If you live in the great Washington DC area, Charlottesville area, or are an avid hiker on the East Coast, you’ve probably heard of Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. Hiking the Old Rag Mountain is a right of passage for anyone in DC who considers themselves the outdoors-man and for many University of…
There are 59 national parks in the United States of America; 47 national parks are in the Contiguous United States. During our US road trip, we visited 24 national parks plus multiple national monuments, forests, grasslands, and seashores. Prior to our road trip, we have also visited Shenandoah National Park and Jon has been to Acadia…
During our 4 months on the road, Jon and I hiked approximately 100 miles. Our hikes ranged from 0.25 mile nature trails at national parks, to the 18 mile out-and-back to the peak of half dome, and two overnight backcountry trips. Picking our favorite hikes is incredibly difficult. Both of us tended to be biased…
Mammoth Cave was our final National Park of the road trip and was one of the most difficult. We opted to forgo the traditional tours and instead we spent 6 hours crawling, climbing, squeezing, and contorting ourselves on the spelunking-style Wild Cave Tour. Day 126 December 6, 2014 Mileage 16463 – 16642 Our day started…
Although the weather didn’t cooperate, we made the best of our time in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The tree covered mountains felt like the closed to our home terrain since starting our journey. Days 123 – 124 December 3 – December 4, 2014 Mileage 15880 – 16060 We arrived to the south of…
We don’t usually do previews of our post, but yesterday Jon and I took the Wild Cave tour at Mammoth Cave National Park. Although it is highly advised against bringing a camera, because of the fine dirt in the cave and physicality of the tour, I did anyway. I even lost the camera once! Luckily…
Everglades National Park was always intended more to preserve wildlife than to preserve scenery like most other parks. During our one night visit, this became obvious. Day 115 – 116 November 25 – November 26, 2014 Miles 14591 – 14770 After leaving the Florida Keys, we drove straight to Everglades National Park, arriving around 2pm at the…
Carlsbad National Park’s unofficial motto seems to be “We aren’t the biggest cave, or the longest cave, but most of our visitors leave saying we are the most beautiful cave they’ve ever seen.” Day 102 November 12, 2014 Miles 12142 – 12482 Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located in southeast New Mexico. For us, it was…
As Jon and I headed south towards New Mexico from Denver, we found ourselves close to Great Sand Dunes National Park. Great Sand Dunes is a sand dune field created by erosion of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The park encompasses both the dune field and the foothills of the mountains as a nature preserve.…
On our way to Denver we stopped to visit the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The black canyon is a narrow steep canyon carved out by the Gunnison River. In at least one place the canyon is deeper than it is wide and almost twice the height of the empire state building. Day 95 –…
Herr We Go 