Cashiers and Highlands, NC: Part I Having successfully completed our inaugural hike with new team member Fitz Roy, we decided that it’s time to take him out to the mountains to see how he does on real trails. Fitz is of course part Shiba Inu…a type of dog specially bred for hunting in mountainous conditions in rugged central Japan. The […]
A Day on the Mountain (Sort of)
Medoc Mountain State Park, Halifax, NC **We have added Medoc Mountain State Park to the list of our Best Hikes in the Triangle Area. Okay, so there’s no actual mountain here…it’s still one of the best and least crowded outdoor getaways within an hours drive of Raleigh.** For our first official expedition with new team member Fitz Roy, the captain […]
Sedona: The Red Rock Paradise
Sedona, AZ There is, believe it or not, much more to see than just the Grand Canyon in Arizona. During their 2009 Grand Canyon expedition Brian and Sylvia decided to see some more of what the Grand Canyon State has to offer. Of course, Brian had in fact been to the Canyon twice before, including a full North-South traverse of […]
Giant Adventures
The Giant Forest, Sequoia National Park Having safely established our base in King’s Canyon National Park, it was time to go see the other and more heavily visited side of this fabulous complex of protected lands…that being Sequoia National Park. Sequoia is smaller than Kings Canyon, but owing to the fact that it’s most singular landmarks lie close to the […]
The King of Canyons
Back in November we featured Big Bend National Park in Texas, which we nominated as the most underrated National Park in the entire system. It’s big, it’s wild, it’s scenic, and compared to other parks, it’s seldom visited. However, there are many other very underrated National Parks. In fact, we can easily make a case that while Big Bend is […]
Back for Another Year!
The Holidays are Over and We’re Back Online We back from our holiday break and ready to embrace new adventures! In addition to hosting Sylvia’s family from Dallas, we spent much of this time bringing the new member of the team, future BecauseItzThere dogsled captain Fitz Roy, up to speed. It has been quite an adventure. The problem is not […]
The Alum Cave Trail to Mt. Leconte
**We’ll soon be back from the holidays…until then, please enjoy this re-run of a post that appear in this space earlier in the year — one of the most popular trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, The Alum Cave Trail to Mt. Leconte. It’s popular for a reason! *The Alum Cave Trail to Mt. Leconte is one of […]
The Incredible Shrinking (and Late Arriving Fall) Color Show
Higher Temps and More Rain, Humidity Mean a Later Onset of Autumn How did this year’s fall color display in the Appalachian Mountains compare with those of years past? The short answer, at least when we were there to experience it, is…not that well. For the second straight year, fall colors came late to the Carolinas. Another year of record […]
There’s More to Stone Mountain State Park Than Stone (But There’s plenty of That, Too)
Stone Mountain State Park, NC What could be simpler to grasp than Stone Mountain State Park? It’s a state park with a mountain that has a lot of…well, stone in it. You gotta love simple. Of course, any mountain by definition has a bunch of stone in it. But rarely is so much of it so prominently on display. There […]
Another Unheralded Gem of the National Park System
Teddy Roosevelt National Park *This post continues the mining of old photographs taken in the pre-digital era. We therefore apologize in advance that the quality of the pictures is not quite up to the usual standards. Today we’re again going back into the vault, to the days when photographs were printed on paper, phones didn’t have cameras unless you worked […]