Top-25 Cities for Singles & Outdoors (in the United States), Part II

In my last post, I discussed some cities that are good places for both singles as well as outdoors and the method I used for selecting those cities for my list.  Here, I examine cities that are rated even better than those previously discussed by Forbes’ various rankings.  If you are willing to move and want an “upgrade” in the singles scene and your outdoor life, then one of these cities is probably an excellent choice for you.

• Tier II – Huge Cities, Vegas & Tampa: You can’t go wrong with any of this group of seven cities, as all but two logged a top ten ranking for singles at some point in the last three years, and all are in the top 25 for outdoors.  Las Vegas and Tampa-St. Petersburg get into this tier with #8 and #5 rankings for outdoors.  Both cities expend more than $100 per resident on parks and experience a lot of sunshine each year, but can be relatively hot, especially Vegas.  Tampa is ranked higher for outdoors overall due to its exceptional #5 ranking in Forbes’ “Recreation Index,” but Vegas has been in the top 25 for singles in each of the last three years.  With less impressive but still relatively good outdoor experiences, big cities like New York, Atlanta, LA, Dallas, and Chicago are even better bets for singles than Vegas and Tampa, with all but LA and Chicago scoring two top ten rankings in the last three years.  In the 2008 study, New York, LA, and Chicago stood out for their culture, number of singles, and top-ranked nightlife (#1, #2, and #3, respectively), but suffers from lower ranks in job growth, online dating, and relatively high cost of living (ranked #34 or lower out of 40).  Atlanta and Dallas, ranked #1 and #3 overall in 2008, rate well (top 15) across the board for singles, with the exception of online dating for both cities (#24 and #20) and the actual number of singles for Dallas (#34).
  

  Denver probably belongs in Tier II, as its ranking for singles is inflated by including Boulder with Denver in the 2006 study. However, I personally like the mountains, and Denver is really the only option in the Rocky Mountains, so I left it in Tier I.

• Tier I – West of the Mississippi, DC & Boston: If you want to choose from the best of the best in cities for singles and outdoors, then you’re going to Boston, DC, or west of the Mississippi.  At the bottom end of this tier, Austin, Boston, and Denver all had a top-ten ranking for singles at some point in the past three years and are in the top 15 for outdoors.  Boston’s singles scene is comparable to to the megalopoles (NYC, LA) as described above but with better online dating (#15 in 2008), while Austin is notable for top-5 rankings in the number of singles, online dating, and job growth.  Edging these cities overall are Seattle and Washington, DC, both remarkably in the top ten for singles every year of Forbes’ ranking, making them the most consistent cities in this area, while ranking a solid #11 and #12, respectively, for outdoors.  Both of these cities are great for online dating but have relatively high living costs.  DC is better for the number of singles (#7 to Seattle’s #22), but Seattle is better than DC for job growth (#9 to DC’s #19).  While not as consistent for singles as Seattle and DC, San Diego and Phoenix have all jumped into the top seven for singles in one of each of the last three years and are all in the top six for outdoors.  Thanks to 20% of its land devoted to parks and comfortable temperatures year-round, San Diego ranks #2 for its outdoors, but it’s been outside the top 15 for singles each year except 2006 since it has a relatively high cost of living (#36 out of 40) without ranking in the top third in any other area for singles.  Phoenix might not be as spectacular and San Diego for the outdoors, but it is still relatively affordable (#13 cost of living) and is in the top fifteen in 2008 for culture, night life, and job growth.
  

  A testament to the limitations of rankings, Washington, DC is rated among the best cities for singles and outdoors but inexplicably remains one of the last cities in which I would actually want to live in the United States. I just don't like it.

• Runner-Up – Minneapolis: Minneapolis numerically tied with San Diego and Phoenix, but this was probably due to St. Paul’s inclusion in the 2006 and 2007 Forbes’ rankings, which brought Minneapolis’ ranking down to #14 and #13, respectively.  Analyzed separately from St. Paul in 2008, Minneapolis jumped to #3 overall for singles, with a huge improvement in Forbes’ “online dating” ranking, “determined by the number of active profiles in each city listed on dating site Yahoo! Personals.”  Minneapolis is in the top 20 in every category for singles except for cost of living, but even there its #28 ranking handily beats all of the best cities for singles other than Dallas and Atlanta.  Meanwhile, Minneapolis ranks a solid #7 for outdoors, with a stellar $150 spent per person on parks and a tiny 2.3 days with unhealthy air, both measures in which Minneapolis is rated second among all cities ranked.  Residents have to put up with almost three months of noticeable precipitation, but this is still less than Boston, Portland, and Seattle and on par most East Coast and Midwest cities.  The real stinker is five months of sub-freezing temperatures, an amount only Denver beats among ranked cities.  Minneapolis is 11th for Forbes’ “Recreation Index,” which measures “the number of ball diamonds, tennis courts and pools” in a city, but even without the cold it would be tough to beat the #1 city for singles and outdoors…
  

  If you can brave five months of below-freezing temperatures, Minneapolis is hard to beat for its singles scene and outdoor activities.

• The Best – San Francisco: If you’re willing to pay for it, San Francisco has seemingly no weaknesses in its singles scene or outdoor life.  It has been ranked #4, #1, and #2 for singles the past three years.  Despite an astronomical cost of living (second only to New York City among ranked cities, based on Forbes’ calculations) and relatively middling job growth (#24), it is quite good for online dating (#13) and nightlife (#12), excellent for culture (#4), and tops (#1, for those aren’t sure what I mean by “tops”) for the sheer number of singles, and these rankings are fairly consistent over the course of the last three years.  As for outdoors, San Franciso blows away the competition with over $250 spent per person on parks and recreation and featuring just one day over 90 degrees and zero below freezing, a climate rivalled only by San Diego and Los Angeles.  A good 20% of the city is parkland, and only about a week has “unhealthy air.”  It’s wetter than San Diego and LA, with two months (instead of one) of noticeable precipitation, but this is still less than all but desert cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Of course, rankings, with their perfectly even weighting of various “objective” factors whose very objectivity is questionable in first place,* are not the perfect guide to anything, including where to live, and averaging those rankings together does nothing to address their inherent limitations.  Innumerable factors like family, jobs, and networks keep people in one place despite supposed enhancements to their life that other cities might be able to deliver.  I, for one, lived most of my adult life in and enjoyed Philly (a “Tier III” city here), would never choose to live in Las Vegas (“Tier II), and have lived in and can’t stand Washington, DC.  However, this assessment gives me an additional appreciation for Minneapolis, where I currently live, and grounds that appreciation in some interesting facts about the city.

Top-25 Cities for Singles & Outdoors (in the United States), Part I

Every year, Forbes comes out with a ranking of the best cities for singles and recently also ranked cities for their outdoors opportunities.  As a single person who enjoys the outdoors, I thought it might be informative to see how these rankings compare and determine what cities were best for both singles and outdoors.  This post reviews my methodology, the cities in the bottom third of my top-25 composite ranking, and the cities that barely or almost made the cut.  Next time, I’ll look at the top cities for singles and outdoors.

• Methodology: Since Forbes has ranked cities for the outdoors only once and little other information was available online, I did not tinker with their 2008 rankings at all.  However, for singles, I averaged Forbes’ rankings from the past three years (3 parts 2008, 2 parts 2007, and 1 part 2006), assuming that consistent performance over three years was a better predictor for future success than simply last year’s rankings.*  I considered other sources like Sperling’s and Kiplinger’s, but the former was targeted at 18 to 24-year-olds and the latter did not articulate its methodology online but is for “young” singles, so I assumed the 18 to 24-year-old range might apply there as well.  I then simply averaged the rankings for singles and outdoors together and looked at the top 25.  I have grouped them into three tiers as described in this and my next post.
• Barely/Almost Making the Cut – Cities in the Midwest: The Midwest has fewer cities in this top-25 ranking than any region other than the Rocky Mountains, but there is no need to despair if you really want to live in this area.  A good chunk of them are clustered at the bottom of this ranking, and being “last place” on this list is not a bad thing.  There are thousands of cities in the United States, and dozens are included Forbes’ study each year.  St. Louis makes it into the top 25 for basically being #25 across the board; it’s been ranked #30, #27, and #20 for singles in the last three years which, when averaged together with weight on the more recent rankings, comes out to #24.  It’s ranked #25 for outdoors, so it is well-deserving of an overall ranking of #25 for singles and outdoors.  Columbus isn’t quite as nice for the outdoors (#31), but had an admirable #11 ranking for singles in 2006, followed up by top-twenty rankings in 2007 and 2008.  Other Midwest cities (Kansas City and Cincinnati) barely didn’t make the cut.
  

  I've always kind of liked Baltimore, and it seems that others kind of like it too. It is just outside the top 25 for singles each year and #28 for outdoors but not quite good enough to make this composite top-25 list.

• Tier III – A Pair Each from Florida, Texas, Mid-Atlantic & West Coast: Eight cities scattered around the United States but not in the Midwest make it into the bottom of three tiers that divide up the top 25 cities for singles and outdoors.  If you prefer the outdoors, Virginia Beach and Jacksonville are both top ten cities for outdoors but don’t crack the top 25 for singles in any of the last three years.  Virginia Beach is ranked highly for outdoors due to its exceptional spending per resident on parks, and Jacksonville is for nearly 20% of its space devoted to parks and a miniscule 1.3 days per year of unhealthy air; both experience sunny days at least 60% of the year.  As mirror images to this, Miami, San Antonio, Philadelphia, Houston all broke into the top fifteen for singles at least once, but rank between #20 and #30 for outdoors, which is still quite good.  For balance in this tier, look at Sacramento and Portland.  Sacramento ranks #13 for outdoors and matched that for singles in 2006, but dropped to #32 in 2008.  Portland has not had any peak rankings for singles but has consistently been in the top 30 every year to go with a #17 ranking for outdoors.
  

  San Jose did not make this top-25 list because it has never been ranked as a top city for singles by Forbes. However, it is #3 for outdoors and with San Francisco and Oakland just 50 miles away, how bad can it be?

You probably won’t be disappointed by the singles scene or the outdoors in any of these places, though if you’re open to moving anywhere, one of the cities in a higher tier might be more to your liking.

* It is actually more likely that changes in methodology impact the rankings more than anything else.  Minneapolis is one example, as noted in the caption above.  Denver is another one, ranked #1 for singles in 2006 when it was paired with Boulder, but dropping out of the top ten in 2007 and 2008.

Happier: Outdoor Possibilities from the Twin Cities

Tal Ben-Shahar’s Happier suggests that people should engage in a quest to constantly improve their lives (make themselves “happier”) as opposed to striving for some unattainable level of ultimate perfection. Minneapolis is no Denver or Seattle, dramatically situated on the cusp of mountain adventure, but I am coming to realize it is significantly better than Baton Rouge and New Orleans on almost every front of outdoor life.

• That 13,000-foot Mountain: Finding Mount Potosi in Nuevo Leon, Mexico was a huge discovery in Louisiana. About 1,000 miles from New Orleans, it was the closest 13,000-footer, followed by some peaks near Taos, New Mexico. While Minneapolis is not perched on the Front Range like Denver, Cloud Peak in Wyoming is 25% closer than Mount Potosi was, and it does not have the impediments of a border crossing or a language barrier. If I get sick of Cloud Peak, the Front Range is only about 100 miles further away.
• National Parks: The closest National Park of note to Southeast Louisiana was Smoky Mountain National Park, over 600 miles away. About equidistant from here are the eerie Badlands, but I’ve also got two amazing parks about 50% closer (Voyageurs and Isle Royals). In addition, unsatisfied by the Smokies, I frequently hauled ass to Big Bend and Guadalupe National Parks in Western Texas. While I’m probably not willing to make those sorts of trips that much anymore, I still have more and arguably better options about the same distance: Rocky Mountain National Park and Yellowstone are a bit closer, and Glacier and Grand Teton are just a couple hours further.
• Nearby Hiking: I’m no expert yet, but with the bluffs of the Mississippi to the southeast and the waterfalls and crags cascading into Lake Superior to the northeast, I’m fairly confident that the nearby hiking options kick the pants off driving to Mississippi.
• Kayaking/Canoing: I kept saying I’d get into this down south but never did. Here it seems almost impossible to avoid. Lakes are built into the fabric of the Twin Cities, and people sail, kayak, and canoe on them all the time. Outside the Twin Cities is of course the entirety of Minnesota, the state of 10,000 lakes (actually 12,000), so the possibilities seem endless. Finally, beyond simply quantity of options is the quality: the Boundary Waters are proclaimed as the best canoing in the world, and they are just a few hours north from here.

The only downside to these massive upgrades is that these options are available only half the year. Surviving the winter here the way I survived summer down south will be the subject of a separate post, but given that I was pretty inactive over the winter in Louisiana, it’s not much of a loss to have come here.

Getting out of Baton Rouge (or New Orleans)

Most of my free time during my two years Baton Rouge was spent trying to get out of Baton Rouge, or “BFR” as I call it these days. For someone who enjoys a good hike, Baton Rouge did not really have much to offer. However, I did figure out a few options that worked for me, including some nice long weekend trips and a handful of day trips.

Long Weekends or Longer

I drove my ass off trying to get out of Baton Rouge the first year I was there and I did crazy stuff like bullet all the way to Big Bend on the other side of Texas (950 miles away) over a 3-day weekend. Awesome. And not really worth it, at least not for such a limited amount of time. However, in my explorations, I did find two trips worth doing again were I to stay in the area.

1. Monterrey: If you want sizable mountains, you don’t have to drive 900+ miles all the way across Texas to hit Guadalupe or Big Bend (though both are great parks). About 750 miles from Baton Rouge, you could actually pull off driving to Monterrey (directions and regulations) and the Sierra Madre Oriental in a day. We checked out the Garcia Caves, Horsetail Falls, Mount Potosi (incredible drive from desert floor through several climate zones to the top of this 13,000 foot mountain, the only home of the endangered Potosi Pine), and Huasteca Canyon; and there were a number of outdoor excursions we did not do either, including Chipinque Naitonal Park, La Estanzuela, and Presa de la Boca
   

   The trip to/from Monterrey can be filled with interesting side destinations too: the Padre Island, Corpus Christi, and Galveston all provide beaches to perfectly contrast with the mountains you’ve just left, and even Houston is a welcome urban destination with cultural offerings, nightlife, and an array of restaurants and bars to enjoy. The drive itself is paced perfectly by intervening urban areas no more than an hour apart but not so frequent that you are constantly slowed by speed zones or traffic. Contrast this with the trek to/from the Guadalupe Mountains or Chisos Mountains, which, after/before San Antonio, is a vast stretch of nothingness over the Edwards and Stockton Plateaus. After Galveston (or even Houston), you can enjoy a free ferry ride from Galveston to Port Bolivar before hopping back on to I-10 before Beaumont and the final stretch home.

2. Smoky Mountains: About 600 miles from Baton Rouge, the Smokies certainly do not possess the grandeur of the Rockies or Sierras, but this is one of the most ecologically diverse places on the planet and absolutely worth the trip.

Day Trips

Of course, there’s some decent stuff in the area as well. While it’s certainly not of the diversity or scale of what you’d get living in Seattle or Denver, these short day trips were enjoyable.

1. Black Creek National Recreation Trail: This was probably the best hiking experience I’ve had down here. The forest was fairly lush, and the terrain had a little bit of topography to it. The trail is poorly maintained in parts, and in fact I had to turn back eventually because I completely lost it. I would have also loved canoing the creek.
2. Gulf Islands National Seashore: In general, this whole area is still struggling to come back from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The casinos are all up and running, but the roads to the more isolated areas have not been or will never be reconstructed. I did not really enjoy the segment in Mississippi, but the part on Santa Rosa Island in Florida was beautiful. The road looked like it was being torn up, so the farther I walked, the more I had the island to myself.
3. Wild Azalea Trail: I’ve done this trail a couple times. It is relatively flat and very easy. The best part of the hike is the Castor Creek Scenic Area in the middle of the trail.
4. Swamp Exploration: Paddling just outside New Orleans * Barataria Preserve * Bluebonnet Swamp
5. Other Options I Never Visited: Shockaloe National Recreation Trail, Lincoln Parish Park Trail in Ruston, LA, Lone Star National Recreation Trail, Longleaf Trace National Recreation Trail

GORP has a decent page with links for weekend trips from New Orleans.

The Sierra Madre Oriental

Into the Sierra Madre, Part II

During one of my ridiculous road trips, I decided to head south from Houston instead of continuing west to the Guadalupe or Chisos Mountains. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but thought I could at least check out some of the coastal areas along the Texas Gulf Coast or maybe even try out Mexico, which is surprisingly near. Upon closer inspection, I realized that Monterrey, the largest city in northern Mexico, was on the cusp of the Sierra Madre Oriental which, though the easternmost range of Mexico, are geologically related to the Rockies of the United States and Canada, not the Appalachian Mountains. In fact, the total distance to these mountains was only 750 miles, just 100 miles more than the trip to the Smokies, and 200 less than to the Guadalupe and Chisos Mountains, which are actually the northernmost extension of Sierra Madre Oriental. I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in the area around New Year’s Day 2007, and I was impressed by the relative height, ruggedness, and biodiversity of these mountains.

1. Relative Height: The Sierra Madre Oriental seem higher than they actually are due to the relatively low plateau from which they rise. With an average elevation of 7,000 feet above sea level, the Sierra Madre Oriental skyrocket about a mile up from Monterrey, less than 1,800 feet above sea level. This makes them seem even taller than they actually are compared to the Smokies, which average 5,000 feet but rise above a plateau already about 2,000 feet above sea level, and not as short compared to the Rockies, which average 11,000 feet above sea level in Rocky Mountain National Park, just 3,500 feet higher than the nearby Estes Park.
2. Ruggedness: The Sierra Madre Oriental are more rugged than the Smokies and are perhaps comparable with the Rockies in this regard. I wish I knew more about geology so I could articulate this second component of my argument more clearly. The Smokies are an ancient mountain range, so erosion has worn down whatever rugged peaks they used to possess over millions of years. The Rockies and the Sierra Madre Oriental are, to my understanding, of relatively similar age, their primary difference lying instead in the nature of the underlying rock of which they are made. The Sierra Madre are primarily limestone, generally the most resistant to erosion, while the Rockies in Rocky Mountain National Park are made of granite. While the Sierra Madre cannot compare with the sheer grandeur of the glacier-carved Rockies, their limestone peaks still feel craggier in a way. One need only visit Huasteca Canyon to see what I mean.
3. Biodiversity: Again, I am not an expert in this area, and I do appreciate the flora and fauna I experience in any natural setting, regardless of how it compares to other areas. However, I am impressed by the biodiversity of the Sierra Madre Oriental, where the highland altitude permits pine forest growth that you can find in the Rockies and Smokies; in fact, if it weren’t for the Potosi Pine, a pine found nowhere else in the world, my drive up 12,000 foot Cerro del Potosi could have been in Colorado somewhere. However, you won’t find cactus or tropical ferns in Colorado, but I saw both on the lush path up to Horsetail Falls in the Sierra Madre. This comparision is probably tough with the Smokies, recognized as one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world, which you can feel as you hike through its extraordinarily lush environment.

Thus, in these three respects, the Sierra Madre Oriental compares quite nicely with the Rockies and the Smokies. They are taller than the Smokies, and, in terms of relative height, they seem taller than the Rockies. Although it is probably tough to say the Sierra Madre Oriental are more “rugged” than the Rockies or have more “diversity” than the Smokies, they do seem to capture the best of both worlds, filling the valleys between there craggy peaks with a plethora of wildlife from alpine, desert, and tropical zones. In contrast, the rough alpine terrain of the Rockies can hardly be called “lush” and the ancient, mist-enshrouded domes of the Smokies are not generally known for their craggy peaks or dramatic bluffs. Of course, if I lived in Denver or Knoxville, these comparisons would be rather moot, but from my vantage point in Baton Rouge these qualities of the Sierra Madre Oriental make me feel fortunate to live here, “only” 750 miles away.

Mountain Hiking from Southeast Louisiana

Into the Sierra Madre, Part I

I have been on a quest to find the perfect mountain hiking area for extended weekends ever since I moved to Baton Rouge about a year ago. Trips to quality mountains used to take days to make from my former home in Philadelphia, but now, though considerably further south from great parks like Glacier or Yellowstone, I am generally a timezone closer to the great mountain ranges of the west while being about equidistant from the best parts of the Appalachians. Surely, trips that I used to do just once a year for the need to find a week off from work for the laborious drive could now be done more frequently in three or four-day weekends. I generally have found the quality of the experience to be roughly proportional to the distance travelled.

1. The closest “mountains” to Baton Rouge are the Ozarks. I hurried up there one weekend and found some nice hills, but nothing quite like what I was looking for: sweeping vistas of craggy mountain peaks, spectacular waterfalls, or awe-inspiring bluffs. I did not really expect any of that and of course might not have been looking in the right places, but if all I am going to get out of a trip is an up-and-down hikes through the woods, there are plenty of options closer to home than 500 miles.
2. For just a couple hours more of driving (650 miles), I can reach the completely unique nearly-rainforest environment of the Great Smoky Mountains. Here, the mountains actually reach over a mile high, and the frequent rainfall creates a wonderfully lush forest. Moreover, as the highest mountains on the eastern seaboard, the Smokies have flora found nowhere else in the world and is recognized internationally for its extraordinary biodiversity. Having grown up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I visited the Smokies several times in high school and am reminded of home when I go there. However, not a trip has gone by without at least some rainfall if not outright downpours, as the ever-present mist that gives the mountains their name must come from somewhere. The rain and the fog, though they can add a mystical quality to any trip to the Smokies, enshroud any views at the end of hikes and “dampen” the overall hiking experience. Therefore, some of the features I look forward to the most at the end of a rigorous hike are lost.
3. The Guadalupe and Chisos Mountains (in Big Bend National Park) on the other side of Texas offer 8,000 foot peaks in dry, desert-born climates and, both about 950 miles away, are just on the cusp of sanity for a long-weekend trip from Baton Rouge. Both parks offer interesting intersections of multiple ecological zones, particularly the Chihuahuan Desert adjacent to wooded alpine terrain, as well as fascinating geological features, including canyons and incredible rock formations. Big Bend of course is bound by the Rio Grande, which has created the shape of the land over millions of years and today waters a beautiful oasis on its banks. The Guadalupe Mountains used to lie under a sea in the Permian Era, and thus have driven to the surface fossils of sea creatures from millions of years ago. Although considerably farther than the Smokies, both parks are preferable to me and worth the trip from Baton Rouge.
   
4. The Rockies, whether by way of Denver or southwestern Colorado (both ~1300 miles), offer the spectacular scenery I love, with peaks over 12,000 everywhere, and a relatively dry climate to enjoy the outdoors. However, they are so far that a three or four day weekend would be almost entirely wasted on driving.
   

While the Rockies seem too far for a long-weekend jaunt and the Ozarks simply not “satisfying” enough to make the trip, albeit short, I certainly have little problem making repeated journeys to the Smoky, Guadalupe, and Chisos Mountains when the road trip/hiking bug hits me. However, all this has changed in the past week, because I have stumbled upon an option that trumps them all, “only” 750 miles away. While I love all three mountain ranges, I am not entirely sure when any of the three will be preferable to this new option from my vantage in Baton Rouge.

Exploring the National Parks

I have been lucky enough to visit all but six of the lower 48 states’ mainland National Parks. I hope to visit these seven, in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest, in the next year, leaving only parks in Alaska and on remote islands unvisited. This page serves as a brief commentary on my visits so that others like me can be advised on how they might want to visit the parks. I consider myself an average hiker. I’m gung-ho enough to want to avoid the “scenic drives” in favor of trails (though I usually fail) but I’ve only backpacked overnight once. Therefore, most of the hikes I recommend below are moderately strenuous, half-day walks. I am most satisfied by trails that give me an impression of a park’s unique natural terrain, though I might not have tried very hard in some of the parks I visited. In these latter cases, I comment on trails I would try out on a subsequent visit. Parks marked with an asterisk (*) are designated as World Heritage Sites.

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Regional Descriptions

These regional descriptions group National Parks by area. You can probably visit all the parks in each area within a long week. Links in this section lead to my commentary on individual parks.

Colorado Plateau

Of all the regions I’ve visited, I want to return to this one the most. Instead of a week-long tour, I would instead spend a long two or three weeks here. First, I would raft down the Colorado into the Grand Canyon* (8 days) or at least hike the North Kaibab Trail all the way down to the canyon floor (3 days). Then, I would drive to the free Lava Point campground in Zion, hike the West Rim Trail to and from Springfield, spending a day in Zion Canyon and a couple nights at a bed and breakfast in between (4 days). At Bryce Canyon, I’ll take the mule ride down to the canyon floor and probably just camp in the park (2 days). The scenic drive along Utah 12 and up through Waterpocket Fold is perhaps the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, so I’ll be happy to do it again to get to Capitol Reef, where I’ll blow some money to stay in the quaint town near the park and hike some of the longer options at the various trailheads (3 days). I should have an off-road vehicle, so I can really enjoy the remote areas of Canyonlands, like the Maze (4 days). After some grungy time there, I’ll relax in trendy Moab and spend a day retracing my steps in Arches (2 days). Although on the plateau and definitely worth a visit, Great Basin and Petrified Forest are a bit out of the way of these other spectacular parks and not quite worth the effort to see a second time.

Pacific Crest South

Along the most spectacular segment of the Pacific Crest Trail, linking the High Sierra of Central and Southern California to the volcanic ranges of Northern California and Oregon, lie three amazing parks. Like everyone else, you will probably want to spend most of your time in Yosemite*, but jointly-run Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks deserve nearly as much time. Further away, Lassen Volcanic National Park allows access to some awesome geologic features.

Appalachian Mountains

Affording year-round scenery relatively close to the vast majority of North America’s population, these parks receive more visitors than any other duo combined. Despite the low elevation of the ancient Appalachians, plenty of steep, challenging hikes can be found here. I’ve visited Shenandoah more than any other park, but only vaguely remember my family’s scenic drive through the Great Smoky Mountains*. The two are connected by the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway.

Northern Rocky Mountains

Of all the areas of the Rocky Mountains (including Colorado and the Badlands, below), I would like to return here the most. Hiking only one trail, I did little justice to Yellowstone*. Although I climbed the western flank of the Grand Tetons, I have never actually entered the park boundaries. Waterton-Glacier* was afforded a few days of my time, but it is definitely worth another look, perhaps on a trip to one of its (expensive) mountain-side chalets.

Colorado

Colorado’s parks, consisting of the southern reaches of the Rocky Mountains, are definitely worth visiting, but I’m not as into them as their northern counterparts. Rocky Mountain National Park contains the highest road in America (but I’m sick of scenic drives) and a dense collection of 14ers (but I bet Alaskan parks put these to shame). If I lived in Denver or Boulder, I’d be in this park every weekend, but if I had to choose between it and one of the parks in the Northern Rocky Mountains, I’d go with the latter. Although the High Dune defeated me, Great Sand Dunes is not yet a park; I definitely feel like I “finished” the park. It would have been nice to hike down to the floor of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, but my sunset visit was perfectly satisfying.

Chihuahan Desert

These parks are the only redeemable part of Texas and give the visitor a taste of Mexico. Big Bend. The Carlsbad Caverns* are world-famous, but the nearly-unknown Guadalupe Mountains are amazing and only about thirty miles away. Transected by the Rio Grande, Big Bend offers a wide variety terrain, little of which I explored.

Mojave & Sonoran Deserts

Death Valley. Joshua Tree. Saguaro

Badlands

Is it wrong to not dig the Dakotas? After entering the Badlands, I decided it wasn’t worth $10 to drive through the park, but they wouldn’t give me my money back. You can’t visit Wind Cave without taking one of the corny ranger-led tours; instead go to nearby Jewel Cave, which my brother points out has the toughest spelunking in the country. I didn’t even know I was in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but it was a nice drive on the way to Glacier.

Disparate Coastal Parks

Everglades*. Redwood*. Acadia.

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Visited Parks Trip names link to pictures. Park names link to NPS site. Summer 1986: Family Road Trip

• Great Smoky Mountains, TN
• Shenandoah, VA (also in 1995, 2002-4)

Summer 1998: Cross Country

• Badlands, SD
• Yellowstone, WY
• Grand Tetons, WY

Winter 1999: Surprise Trip to Miami

• Everglades, FL

Summer 1999: Wandering Around

• Acadia, ME
• Big Bend, TX

Summer 2003: Glacier

• Waterton-Glacier, MT

Winter 2003: Deserts Tour

• Death Valley, CA
• Joshua Tree, CA
• Saguaro, AZ

Spring 2004: Wind Cave

• Wind Cave, SD

Summer 2004

• Rocky Mountain, CO
• Great Sand Dunes, CO
• Mesa Verde, CO
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison, CO
• Arches, UT
• Canyonlands, UT
• Capitol Reef, UT
• Bryce Canyon, UT
• Zion, UT
• Grand Canyon, AZ
• Petrified Forest, AZ
• Guadalupe Mountains, TX
• Carlsbad Caverns, NM
• Great Basin, NV
• Lassen Volcanic, CA
• Redwood, CA
• Yosemite, CA
• Sequoia & Kings Canyon, CA

Fall 2004

• Cuyahoga Valley, OH: This visit was weak, basically just a drive-through. However, the park’s proximity to urban areas and family make a return trip easy.

5 Reasons Why Biking Is Better than Walking

Adapted from an essay originally written for Professor Barnett’s Theory and Principles of Urban Design class at the University of Pennsylvania on November 13, 2003.

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Transportation clearly influences the design of urban spaces. One need only compare the auto-dominated sprawl of the suburbs with growing success of pedestrian and transit-oriented cities like Portland and Seattle to see the tremendous differences planners can make in the design of their region by simply turning away from highway projects and focusing instead on connecting small walkable communities with efficient public transit. The return to creating “traditional” towns based on the pedestrian and public transit is heralded as improving public health, saving money, developing “social capital”, enhancing environmental sustainability, decreasing crime, and providing solutions to social equity concerns. While all of these claims could be true, planners seem to have forgotten that the bicycle can accomplish all of these goals more easily and cost effectively than a pedestrian and transit-oriented system.  In fact, riding a bicycle is healthier, cheaper, cleaner, more equitable, and faster than the usual neo-traditional prescription of taking public transit and walking, and it’s just as sociable and safe.

1. Exercise: Not only is biking better for public health than walking, it is also generally acclaimed as one of the best forms of exercise. Much is made of recent claims that “walkable cities” might be part of the answer to America’s obesity problem, but a city in which biking is the preferred mode of transportation, where all trips between one and five miles were made on a bicycle, could claim to not only make significant in-roads into the obesity problem but summarily blow it out of the water. Biking exercises more muscles than walking (in fact, more muscles than most any other form of exercise other than swimming and mountain climbing) and is a lower impact form of physical movement. Additionally, biking is more likely than walking to invoke the internal release of endorphins, leading to more energy and a better sense of well being. Enabling people to stroll to the train station or the corner store certainly creates a healthier atmosphere than the current system of walking all the way to one’s driveway, but cities in which most inhabitants bike five miles to and from work every day would be nothing less than a revolution in American public health.
2. Affordability: Despite the initial upfront cost of purchasing a bicycle, biking as a mode of transportation is actually cheaper than walking. Advocates for the pedestrian argue simplistically that “it doesn’t cost anything to walk,” but they forget the large number of options walkers forego because of limitations in the distance they can traverse in a timely fashion. Even in a New Urbanist “walkable city”, pedestrians will have to either walk for quite some time or spend some money on public transit if they ever want to go outside the vicinity of their neighborhood. Using Philadelphia’s admittedly exorbitant rates for public transit, a simple trip to the other side of the city and back would cost four dollars. If this trip needed to happen daily, one would only have to look three months down the road to see that he could have spent the money on a bicycle and saved $4 a day from there on out. When added up over the life of the bike, the savings could amount to thousands of dollars. Pedestrians in a “pedestrian-oriented” city must accept these costs or spend a lot of time walking everywhere.
3. Environmental Sustainability: Advocates of walking also proclaim that pedestrian-oriented communities are built at a “scale of sustainability”. This catch-phrase is vague enough to be dismissed without much thought, but the real argument for a bicycle-oriented community in this regard is that bicycles cut down on the need not only for automobile traffic but also for public transit. Generally, consuming fossil fuels and depleting our atmosphere are “unsustainable” activities, and the automobile is certainly the top culprit in both of these questionable enterprises. However, public transit, while correctly hailed as a major improvement over automobiles, still consumes fuel and pollutes, and a pedestrian-oriented city must rely on it for trips of more than a mile. Tomlinson, who essentially wrote the paper I would want to write were this assignment a capstone project for my degree, goes to some lengths discussing biking as a superior mode of sustainable transit.
4. Equity: A bicycle-oriented system is more equitable than a pedestrian or transit-oriented system. Again, public transit has a well-known history as a tool to improve social equity; the experiment in Cleveland was successful enough to write a book about it. However, bike transit offers significant cost savings if used to cut back on some public transit needs. Obviously, the cost of infrastructure for bikes is significantly less than that for either automobiles, buses, or trains: bikes take up only a twelfth of the space a medium-sized car does, allowing for less lanes and smaller parking areas. Additionally, bicycles are clearly cheaper to make than any form of motor vehicle. Although suggesting that bikes be used entirely instead of public transit or automobiles is rather silly, creating a bicycle-oriented transit system in which public transit augments rather than dominates the transit experience would allow municipalities to cut back on costs in maintaining and developing infrastructure for both automobiles and public transit. These cost savings can in turn be spent on job training, education, and other programs beneficial to social equity.
5. Faster: Everyone knows that biking is faster than walking, but, according the the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the average cyclist can travel at a speed (12.5 mph) faster than the average driver does during peak hours in Philadelphia (<12 mph).

Pedestrian-oriented communities claim to decrease crime. This claim is as old as Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities and lives on today in New Urbanist propaganda. While concepts like Jacobs’ “eyes on the street” go a long way in convincing us of their claims, all are applicable to a bicycle-oriented transit system. Riding a bicycle instead of using a car or public transit will not inhibit our ability to place residences over shops or to populate inviting parks and squares with artisans, shoppers, and casual strollers. Moreover, a strong argument can be made for the fact that diversity of uses, physical design, and population has more to do with decreasing crime than simply the presence of pedestrians [Fowler]. Again, a purely bicycle-oriented city will not infringe upon this diversity.

The next post suggests seven ways to create a more bicycle-oriented city.