Despite the cold, the forest floor is coming alive with splashes of color: carpets of delicate white spring beauties, patches of starburst white chickweed, bursts of purple periwinkle, flashes of yellow green-and-gold.
The spring show has begun, but it won’t last forever. Here are five spots where you’re likely to find the season in full flower for at least the next couple of weeks (longer in the high country).
Patience yields a trail gem
Patience.
Sometimes that’s the key to exploring a trail. Patience, as in following a trail that isn’t well blazed — or blazed at all. Patience in finding the trailhead. Or patience in even finding clues on the internet that the trail even exists. Thank heaven for friends who somehow found it and hiked it.
5 of our Favorite Basecamp Backpack Trips
Last week, we extolled the virtues of basecamp backpacking : that is, hiking in a short distance with your camping gear to establish a basecamp, then doing day hikes from there. You get the advantage of backcountry camping minus the burden of hauling 35 pounds with you wherever you go.
Basecamp backpacking: The Best of Two Worlds
You know why you haven’t gotten into backpacking?
A simple misconception.
When you think of backpacking, you likely think of hiking with 40 pounds on your back all day. In fact, you don’t. If every backpack trip we took involved lugging a full pack for days on end, we wouldn’t backpack, either.
5 Hikes that Fly Under the Radar
Editor’s note: The following originally ran in February 2018. We run it again today because it still holds true.
They’re the best trails you may not have heard of, those hikes that somehow fly under the radar.
You know the ones: You’re exchanging notes on favorite hikes with a friend and they say, “And, of course, there’s the Birkhead Wilderness.”