In the northeast corner of California, Modoc National Forest contains the largest shield volcano in North America: 7,921-foot Medicine Lake Volcano. This region has a long history of volcanism, as seen at Pumice Stone Mountain, Burnt Lava Flow, High Hole Crater, Hot Spot, and Glass Mountain (composed of rhyolite obsidian and glossy dacite). The basalt-topped plateau of Devil’s Garden is home to an 800-acre stand of western juniper. East of Goose Lake, the Warner Mountains rise from 4,300 feet to 9,892-foot Eagle Peak, and are covered by a mixed conifer forest of lodgepole pine, whitebark pine, ponderosa pine, incense-cedar, and red fir.
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Highlights
Sáttítla Highlands National Monument, Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, Medicine Lake Recreation Area, Glass Mountain, Devil’s Garden Natural Area, Mill Creek Falls, Highgrade National Recreation Trail, Pine Creek Trail
Must-Do Activity
Medicine Lake offers boat ramps, trails, and campgrounds and nearby is Giant Crater, which has the longest known lava tube system in the world at 18 miles (although it is partially collapsed). Located up a dirt road often blocked by snowdrifts late into the summer, Glass Mountain has a crater full of sharp pieces of rhyolite obsidian and glossy dacite. This remote corner of California has some of the darkest skies in the continental U.S., so it is great for stargazing on moonless nights. In the winter, snowmobiling and cross-country skiing are popular activities on groomed trails. The South Warner Mountain Wilderness is traversed by the 21-mile Summit Trail that passes Eagle Peak, the Devil’s Knob, and The Slide. Mill Creek Falls is also in the Warner Mountains, accessed by a 3.4-mile out-and-back trail.
Best Trail
In the Warner Mountains near the border with Oregon’s Fremont National Forest, the 5.5-mile one-way Highgrade National Recreation Trail provides excellent views of Goose Lake. The trailhead is reached by taking paved County Road 9 five miles east from Highway 395 then turning north on the steep and unpaved Del Pratt Spring Road (Forest Road 47N72) for 6.3 miles. The trail quickly leaves the shade of the forest as it steadily climbs 800 feet through a slope covered in woolly mule’s ears flowers to a saddle west of 8,224-foot Mt. Vida. It is possible to summit Mt. Vida from this point, but the trail heads away toward Yellow Mountain following Forest Road 48N10.
Watchable Wildlife
Modoc National Forest borders Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, in addition to Tule Lake, Clear Lake, and Modoc National Wildlife Refuges. These wetlands provide habitat crucial for bird nesting and migration on the Pacific Flyway. The many lava tubes provide habitat for numerous species of bats, in addition to violet-green swallows and bushy-tailed woodrats. Larger mammals include mule deer, pronghorn, badger, skunk, raccoon, pika, jackrabbit, yellow-bellied marmot, coyote, bobcat, and mountain lion. Large birds found here are great horned owl, short-eared owl, and bald eagle (winter resident). Reptiles are abundant, including the western fence lizard, northern sagebrush lizard, western skink, Rocky Mountain rubber boa, gopher snake, desert night, and western rattlesnake.
Photographic Opportunity
Not far up the steep Highgrade National Recreation Trail there are excellent views of Goose Lake to the west.
Peak Season
Summer
Fees
$5 per vehicle (or the America the Beautiful Pass) at Medicine Lake
Road Conditions
This area receives abundant winter snowfall, and roads can be blocked by snow into July, which we experienced trying to get to Glass Mountain. The road to Medicine Lake is paved, but almost every other road through the National Monument is unpaved, some requiring a high-clearance vehicle. Giant Crater is a Geologic Special Interest Area that can be accessed two miles off Medicine Lake Road on Forest Road 43N11.
Camping
There are multiple Forest Service campgrounds on Medicine Lake, plus two nearby at Blanche Lake and Bullseye Lake. Dirt roads in Modoc National Forest provide ample dispersed campsites.
Lassen National Forest Reserve dates back to 1905, then a decade later when Lassen Peak explosively erupted (the first eruption to be photographed in the continental U.S.), 106,589-acre Lassen Volcanic National Park was carved out. The two federal areas are connected by the 187-mile-long Lassen Scenic Byway (Highways 44 and 89) that traces the volcanic legacy of the southern Cascade Range. The 41,100-acre Ishi Wilderness was named in 1984 to honor the last surviving member of the Yahi band of Southern Yanas, taken from his native home near Oroville in 1911 and employed as a janitor at the University of California’s Anthropology Museum in San Francisco until his death from tuberculosis five years later.
Highlights
Lassen Scenic Byway, Lake Almanor, Eagle Lake, Subway Cave, Hat Creek Recreational Area, Triangle Lake, Heart Lake National Recreation Trail, Bizz Johnson Trail, Spencer Meadows National Recreation Trail, Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail
Must-Do Activity
Lassen National Forest runs campgrounds and boat ramps on both Lake Almanor and Eagle Lake, although most of their shorelines are privately owned. Between the two lakes is the town of Susanville, where a railroad bed abandoned in 1978 was converted into the Bizz Johnson Trail that follows the Susan River for 26 miles. The trail features 12 river crossings and two tunnels with scenic mountain views. Camping is restricted to specific portions of the trail. The 20,546-acre Caribou Wilderness was one of America’s first Primitive Areas designated in 1932 and along with the 16,335-acre Thousand Lakes Wilderness was established immediately following passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act. In a proposed Wilderness area on the west side of Lassen Volcanic National Park, Heart Lake National Recreation Trail is a 2.4-mile one-way hike up to a glacial lake that connects to the longer Twin Meadows Trail.
Best Trail
Subway Cave is only 1,300 feet long, but the lava tube is the main attraction in Lassen National Forest, with free guided tours offered on summer weekends. Lava flowed through here less than 2,000 years ago and interpretive signs along the 0.7-mile loop trail explain lavacicles and other geologic oddities. A flashlight is necessary to explore past the openings of the 46°F cave, which drops to four feet in some places with a maximum ceiling of 17 feet. One mile south on the Lassen Scenic Byway (Highway 44) is the 1.7-mile roundtrip Spatter Cone Trail (across from Hat Creek Campground). The trail passes a variety of volcanic formations in a forest of Jeffrey pine trees.
Watchable Wildlife
Lassen National Forest is home to black bears, pine martens, mountain lions, bobcats, red foxes, coyotes, and a few gray wolves that migrated south from Oregon. You are most likely to see mule deer or one of the variety of chipmunks or squirrels. Bird sightings include mountain chickadees, Steller’s jays, Clark’s nutcrackers (at high elevations), and eight species of woodpeckers such as pileated and white-headed.
Photographic Opportunity
Sitting at 4,505 feet in elevation, Lake Almanor stretches for 13 miles near Chester, California and is a good place for summer boating and fishing.
Peak Season
Summer
Fees
None
Road Conditions
Subway Cave is located right off Lassen Scenic Byway (Highways 44 and 89) and most of the unpaved roads we have explored in the National Forest have been maintained, probably because of the continued harvesting activities that we witnessed on our field trip from Cal Poly University in 2010.
Camping
Lassen National Forest runs campgrounds on both Lake Almanor and Eagle Lake, plus Hat Creek Recreational Area has seven campgrounds. If you are looking to disperse camp outside Lassen Volcanic National Park, take the road west outside the southern entrance (but keep a clean campsite as we saw a black bear in the area).
Last year we published our guidebook 50 States of Great: Road Trip Guide to America, so we decided to start a new type of blog post where we create a travel itinerary for all 50 states, in addition to our usual National Forest and National Park entries. After starting with Kansas, Georgia, Idaho, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Hawai‘i we decided to do a state in the southwest. Arizona probably needs two separate itineraries, with the southern deserts being a great destination in the winter and the high-elevation northern part of the state better in the summer (see Day 8+). We made an ambitious seven-day plan starting in the south, with plenty of options to extend the trip. Scott grew up in Arizona, so he could have easily made this a four-week itinerary and still left out many good options.
On the Mexican border sits 330,689 acres of undeveloped Sonoran Desert recognized as a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve in 1976. Its namesake cactus is more common further south and shares this landscape with 27 other species of cacti, including the famous saguaro. The park’s jagged Ajo Mountains are mostly volcanic rhyolite and to see them at their best, we recommend driving the 21-mile dirt road loop in the evening before turning in for the night at the excellent Twin Peaks Campground, run by the National Park Service (NPS).
Arizona has 19 National Monuments (more than any other state), so if you flew into Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix start with the one located right off Interstate 10.
Desert bighorn sheep can be seen in this remote part of southwest Arizona south of Quartzsite. Cibola and Imperial National Wildlife Refuges along the Colorado River are good spots for birding.
Southwest of Tucson, Arizona in a nondescript stretch of desert are the remains of an underground Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) silo built in 1963, during the height of the Cold War. The nuclear warhead and rocket fuel was long ago removed from the site, but otherwise everything has been preserved. A tour guide takes you below ground in the original elevator to explain the steps required to unleash this devastating weapon.
The Catalina Highway ascends from Tucson through multiple life zones from saguaro-dotted desert to ponderosa pine forests at more than 9,000 feet in elevation. The expansive vistas along the drive are worth the many switchbacks, with Windy Point Vista is an especially beautiful wayside in the pinyon-juniper woodland zone. At the base of the Santa Catalina Mountains, also within Coronado National Forest, tram rides are available through beautiful Sabino Canyon Recreation Area.
If you didn’t get your fill of cacti the first day, you will at this park with separate sections east and west of Tucson. If you only have time for one, we recommend the eastern Rincon Mountain District.
South of Tucson in Tubac, San Cayetano de Tumacácori is a Spanish mission founded in 1691 by Padre Kino and abandoned in 1848. It became a National Monument in 1908 when it was restored to its ruined state based on photographs dating from 1868.
The highly decorated cave was not discovered until 1974, when its location was kept a tight secret while efforts were made to preserve it for future visitors. There are two guided tours on paved trails offered, and if you space out your reservations far enough you can take a hike on the 2.4-mile Foothills Loop Trail in between.
Bisbee
The copper mining center of Bisbee was once the largest city between El Paso and San Francisco. The well-maintained Victorian architecture and flights of steep staircases give this border town a unique atmosphere.
The park does not actually contain a statue or large memorial to Coronado. It does have a steep three-quarter mile trail to a 600-foot long limestone cave bearing Coronado’s name, which visitors can explore on their own with flashlights.
Tucked away in the southeastern corner of Arizona, millions of years of erosion left behind a spectacular collection of rhyolite rock formations that rise above surrounding evergreen trees. All the trails are good, but we recommend an all-day hike through Echo Canyon to the Heart of Rocks Loop where you will find formations resembling camels, ducks, and anything else you can imagine.
Salt River Canyon
Start driving north and be sure to stop for photos where U.S. Highway 60 drops steeply into this gorgeous canyon between Globe and Show Low.
Optional stop at Wilcox Playa Wildlife Area
In the winter, sandhill cranes stay in large numbers in the wetlands south of Wilcox and Interstate 10.
To visit the NPS visitor center, the literal “must-do activity” is to hike 1.5 miles from the trailhead. You do pass interpretive signs, a cemetery, and ruins along the way.
A paved walkway behind the Rainbow Forest Museum is a great place to start, as NPS rangers give guided tours there throughout the day. It is worth a hike to Agate House and a connection to the Giant Logs Trail to see more petrified wood, but be sure to bring water with you in the summer since there is no shade.
“Standin’ on the corner” statue in Winslow
Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey probably could not have guessed when they penned the 1970s anthem “Take It Easy” that it would inspire a statue in an Arizona town on historic Route 66. Perhaps even more fitting is the mural behind it that shows the reflection of a girl driving a flatbed truck. Located off Interstate 40, Winslow is a great place “to loosen your load.”
Cameron Trading Post
As a kid, Scott’s family would always spend the night at the hotel here before taking friends and family to the Grand Canyon National Park. Try the mutton stew or Indian taco in the restaurant at this historic spot.
Optional stop at Meteor Crater
There is a good museum at this big, round hole in the ground along Interstate 40. It is definitely worth seeing once in your life.
Heading north from Flagstaff, a 36-mile loop drive through Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument to adjacent Wupatki National Monument passes by the red-hued cinder cone through ponderosa pine forests and sunflower-filled meadows on its way to an arid, rocky high desert region that is dotted with Sinagua ruins from around AD 1100. Nearby cliff dwellings were built in Walnut Canyon National Monument around the same time by another group of Sinagua. To get up close with the cliff dwellings inside shallow limestone caves requires a hike down 200 stairs on the one-mile loop Island Trail.
Visit the South Rim of the park from the less busy eastern entrance and stop at the Watchtower and other scenic views along the way. It is worth spending a few nights here and hiking (or riding a mule) to the bottom of the canyon, but that is not for everyone. If you come in the summer, consider a trip to the North Rim or remote Toroweap (online permit required).
Optional stop at Little Colorado River Gorge Navajo Tribal Park
Famous for art galleries and New Age mysticism, the red rock city of Sedona offer plenty of stores and restaurants. Be sure to leave some time to explore some unpaved roads and hiking trails in the surrounding area.
There are numerous trails in the National Forest around Sedona, where sandstone buttes (like Bell Rock and Cathedral Rock) dominate the landscape. The shady West Fork Trail in Oak Creek Canyon is perfect on hot summer days, though in the winter it is also beautiful covered in snow and ice.
Optional stop at Sycamore Canyon Wilderness
This designated Wilderness (55,937 acres) is shared between three National Forests: Coconino, Kaibab, and Prescott. The easiest way in is on the Parsons Trail located outside Clarkdale, west of Sedona. The trailhead is accessed by driving the dirt Forest Road 131 for 10.5 miles from where it splits off near Tuzigoot National Monument.
The Sinagua pueblo at Tuzigoot had about 110 rooms and is estimated to have housed 200 to 300 people. You can walk inside portions of the ruin, including a section with a reconstructed roof.
These cliff ruins east of Phoenix are worth the hike up to, as are many parts of Tonto National Forest, especially the Flat Iron, Hieroglyph Canyon, and Weaver’s Needle.
This is a unique NPS site with livestock (sheep, horses, turkeys) and a hands-on play area for children, as well as the original dusty store which allows visitors to travel back into the late-1800s. There are frequent Navajo rug weaving demonstrations and tours inside the Hubbell Home are available for a fee.
In the heart of the Navajo Nation in northeast Arizona lies this picturesque National Monument. Humans have inhabited this area for 4,500 years, leaving behind numerous pictographs and the dramatic ruins of Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings.
Visitors can reserve spots on the ranger-led day hike to Betatakin cliff dwelling or the 20-person backpacking trips to Keet Seel that are offered twice per month in the summer. The latter is a strenuous trip covering 17 miles total with numerous stream crossings and all water must be carried in. The hardest part is at the end, when a 1,000 foot climb awaits, but it is worth it to be one of the few who get to see Keet Seel, the 150-room ruin that is second in size only to Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park.
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
On the border of Arizona and Utah, entrance into Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park allows you to see the iconic Mitten Buttes in person, which have served as a backdrop for countless films. You can even pitch your tent at The View Campground overlooking the red rock formations.
Havasupai Reservation
It is hard to argue against Mooney Falls and the other waterfalls in Havasu Canyon as being the most outstanding in the state, but it can be difficult (and expensive) to obtain one of the limited reservations available to visit the Havasupai Reservation that borders Grand Canyon National Park.
Retention ponds keep this area green in the hot summer months where ducks paddle and dragonflies buzz through the humid air. When a NPS ranger is present, you can walk around inside Winsor Castle, a Mormon fort that dates back to 1870.
Antelope Canyon
Guided tours are required to access these beautiful slot canyons located on private land on the Navajo Nation
You might want to bring your “selfie stick” to iconic Horseshoe Bend Overlook, a short 0.7-mile one-way hike from the parking area on Highway 89 outside Page.
At Arizona Hot Springs, pools are formed by sandbags in a narrow canyon. It is accessible from Liberty Bell Trailhead by a 6.5-mile out-and-back hike through a beautiful arroyo down to Black Canyon (now the upper reaches of Lake Mohave formed by a dam) on the Colorado River. The trail is closed during the hot summer months, but you can still access it by boat from Willow Beach Marina or just downstream from the Hoover Dam (with a special permit). Further south on Lake Mohave, stop at Emerald Cove for incredible photographs.
Capulin Volcano is a cinder cone that started to form 60,000 years ago in the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field of northeast New Mexico. It would eventually erupt enough to rise 1,300 feet above the surrounding landscape and cover 16 square miles with lava. The volcanic field was last active about 10,000 years ago, so not nearly as recently as Arizona’s Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. Capulin is the Spanish name for the native choke cherry tree (Prunus virginiana).
Start your visit at the National Park Service visitor center off Highway 325 where you can view the exhibits and watch the film. A two-mile drive leads from there to the rim of Capulin Volcano at 8,182 feet of elevation, where there are two hiking trails. At the top, watch the skies for golden eagles and the stems of trees and bushes for dense groupings of ladybugs.
Best Trail
There are two trails at the top of the cinder cone, one that drops to the bottom of the crater in 0.2 miles and another that circles the rim for one mile (going counterclockwise is recommended as less strenuous). There is also the one-mile Lava Flow Trail loop and a short paved Nature Walk at the visitor center, as well as the Boca Trail that loops 1.7 miles along the western base of Capulin Volcano where you might see mule deer.
Photographic Opportunity
The crater of the cinder cone is about 415 feet below the rim, which offers views into Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma on a clear day.
The road is paved two miles from the visitor center to the parking lot at the top of Capulin Volcano, but gated off overnight even though the park is International Dark-Sky Association Gold Tier Certified.
Camping
There is not an NPS campground at the National Monument, but we have stayed at the nice campground at Sugarite State Park 33 miles west in Raton near Interstate 25. Kiowa National Grassland and Clayton Lake State Park also offer camping.
Hawai‘i National Park was created in 1916, before being split in 1961 into this park on the Big Island of Hawai‘i and Haleakala National Park on Maui. Encompassing two of the world’s most active volcanoes (Kīlauea and Mauna Loa), Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is constantly changing. Indigenous people considered Kīlauea Caldera and its bubbling Halemaʻumaʻu Crater as the sacred home of Pele, goddess of the volcano. This area first became a tourist attraction in the 1840s when Volcano House was still a grass shack. A small, wooden hotel was built in 1877 that now serves as Volcano Art Center Gallery, before the larger lodge was finished in the 1940s on the edge of the caldera. A strenuous backpacking trail summits the world’s largest shield volcano, 13,677-foot Mauna Loa, which erupted in 1926, 1942, 1950, 1984, and 2022.
Volcano Art Center, Halemaʻumaʻu Crater, Chain of Craters Road, Kīlauea Iki Crater, Nāhuku (Thurston Lava Tube), Hōlei Sea Arch, Lava Tree Molds, Mauna Loa Overlook, Kīpukapuaulu Trail, Pu‘u Loa Petroglyphs Trail
Must-Do Activity
Arrive early or late at the visitor center to avoid tour bus crowds, then check with a ranger to find the best overlooks to view any volcanic activity in Halemaʻumaʻu Crater (depicted in our illustration below). Consider returning to view the molten lava after dark, although parking can be a challenge. The Chain of Craters Road leads 20 miles south from the forested caldera rim above 4,078 feet in elevation down to the sparsely vegetated seashore, descending through a wide range of environments before it dead ends into recent lava flows near the Hōlei Sea Arch and 1.5-mile Pu‘u Loa Petroglyphs Trail, where the crisp images chipped into the black lava have been spared from centuries of volcanic activity.
Best Trail
Kīlauea Iki Trail makes a four-mile loop descending 400 feet to the bottom of the crater that was a lake of lava in 1959. It is recommended to hike it in a counter-clockwise direction to avoid ascending the steepest sections.
Instagram-worthy Photo
Kīlauea erupted nonstop from 1983 through 2018, when lava poured in a near constant stream into the ocean, and it has been sporadically active since then. Lava made it into the #1 spot on our Top 10 Natural Phenomena to See in the U.S.
Chain of Craters Road is paved, but can be closed during volcanic eruptions, just as half of Crater Rim Drive has been closed since March 19, 2008. The side road to Hilina Pali Overlook is usually closed beyond Kulanaokuaiki Campground. The one-lane, potholed Mauna Loa Road is doable with a passenger vehicle if you take it slow, as is the unpaved road into the western Kahuku Unit.
Camping
The name of Kulanaokuaiki Campground translates as “shaking earth,” and this nine-site primitive camp has no drinking water, unlike the concessionaire-run Nāmakanipaio Campground and Cabins on Highway 11. Even though this is Hawai‘i, bring some warm clothes as it can be quite rainy and windy, especially when the volcano is erupting; the temperature around Halemaʻumaʻu Crater did not rise above 59°F all day during our 2023 visit.
Scott at the bottom of Kīlauea Iki CraterScott at steam vents on Crater Rim DriveTiff on Kīlauea Iki TrailChain of Craters RoadPu‘u Loa Petroglyphs TrailHōlei Sea ArchTiff at the entrance to Nāhuku (Thurston Lava Tube)Nāhuku (Thurston Lava Tube)Inside the visitor centerTiff in Kahuku UnitTiff hiking in Kahuku UnitMauna Loa RoadMauna Loa OverlookSilversword plant at Mauna Loa OverlookKīpukapuaulu TrailKīlauea Iki TrailScott at Kulanaokuaiki CampgroundScott at Volcano House Lodge
Explore More – When was the 115,788-acre Kahuku Unit added to the National Park?
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