Thursday, May 24, 2012

"Short" list of hikes to take

Because my gaming attention has mostly been focused on the ongoing Star Wars game that I'm in, I haven't thought of any new input on the DARK•HERITAGE setting yet.  Honestly, I'm not even quite sure where I'm interested in developing.  I think I need to go back and look at some of the Simashki and western Baal Hamazi stuff I was working on when I thought I was going to have an online game, and post it as blog posts.

But in the meantime, since the season is upon us, here's my "short list" of desired places to hike.  You may think to yourself that this list isn't really very short.  You'd be right.  But there are a number of places I'd love to see which are not yet on this list.  And some of these I already know for sure I will be able to do this summer.  Starting hopefully next summer, I can start ticking off much larger chunks of the list at a time.

You may also notice (most likely not) that many of the places listed are places where I've already been.  Either I didn't see everything I wanted to last time, or I want to bring more of the family to experience it with me, or I just liked it so much I want to do it again.  I don't think I'm going to find I'm the kind of person who hikes a place once and never cares to see it again, always looking to move on to the next thing.

Places in italics are places I hope to actually visit within the next calendar year (give or take a few months.)  Some of them are already planned.  I've also purposefully left off places that are unsuitable for day hikes.  If I need to pack a tent and spend a few nights on the trail to get there, they're not on the short list.  If I added a number of wilderness areas that I really want to hike but which will take several days to due justice, I can easily add 50% more to this list, and that's still my "short list."  My western trip italics list is surely way too ambitious; I won't be able to do more than half (if that) of the suggested sites.

Glacier National Park
Grand Tetons National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Big Bend National Park
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
Mount Ranier National Park
Arches National Park
Fisher Towers
Timpanogos Wilderness Area
Colorado National Monument
Goblin Valley State Park
Little Wild Horse Canyon
Scott's Bluff National Monument
Badlands National Park
Devil's Tower National Monument
Yosemite National Park
Muir Woods National Monument
Kings Canyon/Sequoia National Parks
Provo Canyon/Bridal Veil Falls
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Hocking Hills State Park
Tahquamenon Falls State Park
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

1 comment:

Desdichado said...

This does, of course, depend on us taking two trips this year that are so far still up in the air--a trip to Texas to visit folks near Christmastime, and a trip to Utah in April for General Conference.

Otherwise, we just get the Smoky Mountains, and some Ohio and Michigan hikes. If we don't go to Texas at Christmastime, we'll probably go during the summer for a family reunion. But hiking National Parks in the Chihuahuan desert in the summer isn't really my idea of fun, and I doubt anyone else will be excited about it either.