail advocate, and the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation (FPR), manager of State Forests and Parks, announce that Mud Season has returned to the Green Mountains a month early.
They ask hikers to stay off muddy trails from now until Memorial Day weekend; the forest has not caught up with the variable climate so the trails will remain wet, muddy, and prone to erosion. Hikers walking on saturated soils or on the sides of trails cause irreversible damage to surrounding vegetation, widen trails, and inhibit natural drainage of beloved hiking trails.
The wide range of temperatures will continue through April into May. Together with this winter’s high elevation snowfall that rarely reached the valleys, the mountains are hiding cold, wet, snowy, and icy conditions that may persist deep into Spring, like always.
Conditions can change quickly in the mountains. Hikers venturing to high elevations will need better traction and warmer clothes than the valley may hint at. If you encounter conditions you are not prepared for, turn around.
This is good advice for hikers in all mountain terrain. Whether it be New England, the Southern Appalachians, the Rockies, Cascades or Sierra Nevada; give the trails a chance to heal during mud season. They will still be there waiting for us.
Only a half mile from the trailhead near Hacking Lake you can ogle a herd of mountain goats. Minutes later, a weasel darts upon your track with a mouse hanging in its mouth. Another half mile, and you stumble upon two spotted elk calves lounging near timberline. Then, two more goat herds on the five-mile climb to 11,700-foot Gabbro Pass, from which you flush 100 elk on the far side. After just 10 miles of hiking, you’ve had about one animal encounter per mile. And that’s just counting the obvious ones. Surely you will miss others, with 100-mile vistas hogging your attention nearly every step of the way.
Views of every kind—distant horizons, nearby wildlife, isolated lake basins—are better on ridgeline hikes. And the king of the hill is the Highline Trail, which runs 78 east-west miles through the 456,705-acre High Uintas Wilderness of northeast Utah. The often-bouldery track crosses nine major passes and seldom dips below 10,500 feet. It’s the perfect aerie to spy the wilderness’s 26 summits above 13,000 feet, an estimated 1,000 lakes and ponds, 36 major streams, and megafauna galore.
You’d think all of this unobstructed beauty would attract a crowd, but fewer than 50 people a year thru-hike the ridge-hugging track—it’s overshadowed on a regional menu that includes the Tetons, Sawtooths, Wind Rivers, and Colorado’s Fourteeners. The Uintas’ long, brick-red ridgelines of billion-year-old quartzite, gradually being swallowed by their own talus, have a powerful majesty that 19th-century explorer Ferdinand Hayden singled out among all the mountain ranges he’d seen. Compared to others, he wrote, the Uintas stands alone for its “contrast so pleasing to the eye.”
Jenny Bennett died in the flowing waters of Porters Creek, her body shutting down from a toxic dose of diphenhydramine before succumbing to hypothermia from exposure.
She’d been missing a week before her disappearance was reported and a search began. Officials found her body about four miles up the trail, in a place that’s a gateway to some of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s most unusual and challenging terrain.
The death of the well-known 62-year-old shook the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club and outdoor community throughout Appalachia. Jenny Bennett always wanted to know what was over the next ridge.
Since the early ’80s, she explored huge swaths of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, seeking out challenging technical hikes and enjoying the journey as much as the destination. Bennett documented many of her hikes on her blog “Endless Streams and Forests” and participated as an active and much-loved member of the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, both in the ’80s and then again when she returned to the area in 2010.
She explored mountains in California, Colorado, New England, and New York, but she wrote on her website that the “Smokies were my formative influence, involving rockhopping up rhododendron-choked streams in dark mysterious forests of giant tulip poplars and hemlocks.”
Experts on the Appalachian Trail said a handful of hikers in the Southern Appalachian region have come down with a stomach bug, and it’s a little earlier than usual. This is an unfortunate annual tradition on the AT.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy said a handful of hikers in the Smokies have come down with the stomach bug, with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration. They say no tests have been done, so there’s no confirmation of norovirus cases.
Hikers said they’re taking measures to avoid getting infected. “Always use Purell before doing any eating, and just trying to stay away from shaking other people’s hands,” Chris Lussier, a hiker, said. “We got a thing out here…we don’t actually shake–we actually fist bump.”
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy also advised washing hands with soap and water, boiling or chemically disinfecting water and burying human waste at least 200 feet from a water source.
“They should avoid sharing water bottles and eating utensils and food and other personal items where they might touch the item and then touch their mouths,” Morgan Sommerville said.
Hikers also said they often avoid sharing food at shelters, and some sleep in tents or hammocks.
At the 50-mile mark of last year’s 165 Mile Challenge from the North Country Trail Association, Steph Hogan made her decision.
“It was at that point I decided I was going to finish the challenge,” said Hogan, 73, who was in Vergas in Ottertail County, Minnesota. “I really wasn’t sure before that.”
In 25 intervals beginning in April and ending in October, she and a small group of other outdoor enthusiasts hiked from Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Detroit Lakes to Hwy. 6 near Remer, Minn.
Every step came on the North Country Trail (NCT), a wilderness route of major miles (2,880 and counting) and volunteers (thousands) that appears to be taking its place among national trails. That would achieve the mission of the trail association, the NCT’s biggest cheerleader.
Hogan is one of 400 Minnesota members of the association who act as trail stewards. The association is a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service in building, maintaining, and promoting the NCT.
Though technically still in development, the planned 4,600-mile NCT (many sections have already been completed and are readily used) will eventually stretch from North Dakota to New York state. That’s twice the distance of the Appalachian Trail.
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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