Posted on April 17, 2012, 5:05 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
When I strolled the streets of Daegu (fourth largest city in South Korea), I saw a pedestrian street lined up with retail stores for many outdoor gear brands, including Millet and Lafuma, two French brands that I’ve hardly seen anywhere in the US. On the Namsam Mountain, near Gyeongju, there were as many hikers as […]
Posted on January 19, 2012, 10:01 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Last year, I spent some time in Cedar Grove, Kings Canyon National Park, trying to find out whether it was another Yosemite Valley. In the previous post, I reported about my explorations of the Cedar Grove valley floor. In this post, I am describing some of my findings on the Cedar Grove rims from a […]
Posted on October 28, 2011, 3:37 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
Mount Hoffman (10,845 feet, 3,305 meters) is right in the center of Yosemite. For a (relatively) easy to access viewpoint which gives you spectacular bird-eye’s views of the Yosemite backcountry in all directions, it is hard to top this hike. If you do only one high-country summit hike in Yosemite, I would suggest this one. […]
Posted on September 14, 2011, 9:38 am, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
The Na Pali Coast, on the North Shore of Kauai has some of the most spectacular coastal scenery anywhere, with the the grandest fluted coastal cliffs in all the Hawaiian Islands. Because of its steepness the Na Pali Coast is entirely roadless. Besides boat and helicopter, the only way to see the Na Pali Coast […]
Posted on July 7, 2011, 2:25 pm, by QT Luong, under
Locations.
The three first hikes in this series may have given the impression that to see something out of the beaten path in Yosemite, you need to venture out of established trails, on exposed or strenuous paths. This could well be true of Yosemite Valley, so unique and so full of landmarks such as Yosemite Falls […]
Kobuk Valley National Park is located in Northwestern Arctic Alaska, entirely above the Arctic Circle. It has the distinction of being the least visited of the 58 US National Parks. Following our summer 2001 trip to Lake Clark National Park, the expedition to Kobuk Valley National park in 2002 was the first wilderness trip that […]
Katmai National Park is located near the end of the Alaska Peninsula, in the middle of which is situated Lake Clark National Park. Although further from Anchorage than Lake Clark National Park, Katmai sees a slightly larger visitation, 9000 annual visits versus 6000, making it the fourth less visited National Park. Katmai was created in […]
One of the most recently designated National Parks, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park preserves the most dramatic section of the canyon of the Gunnison River in Colorado. Unlike other canyons in the Southwest which were carved into soft rock, extremely hard metamorphic rock form the walls of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. […]
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on the Big Island of Hawaii, is the place where the past and present volcanic island activity can be observed. It is the easiest place in the world to come close to a active volcano. The entire island was created by the Mauna Loa volcano, which now towers 13700 feet above […]
Kenai Fjords National Park, like many other Alaskan parks, is a place of superlatives. Its centerpiece, the Harding field, is the largest ice field in North America, covering more than half of the park. At some places, the thickness exceeds a mile. Unlike other Alaska parks, one section of the park can be easily reached. […]
