After a Decade of Hiking National Parks, These Are the 10 Trails Worth A Detour

More than a decade in the making, thousands of miles, and countless trails—these ten stand above the rest.

After more than a decade exploring America’s public lands, putting together a list like this only gets harder. How do you narrow down thousands of miles hiked, countless sunrises and sunsets, and an endless range of landscapes into just ten trails? Hiking started as a passion and somehow became our full-time job, but no matter how many trails we explore, the feeling never changes—the quiet solitude of a backcountry sunrise, the thrill of cresting a ridge to an entirely new world below, the way certain trails embed themselves deep in your bones. The privilege of doing this for a living isn’t lost on us.

Pick of the week: My favorite book about trees

Now, before I get to the list (Will here), a few important caveats. This isn’t a ranking of the best hikes in the national parks—though many of them could be. Unlike our National Park Rankings, this list does not try to be objective. This is a deeply personal list, made up of the trails that have meant the most to us over the years. Some made the cut because of the sheer beauty of the landscape. Others because of the memories tied to them—places where we’ve felt the most alive, trails we’ve revisited again and again because something about them keeps pulling us back. And while we’ve covered every major region of the country in our travels, we didn’t try to distribute this list evenly across the parks just for the sake of inclusion. These are simply our favorites.

And in the spirit of sharing, please share your favorite hikes! We’re sharing these in the hopes that some will resonate with you and hoping you share some with us so that we can add some more to our own bucket lists! And with that, let’s dive in.

Well, one additional disclaimer. As many of you are assuredly now aware, I have a well documented affinity for dunes and yet no dunes appear on this list. What gives? I just don’t feel like dunes fit into the “trails” category. Obviously I would’ve included Eureka Dunes and Ibex Dunes at Death Valley as well as Star Dune at Great Sand Dunes but I’d rather save those for a future post about our favorite places in the national parks.

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Our Favorite Trails in the National Parks

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Pipiwai Trail - Haleakala National Park, Hawaii

Some of you are probably thinking “a Haleakala trail other than the crater hike?” Yes. The crater is great and worth mention for sure but for me the Pipiwai Trail is basically the perfectly designed hike. For starters, it’s located on the lush side of Maui and takes you through three distinct sections – a beautiful tropical rainforest with one of the largest banyan trees I’ve ever seen, a dense bamboo forest, and finally ends at one of the most gorgeous waterfalls in the national parks, Waimoku Falls, a 400ft tall waterfall that must be experienced to be understood.