Best of the Rest: Hiking Competitions

If our writer’s experience racing in the Phoenix Summit Challenge (November 2017), has you itching for a close-to-home hiking competition, consider these worthy of your time.

Author:: Hannah Johnson
Publish date:: Oct 13, 2017
Updated on: Oct 13, 2017

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Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge, MO: 1.5-mile Loess Bluff Interpretive Trail. In 1935, FDR established this northwest Missouri refuge (formerly known as Squaw Creek) for migratory birds and other wildlife. Good thing because today Loess Bluff’s grasslands and wetlands offer hikers easy views of bald eagles and snow geese (fall migration brings up to 200,000 of the latter to the refuge). October is best for viewing ducks and mid-November to December for bald eagles. Take the Loess Bluff Interpretive Trail and climb 200 steps to the Loess Hills for panoramic views of the refuge.

Grab your binoculars and cameras on these prime bird-spotting trails.

Though a short trail leads you right to the lighthouse, the Heceta Lighthouse Trail is part of a larger 7-mile network with routes of varying difficulty. Hikers will see nesting sea birds, sea lions, and whales from atop a cliff near the lighthouse overlook. [image: Beau Rogers/Flickr]

These see-worthy beacons are just a day hike away.

Who doesn’t want to soak at the foot of 14ers? Take a 8.5 mile hike to Conundrum Hot Springs outside of Aspen, Colo. for ridge views like this in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. [Photo by Wanderstruck / Flickr]

Reward your tired hiking muscles with a soak in these hidden hot springs.

This 35-foot tall tower in the Adirondacks was nearly demolished in 2001 after the state recommended its removal, but activists waged a successful campaign to list it on the National Register of Historic Places and ensure its preservation. [image: John Sweeney/Wikimedia]

These towers offer the best views in town, and you can hike to them.

For the ultimate dinosaur fix, check out the Fossil Discovery Trail at Dinosaur National Monument. Over 165 million years and 10 species of dinosaurs are jam-packed into this relatively short hike. Prepare to see dinosaur bones jutting out of the path’s surrounding rock faces, some belonging to beasts that would have weighed over 50,000 pounds in their heyday. The trail also contains fossilized squid, fish scales, and the remains of an ichthyosaur (think "dinosaur dolphin"). [image: Rob Glover/Flickr]

Want to feel young? Hike to some of the continent's coolest prehistoric sites.

Over a thousand people made their home in Rausch Gap at its peak, but unproductive mines doomed the town to abandonment in 1910. Old foundations litter the townsite, which lies along the Appalachian Trail.[image: Joey Klein/Flickr]

These eerily beautiful ghost towns—complete with abandoned mines and train depots—add historical interest to nearby hikes.

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