Time to Play in the Warmth

A mere 20 miles west of the Vegas Strip, desert hikers can strike pay dirt at Red Rock Canyon. This is the edge of the Mojave, where red and yellow sandstone cliffs stretch 7,000 feet into the Nevada sky and Joshua trees scatter across the desert floor. Many of the better day hikes branch out from the 13-mile loop road maintained by the Bureau of Land Management. The 4-mile round-trip Pine Creek Canyon Trail carves into the cliffs through a narrow canyon lined with ponderosa pines. The strenuous 14-mile round-trip Summit Trail begins in a typical desert plant community and ascends through canyons harboring willows and sycamores. Wildlife in Red Rock is as abundant and varied as the plant life. Coyotes, kit foxes, and bobcats all live in the canyon. 

Head to the Grand Traverse Bay area, a four-hour drive northwest of Detroit, in the autumn months for a weekend, and you’ll be treated to far more than a fun frolic on a Great Lake. Slow down and explore the region at a slow pace on bike or on two feet and you’ll find diverse terrain, from the shaded wetlands of the Grass River Natural Area to the rolling countryside of the Leelanau Peninsula to the steep dunes of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the largest sand dunes west of the Sahara Desert. The towering slopes of sand, some as high as 440 feet, slide steeply to the shores of Lake Michigan. Stroll on the 1.5-mile Cottonwood Trail and the dunes look like bowls of sand that only a giant could drink from. No wonder Good Morning America just named Sleeping Dunes the most beautiful locale in America.