Hikes and campgrounds across America

Want to learn about the native plants growing in Tryon Creek State Natural Area and elsewhere in the forests around Portland? Take an easy stroll (or roll a wheelchair) around Trillium Trail. This pair of paved loops is located next to Tryon Creek Nature Center and totals just 0.37 miles in length. Markers identify the green things growing along the trail and viewing decks peer into different layers of the forest to add insights to Trillium Trail. ...Read more.

Forest Park offers nearly instant access to the outdoors for people in Portland, Oregon. Pittock Mansions and the Stone House are popular destinations that can attract weekend crowds in Forest Park. For a quieter hike, combine Holman Lane, a section of Wildwood Trail, and Birch Trail for a 2.7-mile loop with 425 feet of elevation change. Holman Lane and Birch Trail leave NW 53rd Drive next to each other and connect to the major hiking trail through Forest Park to explore charming woodlands in the Tualatin Mountains (better known as the West Hills) Set out from the Birch Trailhead along NW 53rd Drive, which is half a mile from NW Cornell Road and offers ample parking. ...Read more.

Tumalo Falls is rightfully considered one of the must-see attractions in Bend, Oregon. The grandest waterfall on Tumalo Creek makes a nearly 100-foot drop from a cliff in Deschutes National Forest west of Bend. Admire the broad single-drop waterfall from a downstream viewpoint that is fifty yards from Tumalo Falls Day Use Area. Then take a half a mile round trip hike to an overlook at the brink of the falls for a close-up look at the first-class gusher. ...Read more.

Tumalo Falls is the tallest and most beautiful waterfall on Tumalo Creek near Bend, Oregon, but it isn't the creek's only waterfall. If you like seeing water tumble, go beyond the half-mile round trip hike to Tumalo Falls and explore a grander 7.4 miles loop that visits half dozen other named waterfalls and perhaps a dozen more unnamed smaller waterfalls and cascades. ...Read more.

Strolling down Deschutes River Trail toward Benham Falls, you might be skeptical that this calm river will hasten into rapids and cascades. The wall of volcanic rock on the far side of the river does offer an early clue that something dramatic could happen. The Deschutes River was rerouted by Lava Butte Lava Flow, causing it to tumble over a few waterfalls on its path north toward Bend. ...Read more.

You'll be grateful to find pavement and not melting hot lava on Trail of the Molten Land. This impressive trail is built atop a barren landscape of dark volcanic rock, the Lava Butte Lava Flow in Newberry National Volcanic Monument, which is part of Deschutes National Forest. Panels along the trail provide information about how the lava flow began at Lava Butte, a cinder cone above the trail. ...Read more.

Trail of the Whispering Pines is an interpretive botanical trail highlighting high desert plants in Newberry National Volcanic Monument. This short and level paved path covers just a quarter mile. Trail of the Whispering Pines can easily be explored as a 0.4-mile walk beginning and ending at Lava Lands Visitor Center. This short hike can be connected to Trail of the Molten Land, which is even more impressive, for a 1. ...Read more.

Lava Butte is a 500-foot tall cinder cone along the Northwest Rift of Newberry Volcano in Central Oregon. It rises prominently over Route 97 between Bend and Sunriver. A fire lookout tower sits atop Lava Butte and is joined by a rim trail that offers panoramic views over a dark volcanic landscape. Lava Butte also provides majestic views of the Cascade Mountains to the west. ...Read more.