California and Oregon Adventures: Redwood National Park and Crater Lake National Park

Redwood National Park

On Fourth of July, I picked up two of my friends in San Francisco and drove to Redwood National Park (taking a detour through Sonoma on the way).  We enjoyed some olive oil tasting in Sonoma (unfortunately most of the wineries were closed when we got there), as well as a great farm to table dinner (with some wine tasting).  We spent the night on the south end of Redwood National Park and drove to the north end of the national park the next day.  We enjoyed several hikes and scenic drives while in the park.  We spent the next night on the north end of the park and enjoyed some more hiking through the great trees the next morning.  Some highlights of the park included hiking through the Lady Bird Johnson Grove, spotting a bear on another hike (somewhat scary), and enjoying one of the most beautiful sunsets over the ocean.  The park is interesting - and very different from Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks because it is right on the ocean so it almost has a tropical feel despite all the conifers.  The park is interesting too because as you drive through the park, you drive through non-park areas to get back to the national park.  Some of those areas are state parks, some are national park, and some are part of a Native American reservation.  The weather when we were there was cold and damp.

After enjoying Redwood National Park, we drove to Crater Lake National Park which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  (The drive, while long, was also beautiful.)  We did some hiking, but unfortunately had not booked the boat trip on the lake far enough in advance for all of us to have been able to do it.  We enjoyed dinner in the park and spent the night outside of the park.  The next day, after some more hikes, we drove to Portland, Oregon from where I returned to New York.  

Crater Lake National Park

One warning about Crater Lake National Park - there was still a significant amount of snow on the ground in mid-July.  Definitely one of my favorite national parks though.

Second warning - this trip, while great, required a lot of driving.

Memorial Day Adventures: Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountain National Parks

Guadalupe Mountain National Park

For Memorial Day, I flew to El Paso, Texas with a couple of friends.  We spent Friday night in El Paso and enjoyed a good Mexican food breakfast the next morning before stocking up the car with water and food and driving a couple of hours to Guadalupe Mountain National Park.  Guadalupe Mountain National Park is very remote, yet beautiful.  We spoke to a ranger and enjoyed a day-long hike.  After our hike, we drove a couple of hours to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  (Note that the time zone changes between the parks, but both are actually in the same time zone.)  After some confusion, we did make it to Carlsbad Caverns National Park before the evening bat program.  On evenings (weather permitting), the bats fly out of the caves.  It was a great experience and definitely a "don't miss" if you go to the park.

We spent the night about 30 minutes from the park in New Mexico.  We enjoyed some local green chilis (in pasta) for dinner and spent the next day exploring the caves.  We did a lantern tour - adults only.  It was a great tour because you see parts of the caves you can't see without a guided tour.  We did the main cave tour (on our own) and one of the more popular guided tours through the cave.  We were quite cold after spending a significant chunk of the day in the cave and enjoyed hiking out of the cave.  The hike was billed as strenuous, but we did it quickly without much difficulty.  We enjoyed lunch then drove back to El Paso.  We had a great dinner in the mountains while watching the sunset and flew back to NY the next morning.  Great weekend.

Warning sign on the hike out of Carlsbad Caverns

Northern California Adventure: Palo Alto, Napa, and Lassen Volcanic National Park

After attending a wedding at a winery near Palo Alto and then enjoying a day in Napa, we drove to Lassen Volcanic National Park via back roads to I-5 north.  The drive via the back roads in Napa was very pretty.

It was a long drive to Lassen - over four hours.  We stayed in Chester, California.  We had one full day in Lassen Volcanic National Park.  We drove to the south entrance and visited the ranger station.  We wanted to hike to the volcano's peak, but were told we needed hiking boots and poles to do so.  Instead due to our inadequate preparation, we drove to check out the thermal activity at Sulfur Works then did the Bumpass Hell hike.  This was a 3 mile hike and took us about two hours.  It was a scenic hike through the snow to several thermal activity zones.  There was some elevation loss and gain so it was not the easiest hike (but it was not hard either).  We then hiked to Boiling Springs Lake.  It did not take us more than an hour (and we sat and enjoyed the view).  In retrospect,  the Kings Creek Fall Trail would have been fun to do as well.  After these hikes, we completed the drive to the north entrance of the park, following our auto guide along the way.  We enjoyed lunch at Manzanita Lake and spent about an hour taking in the gorgeous lake views.  After this, we drove to the Drakesbad Ranch area of the park where we hoped to hike to Devil's Kitchen.  It was about a two hour drive though so we did not get there with enough time.  The following day, we drove about 4 1/2 hours back to the San Francisco Airport.  All in all, a great trip.

Florida National Parks: Everglades National Park, Dry Tortugas National Park, and Biscayne National Park

Gator in the Everglades

                       

   

As regular readers know, I'm on a quest to visit all the national parks before I turn 30.  Over President's Day, I visited the three national parks in Florida - Everglades, Dry Tortugas, and Biscayne.  It is very easy to do all three parks in a long weekend.  We left New York on Friday night and returned on Monday night.  The easiest way to visit the parks from NY is to fly into Miami or Fort Lauderdale.  (We did the latter and spent the first night in FLL.)  The next day we drove a little over an hour to Everglades National Park.  Everglades National Park is huge with four main visitor areas - Royal Palm, Flamingo, Shark Valley, and Gulf Coast.  We entered the park via the Royal Palm visitor center.  While there, we did a ranger led tour on which we saw a lot of gators and birds.

Boat Tour in the Everglades

After the tour of Royal Palms, we drove to Flamingo.  We did not realize that the programs at the Marina are very close to the Shark Valley programs.  Thus, we could have done the Gator program that we missed because we wanted to make sure we got onto a ranger-led program about the trees of the Everglades.  After this program, we took a boat from the Marina on a tour of the backcountry.  We then left the park via the same entrance we entered and drove a few hours to the Florida Keys.

 Our second day of the trip took us to Dry Tortugas National Park.  Dry Tortugas National Park is accessible via boat (approximately 2 hours) from Key West.  The land mass of Dry Tortugas National Park is a small island with a small, old fort on it and gorgeous beaches.  Most of the park is underwater and known for great snorkeling.  The day was incredibly relaxing and fun.  The boat takes you out to the park, you dock and spend the day snorkeling.  (The boat has lunch since there are no restaurants - or any provisions - on the island.  The boat also provides snorkeling gear.)  The boat took us back to Key West where we enjoyed a seafood and key lime pie dinner.

Dry Tortugas National Park

Biscayne National Park

Our last day of the trip took us to Biscayne National Park, not far from Miami.  Like Dry Tortugas, most of Biscayne is under water.  We did a ranger-led canoe trip in the morning which was relaxing, fun and educational.  We spent the afternoon doing some impressive snorkeling.  (A dive boat takes you about 30 minutes off-shore for snorkeling.)
All in all, a great trip.

California: Los Angeles, Channel Islands National Park, Lone Pine/Manzanar, Death Valley, and Vegas

Boat to Channel Islands National Park

In December, I took a vacation and went out to California.

Island Foxes at Channel Islands National Park

I took a day trip from LA to Channel Islands National Park.  It was wonderful.  I went on a kayaking tour of the sea caves.  To get there, I took a boat from Ventura Harbor (approx 90 minutes from LA) to one of the islands (approx 90 minutes on the boat).  On the way to the island, we saw whales, dolphins, and seals.  When we got to the island, my tour group got into our kayaks and kayaked through many sea caves.  The scenery was gorgeous, and we saw some sea lions while kayaking around.  After we got back to dry land, we did a short hike on the island.  Along the way, we saw island foxes - very small foxes that only live on the Channel Islands.

Trona Pinnacles

After visiting the Channel Islands, I headed to Death Valley National Park.  It is about a 6 hour drive from LA to Death Valley, but we made a lot of fun stops along the way.  We visited the singing road (it plays the William Tell Overture as you drive over it), Avenue of the Faces (a person's house with a lot of trees with faces carved into them in the front yard), a ghost town, the Trona Pinnacles, and the give and take sculpture.  The Trona Pinnacles were amazing.  They are really cool rock formations.  Many movies, including Star Wars and Holes, have been filmed there.  Note there is a large sign off the side of the road pointing one to the pinnacles.

On day 2, we woke up in Lone Pine, California and went out to see a rock painted like an angry face.  After this fun tourist attraction, we went to Manzanar to visit a Japanese Internment Camp from WWII (now a

Manzanar National Historic Site

National Historic site).  The tour was incredibly interesting.  It is well worth the trip.  Word of warning - it is VERY cold in the winter so dress warmly.  After Manzanar, we headed toward Death Valley.  We enjoyed scenic overviews while driving to the sand dunes.  We had a lot of fun playing on the sand dunes (rolling down them is more fun than sliding down them) before going to Badwater, the

Badwater

lowest spot on the continent.  On our way from Badwater to our hotel, we did a gorgeous drive along Artist's Palate.

On day 3, we woke up and went to Scotty's Castle.  We were a little skeptical about visiting a castle in a national park, but this was definitely a highlight of the trip.  After Scotty's Castle, we went to see Ubehebe Crater.  After that, we were going to drive to the Race Track (where you see rocks with trails behind them as though they have been racing across the desert).  Unfortunately, we did not have the appropriate vehicle for this drive.  After deciding not to risk driving to the Race Track, we enjoyed some tourist attractions along our drive to Vegas.

All in all, a great trip.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Hiking in Colorado Springs

In October, I went to Denver to visit some friends of mine.  It was a great trip.   My first day there we went to Rocky Mountain National Park (on my quest to visit all of the national parks before I turn 30).  We did a great, long hike in the park along Glacier Gorge.  We hiked by several lakes including Bear Lake. Dream Lake, and Nymph. Lake, ending with Mills Lake, which is the scene printed on Colorado quarters.  We saw Alberta falls on the way down toward the end.  This was a fantastic hike.  (It took about 6 hours.)

 On my final day in Colorado, we drove to Colorado Springs to go hiking and do a mineral springs tour in Manitou Springs.  The mineral springs tour was a lot of fun.

Anzo-Borrego State Park

In spring of 2009, I read an article in the LATimes about the wildflowers blooming in Anzo-Borrego State Park.  I also read that Anzo-Borrego is the largest state park in the U.S.  I, thus, had to go explore. It takes a few hours to get to the park from LA so plan to be there all day.  Also, the roads to the park are pretty deserted so make sure you have gas.  I recommend leaving before dark too.  In addition, make sure you have a good map if you go hiking.  (I got lost on a hike.)  The park also has a lot of off-road trails so it could be a fun  place to rent a 4WD vehicle.

In the park

Wildflowers

Elephant Statue in the desert

Camel statue in the desert

The desert

The desert