Located in the high desert canyon country of western Colorado, McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area consists of approximately 123,430 acres of BLM-administered land near Fruita, Colorado. Originally known as Colorado Canyons National Conservation Area, the NCA was established by Congress on October 24, 2000. Internationally important fossils have been uncovered...
Learn More
One of these days you are likely to look up and see that Colorado National Monument, along with McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area, has become a full-fledged national park. The stunning scenery certainly qualifies. With the acreage included in MCNCA, the size is there as well. The combination of NPS units offers a myriad of front country hiking trails and...
Learn More
Ch-ch-ch-ch changes. David Bowie wrote of change in 1971, the year I was a freshman in college. For Bowie, it was a reflective song about stepping out on your own. I thought of that song and played it in my head as I sat down to compose this post. Not quite two months ago I made a major spontaneous change in my own life. I packed up a couple weeks of belongings and hit...
Learn More
A full closure of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is now in place due to wildfire activity on the west side of the Continental Divide, a spokesperson for the park announced Thursday morning, October 22, 2020. Air quality in the park is hazardous and Trail Ridge Road is impassable on the west side due to downed trees on the road. High fire danger prompted the...
Learn More
Rescue workers with the Juan County Sheriff’s Department and The U.S. Forest Service evacuated 23 people and three dogs from the San Juan National Forest in Colorado as a wildfire tore through the area. The U.S. Forest Service deployed helicopters for the evacuation. According to the Office of Emergency Management in San Juan County, the blaze — dubbed the Ice Fire...
Learn More
From Colorado to Oregon to Maine, these incredible winter hiking trails offer beautiful views, wildlife-spotting opportunities, and fewer crowds. If you have a habit of stashing your hiking boots the moment cooler temperatures arrive, you’ve been missing out. In the winter, the nation’s best hiking trails clear out and you can walk for miles without seeing another soul....
Learn More
You may find yourself traveling back in time. Hop down a series of stone steps, take a sharp left turn, and feel your heart skip a beat. There, sprawled out below a sandstone plateau dotted with piñon pines and juniper trees, stands the 800-year-old remains of Cliff Palace, an ancient city of the Ancestral Puebloan people. The largest and best known of Mesa Verde...
Learn More
An example of National Forest stewardship in action. As with many mountain communities in Colorado, visitation to the Gunnison Valley is at an all-time high. Land managers observe that they have never seen our public lands as busy as they have been in recent years. The area is surrounded by 1.7 million acres of National Forest, and the Bureau of Land Management and...
Learn More
Over the weekend, the Grizzly Creek Fire became the largest in the history of Colorado’s White River National Forest as far as acres burned. As of Sunday morning, the fire had burned 20,665 acres of national forest out of a total burn area of 25,690 acres in just six days, according to U.S. Forest Service data. The additional acres are on Bureau of Land Management...
Learn More
Awe-inspiring sights come easy to Rocky Mountain National Park. Elk gather in herds on the east side, while moose patrol the other. In between are bighorn sheep, mountain lions, and black bears. And that’s just the wildlife. The 265,807-acre park, located in northern Colorado, offers some of the best access to high-alpine terrain in the country, thanks to Trail Ridge...
Learn More
On New Year’s Day in 2018, Paul Kehmeier and his father drove up Grand Mesa until they got to the county line, 10,000 feet above sea level. Instead of the three to five feet of snow that should have been on the ground, there wasn’t enough of a dusting to even cover the grass. The men marveled at the sight, and Kehmeier snapped a photo of his dad, “standing on the bare...
Learn More
With snow-capped summits, awe-inspiring faces and inherent danger, Colorado’s Fourteeners — peaks that reach 14,000 feet or more above sea level — have enraptured hikers and climbers for years. Every year, Colorado’s Fourteeners are hiked by more than 500,000 people, with locals and international visitors taking on the challenge. Ranging from well-marked hiking trails to...
Learn More
2018 marked the 40th anniversary of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), the 50th anniversary of the National Scenic Trails Act, and the year Big Agnes became a steward over 75 miles of trail. To celebrate, all 70 employees hiked and biked the 740-mile length of the CDT’s Colorado section. Now a year removed from that epic adventure, Big Agnes launched its own CDT trail...
Learn More
An ambitious effort to preserve mountain wilderness and historic landscapes in Colorado will launch April 8, 2019 with the introduction of a bill in Congress that aims to protect 400,000 acres of public lands in the state. It would pay special homage to Camp Hale, home to the historic 10th Mountain Division. The bill — dubbed the Colorado Outdoor Recreation &...
Learn More
As temperatures gradually warm up and flowers peek through the snow, Coloradans know what time of year has arrived. No, not springtime: hiking time. Snow-wary outdoorsmen are beginning to dig out their hiking boots again, ready to stretch their legs across the state’s many trails. But with all those options, it can sometimes be difficult to choose which trail to set out...
Learn More
In a state known for mountains, the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness stands out among Colorado’s mountainous locales. The stunning Elk Range towers with dramatic peaks. Located just outside of Aspen, Colorado’s fourth-largest wilderness stretches over 181,000 acres and provides numerous life-list backpacking opportunities on its 100 miles of trails. Six summits rise over...
Learn More
This weekend, one of America’s most prestigious trails, and one that winds through Colorado, turns 40 years old. The Continental Divide Trail, which runs 3,100 miles from Canada to Mexico, was officially founded in 1978, marking 2018 its 40th year serving as a beloved part of Colorado’s outdoor recreation. Hikers, horseback riders, runners, cross-country skiers,...
Learn More
A marriage proposal in Boulder, Colorado, went awry because of some overly ambitious hiking plans. Joshua Mason, 27, and his girlfriend, Katie Davis, 28, had set out on an eight-mile hike from the Fourth of July Trailhead to the nearly 13,000-foot summit on Jasper Peak. When the two came upon an isolated, scenic spot along the trail, Mason surprised Davis by...
Learn More
Time is running out to see Colorado’s year-round alpine glaciers before they recede into extinction — which is, in some cases, a couple decades off, according to a study from the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. In the Ice Age, glaciers carved much of Colorado’s alpine landscape. Wide mountain valleys — now dotted with towns and zig-zagged by hiking trails — are...
Learn More
This trail climbs from East Vail into Eagles Nest Wilderness alongside Gore Creek. There are some short steep sections that wind through meadows and aspen groves which change to spruce-fir stands as the elevation increases. Also look for a wide variety of wildflowers in season. Particularly during spring runoff, Gore Creek rages down the drainage with its series of fast...
Learn More
The path ahead, etched into a shadowy gray massif high in the Rocky Mountains, is narrowing — two feet wide, one foot, six inches and then . . . nothing. Your next step could take you into a column of air extending infinitely upward and, somewhat more concerning, more than 300 feet straight down. This is a couple of miles east of Telluride, Colo., halfway through a 1½...
Learn More
Michael “Hawkeye” Johnson plans to walk out the door of his Mountain Village home, and then walk almost continuously the next 36 days. Hawkeye is embarking on his third annual hoof around the San Juan Mountains to raise funds for his GoHawkeye Foundation, which provides high-tech gear and sports experiences to disabled athletes. Hawkeye has worn out his share of boots,...
Learn More
While massive glaciers shaped the meadows and peaks, Rocky was an inhospitable land. It was not until some 11,000 years ago that humans began venturing into these valleys and mountains. Spearheads broken in the fury of a mammoth’s charge and scrapers discarded along a nomad’s trail tell us little about the area’s early native peoples. Even though it was...
Learn More
A six-mile long hiking trail that almost encircles Ouray, Colorado has become one of the most popular paths in the San Juan Mountains. According to trail registers, more than 25,000 people trod the decade-old Ouray Perimeter Trail in 2017 — and that figure represents a mere fraction of actual users. “According to Forest Service estimates, the true number of...
Learn More
Since President Donald Trump was sworn into office last year, the administration has used its “energy dominance” agenda to require states to conduct quarterly sales on public lands across the West. As a result, the Bureau of Land Management is on track to double the acreage open for leasing in 2018, compared to 2017, in six Western states. This September, 11 parcels...
Learn More
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to open the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge in Colorado to the public this summer despite attempts to block developing the refuge, which circles a shuttered nuclear weapons production facility. Private tours have already started, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge manager David Lucas said. No hard date exists yet for the full...
Learn More
The Bureau of Land Management disregarded a request by the National Park Service that it hold off leasing 17,000 acres of public land in Utah because of concerns that drilling there could harm Hovenweep National Monument’s views and air, groundwater and sound quality. All 13 parcels were sold online as part of a broader sale, with the lease prices ranging from $3 to...
Learn More
In an unexpected turn earlier this week, the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, which had stopped operating for the winter for maintenance work, announced that it would not resume operations in the spring, and may not operate for several years — or ever again. Other than a yet-to-be-seen impact to local tourism, both in visitor numbers and revenue, the closure of the railroad may...
Learn More
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. 
Copyright © 2011-2023 Internet Brothers. All Rights Reserved. ISSN 2324-6057
Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by Wordpress | Logo by Design Aspirations