Activity

Accessible

19 destinations along 17 roads

Accessibility in this country is uneven and worth being honest about: a graded overlook and a boardwalk in one park, a mile of loose sand and a curbless trailhead in the next. These are the stops with real access — paved paths, viewpoints reachable from the car, visitor centers and rest areas built to standard, big country you can take in without a hard hike. Details change, so call ahead when it matters. But a great deal of the West's best is reachable by everyone, and this is where.

US-21

Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump

Havre

Two thousand years of bison kills in a bluff behind a Havre shopping mall, with the bones left lying where they were found.

I-152

Hill Aerospace Museum

Roy

Over 90 military aircraft displayed indoors and on the tarmac

Temple Square

Salt Lake City

The spiritual and architectural heart of Salt Lake City

NM-151

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

Silver City

Rooms built into five caves above a Gila side canyon in the late 1270s and lived in for about a generation, at the end of forty-four winding miles of mountain road from Silver City.

I-171

Montezuma Castle

Camp Verde

A five-story Sinagua cliff dwelling, misnamed for an emperor who was never here

I-191

Tumacácori National Historical Park

Tumacácori

Arizona's first mission, on O'odham ground along the Santa Cruz River.

CA-49 / Parrotts Ferry Road1

Columbia State Historic Park

Sonora

The Gem of the Southern Mines, still open for business on a car-free Gold Rush main street.

MT-491

Running Eagle Falls

East Glacier Park

A double waterfall in Two Medicine named for Pitamakan, the Blackfeet woman who led war parties.

US-621

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Carlsbad

The way into the cave has changed four times: a guano miner's bucket, a wooden staircase, a 750-foot elevator, and now a timed ticket and a switchback trail down the natural entrance.