Joe Yogerst - 100 Trails, 5,000 Ideas: Where to Go, When to Go, What to See, What to Do

Since 1888, the National Geographic Society has funded more than 14,000 research, conservation, education, and storytelling projects around the world. National Geographic Partners distributes a portion of the funds it receives from your purchase to National Geographic Society to support programs including the conservation of animals and their habitats.

Get closer to National Geographic Explorers and photographers, and connect with our global community. Join us today at nationalgeographic.org/joinus

For rights or permissions inquiries, please contact National Geographic Books Subsidiary Rights:

Copyright 2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission from the publisher is prohibited.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and Yellow Border Design are trademarks of the National Geographic Society, used under license.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Yogerst, Joseph R., author.

Title: 100 trails, 5,000 ideas : where to go, when to go, what to see, what to do / Joe Yogerst.

Other titles: One hundred trails, five thousand ideas

Description: Washington, DC : National Geographic, [2023] | Includes index.

| Summary: This authoritative travel guide takes you on a series of epic hiking and walking adventures on 100 trails around all 50 states and CanadaProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022021513 | ISBN 9781426222566 (Trade Paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: HikingUnited StatesGuidebooks. |

HikingCanadaGuidebooks. | WalkingUnited StatesGuidebooks. |

WalkingCanadaGuidebooks. | TrailsUnited StatesGuidebooks. |

TrailsCanadaGuidebooks.

Classification: LCC GV199.4 .Y64 2023 | DDC 796.51097dc23/eng/20220708

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022021513

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4262-2256-6

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4262-2358-7

The information in this book has been carefully checked and to the best of our knowledge is accurate. However, details are subject to change, and the publisher cannot be responsible for such changes, or for errors or omissions. Assessments of sites, hotels, and restaurants are based on the authors subjective opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the publishers opinion.

Ooh Aah Point on South Kaibab Trail offers sweeping views of the distinctive sedimentary red rocks of Gran Canyon National Park; : Wonderland Trail, in Mount Rainier National Park, lives up to its name, with an enchanting mix of old-growth forests, flower-draped meadows, and snow-capped peaks.

Several suspension bridges soar along the West Coast Trail in British Columbias Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. This one crosses Logan Creek.

T he overall number of trails scattered across the United States and Canada is nearly impossible to count. However, its safe to say it easily runs into the hundreds of thousands.

Hiking for pleasure has been an American passion for centuries. Not long after the Pilgrims landed along the New England shore, adventurous settlers were clambering over the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Henry David Thoreau wrote about his jaunts around Walden Pond and along Cape Cod. John Muir hiked across southern Ontario along a route that conveys the modern Bruce Trail and made a Thousand-Mile Walk from his boyhood home in Wisconsin to the Gulf Coast.

Even Edgar Allan Poe got into the act, penning an essay on his forays into Pennsylvania nature with a supplication that even of this delicious region, the sweeter portions are reached only by bypaths. Indeed, in America generally, the traveller... must walk, he must leap ravines, he must risk his neck among precipices, or he must leave unseen the truest, the richest, and most unspeakable glories of the land.

But trails arent just for the famous and the naturalists. According to the Outdoor Foundation, more than 160 million Americans participated in various forms of outdoor recreation in 2020. Thats more than half the entire population.

Three of the top four outdoor activitieshiking, biking, and runninglargely revolve around trails of one sort or another. Nearly one out of every five Americans hikes every year. And that figure doesnt consider those who take a casual stroll through their local park or along a beach. Other than nature itself, that makes trails the nations most important outdoor recreation asset. Given the fact that hiking and biking help improve a persons physical well-being and mental health, trails are also one of the countrys paramount health resources.

I largely came to hiking for the latter reason. As a child, walking was among my least favorite activities. I had asthma and was overweight (or husky as they politely termed it in those days). Then, as a teenager, I literally hiked my asthma into submission and lost much of my excess weight on treks to places including the bottom of the Grand Canyon ().

By my early 20s, I was hooked by trails as diverse as the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, and Torres del Paine in Patagonia. Researching and writing this book afforded me an opportunity to hike many new routes across the nation, sometimes with good old-fashioned topographic maps and almost always with a GPS app on my phone to show where I was and record my routes for posterity.

With more than 1,300 routes, the National Trails System rambles more than 88,000 miles (142,000 km) across every conceivable landscape in the U.S.; national parks alone boast around 21,000 miles (33,800 km) of footpaths. The AllTrails website lists more than 85,000 hiking and biking trails and adds more each year. Plus, nearly 2,300 rail-to-trail conversions span 25,000 miles (40,000 km).

Although we would love to feature all those routes, 100 Trails, 5,000 Ideas concentrates on some of the best hiking and biking routes in North America, with a bonus section featuring top trails in other parts of the world.

A few of these pathslike the Appalachian Trail ().

The trails throughout offer something for every type of hiker and biker. They include trails that are easy, moderate, and strenuous, as well as those that hikers or bikers can cover in a couple of hours, several weeks, multiple months, and, in one Canadian case, several years.

I hope the book inspires you to many new hiking and biking adventures in spots already on your outdoor adventure bucket list and places you didnt even consider before.

Southbound hikers are graced with snowcapped views of towering Mount Rainier as they ascend Elk Pass toward Old Snowy Mountain.

California

Inspired by the long-distance walks, outdoor passion, and environmental activism of its namesake, the John Muir Trail offers an incredibly scenic trek across the High Sierra between Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks.