Our Backyard: Dolly Sods Wilderness

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Rich Johnson, 31, lives in Hartly, Delaware, but makes two trips to Dolly Sods each year, often with a backpacking greenhorn in tow. “Everyone I’ve taken gets hooked,” he says. “How could they not with such amazing scenery?” During winter, Johnson straps on snowshoes and a hardshell to traverse the wide-open, windswept balds on the plateau near Bear Rocks.

Matthew Savener, 28, of Washington D.C., knows the very best view in the southern half of the Dolly Sods isn’t on the trail. “Look for cairns to the north of the Rocky Point Trail,” he says. “Climb over and around the big boulders to earn the true goal: unobstructed vistas from the southern shoulder of Breathed Mountain.”