Category Archives: Active Adventures

Happy Trails at Rocky Mountain National Park

  By placeswithkids | February 7, 2012 - 4:46 pm | , , , , , , ,
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Glacier basin Rocky Mountain National Park

Near Glacier Basin RMNP

With its amazing jaw-dropping scenery, it’s not surprising that Rocky Mountain National Park made it onto Frommer’s 500 Places to Take Your Kids Before They Grow Up. What was a little unique was the WAY they recommended seeing it – on horseback.

We’d already spent the morning driving the Old Fall River Road to what felt like the top of the world (at least for height-phobic me) and for our afternoon at Rocky Mountain National Park, I’d planned a two-hour trail ride with Glacier Creek Stables at 1pm, leaving us plenty of time to drive into our hotel near the Denver Airport before it got too dark.

Sigh . . . you know what they always say about the best-laid plans . . .

As you might have noticed from the pictures, when we reached the Alpine Visitor Center at Rocky Mountain National Park we were at a seriously high elevation – as in 11,799 feet high.

Alpine Visitor Center rocky mountain NP

Alpine Visitor Center

To get to the Glacier Stables we needed to descend about 3000 feet over a very short distance, and somehow, going DOWN the mountain was more terrifying than going up. I crept down the mountain, my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard I was white-knuckled – because in my mind the next gust of wind was going to send us right over the edge of road.

How bad was it? So bad I refused to let my son open a bag of chips because the noise was distracting. Needless to say, we didn’t make the 1pm trail ride.

Thank goodness for cell phones. When it became obvious we weren’t going to make the ride, I pulled over, let them know we would be late and could we please get on their next ride at 3 pm?

The rest, as they say, is history . . .

Trail Ride in Rocky Mountain National Park

We had our trail ride in Rocky Mountain National Park later than expected (which the boys claimed wasn’t as exciting as their ride in Wyoming) and checked another item off our “500 List.”

Horse Ride Rocky Mountain national Park

Happy Trails

Seventy-three places visited, 427 to go!

 

Wind Cave vs. Jewel Cave in South Dakota

  By placeswithkids | January 17, 2012 - 9:21 am | , , , , , , ,
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Wind Cave Tour

Touring Wind Cave

One of the many decisions I made when planning our family’s western US trip this past summer was whether to visit Wind Cave National Park or Jewel Cave National Monument. In the end, convenience and size won out and we visited Wind Cave National Park located a few miles from Custer State Park and the first cave to be designated a national park.

With Wind Cave only accessible via a ranger-led tour, we took the popular Natural Entrance Cave Tour, a 1 1/4-hour tour with moderate walking (and only a few instances of being completely in the dark) Tip: We used a flashlight app on our our iPhones to help light the way through some of the darker parts!

We saw the only natural entrance to one of the world’s longest caves (5th in the world)

Natural entrance to Wind Cave

Natural Entrance to Wind Cave

and the park ranger demonstrated why it was called Wind Cave.

Why Wind Cave

Why it's called Wind Cave

According to reports by its discoverers, Jesse and Tom Bingham, they were first attracted to the cave because of a whistling noise. They found the cave entrance and the wind blew so hard out, it knocked off Tom’s hat. Days later when they returned, the wind had switched directions and the hat was sucked into the cave. (It’s now known that the “wind” is related to a difference in atmospheric pressure – how boring).

Once we entered, we were treated to a lack of typical cave formations . . . no stalagmites or stalactites because Wind Cave is considered a “dry” cave. Instead, we saw numerous examples of a cave formation that makes Wind Cave so special – boxwork.

Boxwork in Wind Cave

Boxwork in Wind Cave

Made of calcite ridges that stick out of the ceiling and walls, the ridges form a box-like pattern, hence the name. And while boxwork is not unique to Wind Cave, the cave does have the most and best-formed boxwork examples in the world.

Boxwork in Wind Cave

Anne’s special note: A brief apology for my lack of posting – I tore my ACL while skiing on vacation and am recovering from surgery. I’m also following Mara’s example on The Mother of All Trips and trying to blog “like no one is reading” – focusing on content and my personal “voice” rather than site hits.

Kid-Friendly Trails in Badlands National Park

  By Anne Patrone | October 18, 2011 - 12:18 pm | , , , , , , , ,
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Summer sunflowers on the Prairie Winds Trail

Badlands National Park has some harsh landscapes, but for families interested in kid-friendly walks consider these two easy trails we took when we visited: the 150-foot Prairie Winds Trail and the quarter-mile paved Fossil Exhibit Trail.

We chose these two trails during our driving tour of Badlands National Park because I wanted to get the kids out of the car and looking at scenery. However, after our rattlesnake encounter, I knew I wasn’t going to get them on a more challenging hike that wasn’t “safe”.

Walking the Prairie Winds Trail is like taking a peaceful trip back in time to an era when covered wagons traveled west to settle America. Taking in these wide vistas of rolling plains with hardly a tree in sight is an awe-inspiring moment. We took the time to admire the beautiful scenery and to smell the flowers.

Endless prairie on the Prairie Winds Trail

Just a few miles away on the Badlands Loop Road was the short Fossil Exhibit Trail.

What used to live in this now desolate area

It’s hard to believe that this dry, dusty landscape with no drinkable water used to be lush meadows supporting a wide variety of dinosaurs and reptiles. Like the Prairie Winds Trail, the walk is short and easily accessible.

Along the Fossil Exhibit Trail

Fossils preserved in glass cases provide a sampling of some of the fossils (like this one of an Archaeotherium – a boar-like animal) excavated in the area.

Fossils of Archaeotherium

Surprisingly, there are a number of other family-friendly hikes in Badlands National Park like the Door Trail, Window Trail, and Cliff Shelf Trail (all under one mile). With enough cajoling, I probably could have convinced my guys to try the longer (1.5 mile) Notch Trail, but like them, I also wasn’t in the mood for more “unexpected” animals!

Riding the Trails at the Bill Cody Ranch

  By Anne Patrone | October 4, 2011 - 11:28 am | , , , , , , , , ,
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Getting ready to ride at the Bill Cody Ranch

Ever since my guys took their first horse ride in Canyon de Chelly National Park, they’ve been hooked on horses. And since you can’t really go to a dude ranch without riding a horse, I was thrilled that the Bill Cody Ranch offered trail rides of various lengths. 

We decided on a two hour trail ride since our horse experience is minimal, but this was plenty of time for us to enjoy the amazing scenery of the Shoshone National Forest surrounding the ranch.

I have to admit that I was a little wary when I noticed large rifle slung along our trail guides’ packs to take care of “friends” that had recently been spotted along the trail. But our guide reassured us that it was far too hot for bears . . .  the rifle was just a precaution.

Gulp.

Can’t see it, but the rifle’s on the other side . . . 

The horses knew the way along the trail, so there was little for us to do except admire the views and focus on keeping our horses from snacking on grass or drinking too much water . . .

Amazing views in the Shoshone National Forest

. . . or getting too close to the horse in front of you . . .

Keeping distance between horses is always good . . . 

. . . which unfortunately my youngest guy discovered when he got kicked in the ankle by my horse. Thankfully, he was wearing long pants and his hiking boots, so other than some hurt pride (and some good-natured ribbing by my oldest . . .), he was okay.

I don’t think he’s going to be a cowboy anytime soon, though . . .

For wanna-be cowpokes, the Bill Cody Ranch offers longer trail rides of four hours (lunch included), all-day (with a cookout), and overnight trips for the adventurous. All rides are open to the public, so you don’t have to stay at the Bill Cody Ranch (though I highly recommend this low-key, no frills dude ranch) to enjoy the trail rides.

Sixty-seven places visited, 433 to go!

Trying to Escape the Crowds in Yellowstone

  By Anne Patrone | September 27, 2011 - 9:26 am | , , , , , , , , , ,
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Lovely Lewis River in Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park is MASSIVE (spanning three states – Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho) and I knew it was going to be a challenge to even get a taste of this National Park in the short amount of time I had budgeted for it during our Western US road trip (a short half day).

I knew we would see Old Faithful (because, really . . . how can you go to Yellowstone and NOT see Old Faithful) and thought we might do a short hike or two (which we sort of did), but what I wasn’t prepared for was the crowds.

Okay, I know that we were going in the height of the summer season and that we were also heading into the park during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (more about that in a later post . . . ), but the amount of people EVERYWHERE, the full parking lots, and the lines of cars slowly inching along single lane roads (excuse me, slow person, look in your rear view mirror occasionally . . . they make pullouts for a reason . . . ) made me want to scurry out as quickly as possible.

And that’s a shame because Yellowstone, as the first National Park (established in 1872), was worth more of our time.

We still saw some amazing scenery . . .

Lewis Falls in Yellowstone National Park

. . . and crossed the Continental Divide . . .

The guys at our first crossing of the Continental Divide

. . . and even saw some bison far, far away . . . (what you don’t see are the nearly 30 cars lined up along the road trying to take a picture of this guy!)

A male bison in Yellowstone

But at the end of the day, we never felt like we were getting in touch with nature like we did on even short walks at Valley of Fire State Park or Arches National Park. 

My travel suggestion for Yellowstone? Don’t go in the summer and find a way to get out of the car to take even a short hike . . . you’ll be glad you did.