Many visitors are lured to Northern California’s Mount Diablo by its imposing presence – an ancient rock fortress between the Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley. Visitors come for panoramic views and challenging hikes or rides. But some have gotten sick and even died after underestimating the difficulty of some treks and overestimating their own abilities to...
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Just in time for the American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day, June 4, 2016, Mendocino County in Northern California will open two new hiking trails. The 2.3-mile Peter Douglas Coastal Trail routes hikers through redwood groves known as Shady Dell featuring trees with branches that have split off into candelabra shapes. The land, just south of Sinkyone Wilderness...
Learn MoreSonoma County, California’s newest hiking trail officially opened May 15, 2016 just a few hundred yards from the often backed up and typically frustrating Highway 37. The Eliot Trail, located at the edge of tidal wetlands near where Lakeville Highway meets Highway 37, gives travelers an experience opposite to the nearby roadway. The two-and-a-half mile trail offers...
Learn MoreHealthy forests are especially important at a time of climate change — they’re an incredible tool to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Dead forests, on the other hand, can light the spark for wildfires, which are already showing a long-predicted uptick in activity. In California’s coastal forests, health is anything but good. Since 1995, a fungal pathogen that...
Learn MoreThe Aliso Creek Regional Riding and Hiking Trail is a well maintained class-one bikeway and soft recreational trail extending from the foothills of Orange County, California to the boundary of Laguna Beach. The continuous fifteen miles of asphalt bikeway designed for multi-use travels through five south county cities. The soft trail mirrors the asphalt bikeway path on...
Learn MoreDon’t let the name Hellhole Canyon scare you off. In early March the 6-mile hike in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is alive with striking desert blooms, a lush palm oasis and hidden waterfalls. Sure, the start of the route into the sun-beaten canyon is hot. Flowering indigo, beavertail cactus and desert dandelions buzz with insects along the seemingly misnamed...
Learn MoreThe sound of rushing water floods your ears even before Cataract Creek is fully in view, descending the northern flank of Mount Tamalpais, California amid a riot of boulders, lush moss, graceful ferns and arching trees. Prepare to be amazed by this magical place, where each step along the trail reveals some new variation on the blend of rocks and water responsible for a...
Learn MorePresident Obama has set aside more of America’s lands and waters for conservation protection than any of his predecessors, and he is preparing to do even more before he leaves office next year. The result may be one of the most expansive environmental and historic-preservation legacies in presidential history. On Friday, February 12, 2016 Obama designated more than 1.8...
Learn MoreTwo environmental advocacy groups have released an aerial video of the ongoing natural gas leak that’s plaguing Porter Ranch, CA and it’s startling. This is known as the Aliso Canyon methane leak, the worst environmental disaster since the BP gulf oil spill. The video, shot using a specialized infrared camera aboard a helicopter, released this week by the...
Learn MoreIn the hills above suburban Los Angeles, a man-made natural disaster of sorts has been unfolding for nearly two months. One can’t see it or hear it, and it’s not leaving a trail of dead animals and plants in its wake. It’s potentially catastrophic, nonetheless. On October 23, 2015 workers at the massive Aliso Canyon subterranean natural gas storage...
Learn MoreIt’s been at least half a millennium since California has been this dry. The snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains — which provides nearly a third of the state’s water supply — is the lowest it has been in 500 years, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change. The researchers compared blue oak tree rings during known time periods of precipitation,...
Learn MoreThe fastest way to see California’s iconic Donner Pass is to cruise Interstate 80 between Truckee and Reno. But if you really want to experience the environment and culture of one of the state’s most scenic and historically significant places it helps to get your feet dirty. And one way to get the most out of a trek through the region is to participate in the Donner...
Learn MoreCalifornia is fortunate to be home to nine national parks, more than any other state. With such a plethora of natural and national treasures, it may not come as a surprise that two of the state’s most spectacular parks, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, are often overlooked. While typically referred to together, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks are actually two...
Learn MoreMountains cover 70 percent of the Korean peninsula, and in South Korea, an estimated 1 in 3 Koreans goes hiking more than once a month. Over the past few decades, hiking has become way more than a weekend activity. It’s part of the Korean national identity. Across the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, second- and even third-generation children of Korean...
Learn MoreMany crops in the drought-stricken state of California are actually being irrigated with fracking wastewater. Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure, which allows the gas to flow out to the head of...
Learn MoreIn just a mile on level ground, you can reach a spot that can change the way you feel about things for a long time. From the trailhead for the Pacific Crest Trail near Tuolumne Meadows, you can amble north for 20 minutes or so to a pristine meadow sprinkled with lodgepole pine, where a high mountain rim frames your moment in time. Unicorn Peak (10,910 feet), Cathedral...
Learn MoreThe Palomar Mountain Observatory Trail is one of only four National Recreation Trails in San Diego County, California. From the tree-shaded, well-maintained trail there are bucolic vistas of grassy meadows with grazing cattle. It also provides a chance to visit the Hale Telescope and the world-class Palomar Observatory. It is easily accessible and is a rewarding hike...
Learn MoreThe 52-mile Lost Coast Trail runs about 255 miles north of San Francisco. It was named the Lost Coast because of depopulation in the area in the 1930s and because the terrain is too steep and rugged to build a road. If you look at a map, you can see how Highway 1 heads inland north of Fort Bragg. There are two distinct sections of the Lost Coast Trail. The northern...
Learn MoreRangers in the San Bernardino National Forest call them “red trees.” Instead of the typical deep green color, large swaths of pine trees now don hues of death, their dehydrated needles turning brown and burnt-red because of the state’s worsening drought. “Unlike back East, where you have fall colors, here it’s because the trees are dying,” said John Miller, a spokesman...
Learn MoreCalifornia’s old-growth coastal redwoods are the tallest trees on Earth, and the old-timers thrive in the foggy, rainy territory between Mendocino and the Oregon line. For many locals, these trees don’t just dominate the landscape; they connect with matters of life and death — even now, years past the timber industry’s glory days. Bgin with the 32-mile...
Learn MoreUnlike its neighbor Yosemite, at Lassen Volcanic National Park there were no crowds at the entrance gate, in the parking lots or on the trails. Only 400,000 people will make their way to Lassen this year; nearly 4 million will visit Yosemite, most of them during the summer. “Not many people have discovered this park,” said Karen Haner, Lassen’s chief of...
Learn MoreMuir Woods National Monument, just north of the Marin Headlands portion of Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California, was set aside in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt via the Antiquities Act. The landscape had been preserved by William Kent and his wife, who had purchased it three years earlier to prevent the old growth forest from being turned into a...
Learn MoreFor those who live in the Oakland flatlands, there’s little respite from the constant grind of city life. Many residents, especially those who rely on public transit, lack the resources to escape urbanity and enjoy Northern California’s wilderness — or so they think. What many people don’t realize is that Dimond Park, located only about two and a half miles away from...
Learn MoreAlong the trail to Junipero Serra Peak in the Ventana Wilderness of South Monterey County, there is some stuff to see. Like goldfields flowering, hummingbird sage blooming and sharp cacti appropriately called Spanish sword cutting a sharp profile against the increasingly steep grade. And the massive pine needles, bird tracks and rock formations that enjoy supernatural...
Learn MoreSeveral hiking trails in San Marcos, California that burned in the massive Cocos Fire last year are now open again. “The views up there are just outstanding,” said hiker John Page as he returned from hiking the Double Peaks Trail. It has been 10 months since he or anyone else has hiked it. “They were burnt pretty bad where we had to keep people...
Learn MoreSaylor Guilliams is only alive today because last year she dyed her hair red. One afternoon last March, the 22-year-old was hiking a trail in Santa Barbara, California, with her friend Brenden Vega, also 22. Their inexperience showed: The terrain was more treacherous than they had planned for, and as it began to grow dark, they struggled to find a way back to their car....
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Historical reenactors portraying the U.S. Army’s legendary Buffalo Soldiers will be among the attractions when Black History Month is celebrated at the Ravenswood Open Space Preserve in East Palo Alto, CA from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015. Hosted by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, the event includes guided hikes, activities and crafts...
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When Mary Melton went hiking through the Verdugo Mountains one weekend in January of last year, she was struck by the lack of signs to guide hikers through the trails. The editor-in-chief of Los Angeles magazine was actually scouting the area with her friends and son, who was 9 years old at the time, for the publication’s April hiking issue. Information available online...
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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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