Hiking the Savage River Trail in Denali National Park

After we spent the morning exploring Fairbanks, we headed south for Denali National Park. By late afternoon, we were checking into the Denali Park Hotel, which is about 15 minutes north of the park entrance, just as a thundercrack split the sky. Storm clouds were gathering in the east but to the west, the sky …

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Highlights of Fairbanks, Alaska

We spent Labor Day weekend in Alaska, exploring Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Denali National Park. We went on an Alaskan cruise four years ago that served to whet our Alaska appetites, and I was thrilled we could head north again to explore parts of the interior and a new national park. We flew into Fairbanks Friday …

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Washington Hikes: Panorama Point

We ended the month of July by completing our first (and likely last) summer season hike at Paradise in Mt. Rainier National Park. I've been so spoiled with the less traversed trails we've been tackling and forgot how distressing it is hiking around people who pay no attention to what they are doing, where they …

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Washington Hikes: Eagle Peak Saddle

A couple weekend's ago, Brian found us another amazing Mt. Rainier National Park hike - Eagle Peak Saddle. We arrived at Longmire around 8 a.m. to find the parking lot already quite full. The WTA instructions for this hike recommended parking near the lodge, walking through the employee cabin area, and crossing the bridge to …

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Motorcycling the Oregon Coast

The final leg of our motorcycle loop through Oregon and California was riding north along the Oregon coast. We've been wanting to take the bikes along this particular route since we moved to Washington, and six years later we finally made it happen! We spent three days riding from Arcata, California to Port Orford, Oregon …

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Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area

I've been wanting to explore Oregon's coastal sand dunes for several years. Although we didn't have enough time to do all of the ATV exploring I would have liked during my birthday motorcycle trip through Oregon and California, we did dedicate a few hours of our itinerary to completing a short hike in the 31,500-acre …

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Exploring Redwood National and State Parks

I was thrilled the weather cooperated for our day re-discovering Redwood National and State Parks during my birthday motorcycle trip through Oregon and California. While we had driven through the park about 10 years ago on our road trip from San Francisco to Seattle, it was a completely new experience being on the motorcycles and …

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