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| All alone in the universe. Hiking with a friend near Horsethief Canyon Trail in Utah's San Rafael Swell. |
Summer travel season is here, and so is the coronavirus. We Americans have grown weary of COVID-19, but the virus hasn’t tired of us. Uncertainty and unpredictability face travelers this year and the summer of 2020 may be unlike any other in our lifetimes.
Jet-setting across the globe is now difficult at best and dangerous at worst. As a result people all over this country are warming to the idea of domestic discovery.
For nine years this blog, One Day in America, has promoted travel in the United States. In this post, I’ve chosen to re-visit 10 stories from favorite places where social distancing is not the exception, but the rule.
Here then, are my top picks for fun and adventure in lightly-visited locales.
1. Swan Lake Cabin in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula.
This may be the most socially distant place I've ever been. And one of the most enchanting. One caveat to visiting the Kenai Peninsula—a flight is most likely required to get to Alaska. Also a float plane is the best way to access this cabin. However, for the hardy, this cabin may be reached by backpacking the Resurrection Pass Trail in the Kenai Peninsula.
2. Crystal Lake Trail, Lake City, Colorado.
3. Powderhorn Lakes Trail, north of Lake City, Colorado.
Crystal Lake Trail is located in a county with 900 year-round residents. The trail is easily accessed from the town of Lake City, the only incorporated town in the county.
Powderhorn Lakes Trail is 20 miles north of Lake City in the Powderhorn Wilderness.
Both Powderhorn Lakes and Crystal Lake offer fishing and backcountry camping; the likelihood of seeing others is practically nil.
Update on the above trails: Last week (June 2020) I hiked both Crystal Lake and Powderhorn Lakes Trails. The once lush spruce/fir forests above 11,000 feet in elevation now consist of mostly dead trees, all beetle-killed as a result of increasingly warm winters and longer summers.
The lakes themselves are still gems, however be apprised of entire hillsides of dead trees on the Powderhorn Lakes Trail and of deadfall across the trail in some spots.
The Crystal Lake trail makes its way uphill through a still-healthy aspen and ponderosa pine forest—and views from the trail are spectacular—however the lakeshore at 11,700 feet is surrounded by mostly dead spruce/fir trees.
Scenic backcountry campsites are still available at both lakes, in open meadows away from the dead trees.
4. Sand Wash Herd Management Area, Moffit County, Colorado.
You have to be a fan of wild horses for this one. And you have to be prepared for travel in a 4,751 square mile county (four times the size of Rhode Island) containing 13,287 people. Definitely a place to get away from it all.
5. The St. Joe River Wilderness in Idaho.
It's been over a decade since Tim and I have been to the St. Joe River Wilderness so I can't speak for 2020, but we camped there for three days in July one year, and didn't see another person the entire time.
6. Price Canyon Recreation Area, Price, Utah.
I have hiked Price Canyon Rec many times and friends have camped there. The campground is beautiful but lonely and, in 17 years of hiking the Bristlecone Pine Trail, I've encountered maybe five other people on the trail (other than the people I'm hiking with, of course.)
7. Horse Thief Canyon Trail, in The San Rafael Swell, Utah.
I admit it. Finding this trailhead is a little tricky. A few miles north of the junction of US 6 and Interstate 70 is a dirt road turn-off to the west. The first right turn on this dirt road takes you several miles to the trailhead. It's unlikely you'll see others on this trail.
8. Avintaquin Campground in the Ashley National Forest, Utah.
If you're looking for a campground that is never full, even during the 4th of July holiday, this is your place. The high alpine setting makes this the perfect place to cool off during the summer heat.
9. The Bread and Puppet Museum in Glover, Vermont.
This fantastical museum is so worth visiting that I would recommend it even if other (masked) people were there—which they weren't when I toured it in July of 2014. As a matter of fact after leaving Burlington and Lake Champlain behind, most of northern Vermont was devoid of people.
10. Famous Iowans Birthplaces.
Yes, even Iowa made it into the top ten. While I can't vouch for the "safety" of motels near these Iowa towns, and I'm not sure about the locations or plenitude of Iowa campgrounds, what I can vouch for are the little-traveled backroads and the absence of crowds at these birthplaces and museums. You might even discover that you rather like touring in rural Iowa.
Honorable Mention:
Great Basin National Park.
Due to COVID-19 I might not be visiting any National Parks this year, but if I were to travel to a National Park it would be Great Basin. Campgrounds may fill on holiday weekends but otherwise you should have your pick of campsites, and your pick of untravelled trails in this magnificent park.
Southeastern Colorado.
The link above will take you to Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site—a locale with one of the saddest histories of any site in the entire National Park Service.
There is much to see and do in Southeastern Colorado and not many people seeing and doing it, at least not in September of 2015 when I toured the area. The Comanche National Grasslands offers birding, Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site is a re-created 1840s trading post, and on a ranger-led tour of Picketwire Canyon near La Junta you can walk where Sauropods trod, in the longest set of dinosaur tracks in the United States.
Humans are a social species, and being asked to stay away from others is difficult for us.
All the locations above are places where you and your loved ones can experience solitude—and perhaps discover a bit of inner peace as well—in these trying times.
