In honor of America’s birthday tomorrow, I thought I’d share with you something that has been brightening up my Instagram feed considerably these days.  Instagram is probably my current favorite social media vehicle – I love the casual glimpses into my friends’ lives, and the beautiful or uplifting pictures posted by the accounts I follow.  And lately, Instagram has been one of my favorite ways to get a fix of gorgeous shots of stunning natural scenery.  I follow REI, Camp Trend, and National Geographic Adventures, among other nature-loving accounts.  But today, I want to show you some of my favorite Instagrammers – the accounts managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior, and by several of our most beautiful national parks.  Observe–

U.S. Department of the Interior (@usinterior)

The Interior Department’s Instagram feed mainly consists of national park images.  Since I follow some of the national park feeds, but not others, I like getting glimpses into the rest of the park system.  For instance, this image of Great Smoky Mountains National Park took my breath away.

And look at this shot of Glacier Bay.  It combines two of my favorite things: national parks and whales.  (Whales are my favorite animals.  Fun fact: the first gift hubby ever gave me was a humpback whale adoption.)

One more:

The only problem with the U.S. Interior feed?  They keep posting shots of national preserves and areas I didn’t even know existed, and as a result, my travel bucket list is blowing up.

National Parks

In addition to the U.S. Interior feed, I also follow a few national park feeds.  I haven’t been to nearly enough national parks, but hubby and I are hoping to correct this over the next few years.  (I’ve been to Acadia, Yosemite and Great Falls National Parks, to Muir Woods National Monument, and to the Point Reyes and Cape Hatteras National Seashores.  A good list, but nowhere even close to what I would wish.  These Instagram feeds are tiding me over until we can make a trip out west, hopefully next year.)

Yosemite is my favorite national park.  I visited the park when I was twelve and I still remember my first sights of the spectacular Half Dome and Yosemite Falls, and swimming in the pristine Merced River.  I wish I could go back RIGHT NOW.

I haven’t been to Rocky Mountain National Park, but my brother – who lives in Colorado – has.  I follow the park’s Instagram feed for a dose of Colorado scenery.  We’re hoping to get out there to visit my brother and sister-in-law soon, and when we do, RMNP will definitely be on the agenda.

Arches National Park will also be on the agenda when we visit my brother – we’re hoping to do a family road trip from Boulder to Moab and check out several national parks along the way.  I mean, how spectacular are those arches?

Another park I’ve never seen in person, but I really, really want to visit Mount Rainier National Park.  We’re also talking about a trip to the Pacific Northwest, so hopefully I’ll be able to check this one off the list within the next couple of years.  Meanwhile, this account is contributing some of the most spectacular images in my Instagram feed.

And look at this trail.  This picture has me reaching for my hiking boots.  See what I mean about my travel bucket list?

And lastly,

Shenandoah!  So beautiful.  One of my biggest regrets is not getting to Shenandoah when we lived in DC and northern Virginia.  I am kicking myself for never making it there in ten years – and it was so close.  A few times my alumni club went on outings to climb Old Rag, but I was never able to join them.  We do have plans to go back to DC this summer, but I don’t think we’ll make it to Shenandoah.  We have a long list of friends we want to see and I doubt we’ll have time for a big day trip (although we definitely plan to go back to Great Falls while we’re there – my favorite spot in the area).

Although I haven’t been to enough of the national parks, monuments or preserves, I love the fact that they exist.  “America’s best idea” is, in my opinion, one of the finest things about our country.  Hubby and I recently finished watching Ken Burns’ documentary on the national parks and now we’re itching to visit all of them.  But travel is tricky with two tinies and our demanding lawyer jobs, so in the meantime, I’m taking my serenity to go, in the form of these spectacular images that pop up in my Instagram feed on a daily basis.

Happy birthday, America!

Happy summer hiking, my friends!  I still can’t quite wrap my mind around these blue skies and green grass and leafy trees.  We’ve been so starved for sunshine that it feels like if I blink it might all vanish.  Anyway, after the winter we’ve had, I’m determined to make this the best summer ever, and I think Sprague Brook Park is going to be a big part of that.

This past Saturday – June 6th – was National Trails Day.  So when hubby suggested a family hike, I was all about that idea.  (Of course, I’m always all about a family hike, but I was particularly enthusiastic about spending National Trails Day, you know, on the trails.)  The day was gorgeous – the weather definitely got the National Trails Day memo – and we loaded up the kids and headed to Sprague Brook Park to knock out our June hike (although I’m sure this wasn’t the last time we’ll be hitting the trails this month).  Fun fact: we’ve been to Sprague Brook before…

Peanut’s a little bit bigger now.  😉

We visited Sprague Brook in July of 2013, when we came up to Buffalo to look for housing before our big move.  I remember loving the small corner of the park that we were able to see at the time, and itching to discover more of it.  It’s been quite awhile, but we finally made it back, and it was just as lovely as I remembered.

We headed up the “snowmobile climb” trail and it was one of the more strenuous paths we’ve found around here.  Plenty of rolling hills to challenge our poor quads.  It felt good to be getting in a bit of a workout while we enjoyed the scenery.

Nugget says “Faster, Mommy!  No breaks!”

Peanut says “The backpack AGAIN, Daddy?”

One thing I noticed was that there wasn’t much undergrowth, aside from a few clumps of ferns.  I’m not sure how the park achieved that, but I liked it.  You could see more, and further, from the trail as a result.  Hubby said that the park had a sort of feel to it, like there might be a dinosaur around the corner.  I laughed and agreed, and told him that at that very moment I was thinking of the first line of Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline, which begins “This is the forest primeval.”

There was a large stream or creek running along the trail, and occasionally under it (via a pretty wooden footbridge), but the creek bed was quite dry.  We’ve since gotten a few days of hard rain; as you can see, we needed it.

Peanut fell asleep in the backpack, which actually ended up being a good thing: her “chariot nap” interfered with the car nap she was no doubt planning, and we were actually able to keep her on her normal lunch and nap schedule for the afternoon – a miracle!

Nugget, by contrast, did not close his eyes once during the hike.  I’m not even sure he blinked.  He was too interested in the leafy canopy, the mountain bikers we saw riding over the rolling hills, and the fern clusters.

We had such a marvelous time hiking Sprague Brook.  We spent about an hour on the trail and barely scratched the surface.  I think we’re going to have to go back sooner rather than later… and this could even be a candidate for a 2016 seasonal hiking project.  If you’re in the area, this park is a can’t-miss.  I think it’s currently my favorite local park (not counting Letchworth, which is a bit further afield).

Gear:

Hubby: Merrell Moab waterproof hiking shoes (that’s right! he finally got new ones!); Black Diamond hiking poles; Deuter KidComfort III child carrier.

Me: Oboz Luna hiking shoes; Black Diamond hiking poles; Ergobaby child carrier with newborn insert.

Did you celebrate National Trails Day last weekend?

As you may recall, one of my goals for 2015 was to continue our project of hiking in one scenic place throughout the year – so we could see how an area changes from season to season.  We had a wonderful time doing this project in 2014 at Tifft Nature Preserve in south Buffalo, and for 2015 we decided to replicate the experience at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve.  We did our winter hike there back in January (which doubled as our January hike for our twelve months hiking project) and now that it’s May, it was time to head back to see the trails in their spring glory.

Our group was quite a lot bigger for this hike than it was in January.  We were joined by Nugget on the outside, and by our favorite hiking companions – Zan and Paul!  As we were leaving the preserve, Paul remarked that he has now hiked with our family more than with any other hiking buddies, which I took as a huge compliment.  Hiking is not an activity that you can do with people you don’t much like, so the fact that we’re all still enthusiastic about hiking together (because indeed, our family enjoys hiking with Zan and Paul as much as they enjoy hiking with us) says a lot about how well we all get along.  It’s great to have found such good friends here!

Anyway, we decided, much like hubby and I did in January, to simply meander on into the woods and see where we ended up.

One of my favorite things about Reinstein is that, even on the wooded portions of the trails, you’re never far from a water view.  There are a few lovely ponds in the preserve and, now that the ice is melted, they were alive with wildlife.  The whole preserve was a symphony of singing birds, scurrying chipmunks, and chirruping frogs.

(This ^ is one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken – Instagrammed – since moving to WNY.)

After about an hour of easy hiking through the woods and around two ponds, we headed back to make good on a promise made to Peanut: a visit to the Nature Play Area.  Looks pretty different from the scene this winter!

Peanut was delighted and immediately started exploring.

She was pretty into the stick shelters and, to her credit, didn’t try to dismantle them like she did this winter.  Instead she enjoyed clambering in and out of them, and visiting Zan, who found a comfortable seat inside one of the shelters.

What a fun morning with our good friends!  Reinstein: we’ll be back to see you again this summer.

Have you ever taken on a seasonal hiking project?  Where?

Happy Wednesday, friends!  Do you see what I see?  Boots on the trail… in the middle of the week… in the middle of the day.  It’s sunny here today, and 77 degrees, and there are new growth leaves on the trees at last, so I grabbed Nugget and we set off for a midweek adventure for no other reason than that we can.  How many Wednesdays have I spent wishing I was on a trail instead of chained to a desk?  I decided to take advantage of my midweek freedom while I have it, and Nugget and I wandered over to Knox Farm.  I spent an hour walking the familiar trails, listening to the sounds of buzzing bees and singing birds – sounds I haven’t heard in months – and a peacefully snoring baby at perfect head-kissing height.  It was everything I could want in an afternoon.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

Snoozing baby.  Happy mom.

Recently, while scrolling through Facebook, I came across an article from Outside Online discussing the troubling phenomenon of declining national park visitation by “young” people.  (The article, while it noted that the number of national park visitors under age 15 had dropped in half, did not define exactly what it meant by “young” people – so readers were left to guess whether the decline was among children, teens, or twenty- or thirty-somethings.)  Although the numbers of people visiting national parks are still sky-high, most visitors (and employees) are of the Baby Boomer generation.  For example, the article noted that the average age of visitors to Denali National Park is 57 years old.  The article went on to posit that “young” people are too “plugged in” (read: attached to their smartphones) to enjoy the outdoors.  (Tell that to my hiking, skiing, snowboarding, windsurfing, ice climbing brother and sister-in-law.)

I found the article through the Adirondack Mountain Club, which I follow on Facebook.  The club asked followers whether they thought the Adirondack Park was experiencing a similar youth drought.  I scrolled through the comments and found that the vast majority agreed that there was no such phenomenon going on in the Adirondacks.  The park remains wildly popular among all ages – especially the High Peaks area.

(Family photo from this summer, snapped atop Cascade Mountain, one of the forty-six Adirondack high peaks.  Triumphant, sweaty, and entirely unaware that a microscopic Nugget had also made the climb with us.)

While the comments from fellow ADK enthusiasts were encouraging in their conviction that the park would remain popular with young and old alike, there were a few crusty types who complained that the trails were too crowded, and particularly the High Peaks trails.  I can certainly see where those comments were coming from.  We climbed Cascade, one of the most popular of the High Peaks, on the Fourth of July weekend last year, and I can attest to the fact that the trails were swarming with people.  As one of the slower groups – having a wee one with us – we were constantly moving over to let other, faster hikers go ahead of us.  At one point we idled for several minutes while a group of more than thirty preteen girls passed by, chattering up a storm.  When you hike on a trail that crowded, it’s hard not to get frustrated by the swarms of people, not to mention concerned about the impact of all those boots, all those poles, on the trail itself.

And yet.

I wouldn’t change a crowded trail.  I love seeing other faces out in the wilderness, waving hello and exchanging friendly greetings with like-minded hikers.  I like the feeling of being in good company.  And, as a woman, I feel safer on a populated trail (although I never, ever hike alone anyway – I’m always with hubby or a friend).

(Hiking Letchworth State Park last summer with hubby, Peanut, Zan and Paul.)

I used to be a hiker who preferred an isolated trail.  (Isolated except for my companions, that is.)  The best outing, in my opinion, was one where I didn’t see another human being other than whatever human(s) accompanied me to the trail in the first place.

Then I hiked in England and Scotland.

(The Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye, Scotland.  Don’t let this picture deceive you – this trail was hopping.)

Hubby and I planned several hikes for our 2008 trip – most notably in the Lake District and in the Scottish Highlands.  And I was immediately struck by how well-used the trails were there.  The English and Scottish hikers (and the hikers we encountered from other parts of the world, who’d traveled a long way to walk these paths as we had) really embraced their outdoor spaces and put feet on the trails in all weather.  Where in the U.S. we were accustomed to sparse trails even on beautiful, sunny days, in England and Scotland we saw the opposite – trails that attracted hikers (or “walkers” as they call our type over there) in all weather and all seasons.  And far from being dismayed by how heavily used the trails were, I loved it.

(Buttermere, in the Lake District, on a beautifully foggy day.)

I loved seeing the evidence, with my own eyes, that people were out and about and enjoying the natural beauty of their surroundings.  I loved the way the National Trust stationed a guide at the end point of the trail around Buttermere, and the fact that he was asking each person coming off the trail, “Did you have a nice walk?”  (Answer: yes, very much so.)  I loved the way people were not dissuaded by weather or any other concern – they just got out there.  And I loved knowing that, as popular as the trails were, that meant that most likely, they’d be kept and maintained for future generations of hikers (walkers) to enjoy.  It was the first time I really made that connection: if a trail isn’t popular, there’s no incentive for the powers that be to keep it up.  And by contrast, if it is popular, it’s more likely to be protected.

Some of the commenters on the Adirondack Mountain Club’s post of the Outside Online article might say that’s “playing politics.”  Maybe it is.  Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians protected our great natural spaces, not because there’s anything in it for them (votes) but because it’s the right thing to do?  Sure.  That would be great.  And in a perfect world, that would be the only motivation necessary to protect our beautiful natural wonders.  But as I’ve learned from watching Ken Burns’ documentary “The National Parks” (still working on that one – it’s long)… it doesn’t always work that way.  So if we want politicians to respect and preserve our natural wonders, we have to prove it worth their while.  And the best way to do that is to use those spaces.  Lots of us.

Of course, we have to be responsible about it.  We have to pack out our trash.  We have to leave the landscape as we found it.  That’s just good sense.  But we do have to use these spaces, these trails.  You’ll never find me frowning at a fellow hiker.  I’m glad we’re out there together, using and enjoying the resources we have.  (Even if I do make a sport of finagling pictures without another human soul in them.  There’s usually a few people milling about, just out of the frame – and I like it that way.)  The more popular a trail is, the better I like it these days.  Because I want Peanut and Nugget to have access to these trails for many years to come.  And their kids too, and their grandkids.  (Hopefully I’ll be invited along on some of their adventures.)  And I believe that if folks are out there, showing that they use and appreciate these natural gifts, people are more likely to be enjoying them fifty and a hundred years into the future.  Isn’t that what we want?

So, to my fellow hikers, I say: it’s great to see you out here.