Summer
Summer is when the West is busiest and least forgiving. The low desert bakes past anything you should hike into by midday, so the season belongs to the high country — alpine lakes, cool canyon rivers, and evenings that stretch to nine o'clock. Start early, carry more water than feels reasonable, and let the afternoon thunderstorms move you to shade. Done with sense, it is the season of long days and everything open; done carelessly, it is the season the desert wins.
CR-21
MT-21
US-21
NM-41
CO-51
UT-101
Scenic Byway 1211
Boulder
One of the last places in America to receive paved road access
Boulder Mountain
A 50-mile forested plateau at 11,000 feet with 80 alpine lakes
Cannonville
Gateway to Kodachrome Basin and the Grand Staircase
Escalante
The town that gave Grand Staircase-Escalante its name
Hells Backbone Grill
A farm-to-table pioneer in the middle of nowhere
Henrieville
A blink-and-you-will-miss-it ranching hamlet
Kiva Koffeehouse
A hand-built cliffside coffee shop with canyon views
Lower Calf Creek Falls
A 126-foot waterfall hidden in a desert canyon
Mossy Cave Trail
A hidden waterfall and ice cave just off the highway
Red Canyon
A blazing red gateway carved by water and wind
The Hogback
A knife-edge ridge with 1000-foot drops on both sides
CO-141
SR-141
US-14/161
US-14/16/201
I-151
I-15/I-901
Nebo Loop Road (FR-015)2
SR-171
SR-201
MT-241
US-241
I-252
Cheyenne Frontier Days
A railroad agent's excursion scheme for a town with no crop to celebrate, which became a six-hour show in 1897 and the Daddy of 'em All.
Fishers Peak State Park
The flat-topped landmark over Trinidad and Raton Pass, a trophy-hunting ranch until 2019 and Colorado's second-largest state park since 2020, with a summit trail since 2023.
SR-251
UT-251
NV-281
NV-28 / US-50 (Spooner Summit)1
US-301
UT-311
US-342
Holzwarth Historic Site
A Denver saloon keeper put out of business by prohibition, a homestead in the Kawuneeche Valley, and a dude ranch that ran from 1919 to 1973.
Old Fall River Road
Convicts started it in 1913, a contractor finished it in 1920, and since 1968 it has run one way, uphill, at fifteen miles an hour.
SR-381
Donner Pass Road (old US-40)1
I-401
I-40 / I-171
US-402
UT-441
SR-47 (Mesa Falls Scenic Byway)1
MT-491
Tyler Foote Crossing Road (off CA-49)1
US-502
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
Two men on a rubber air mattress floated through in 1901 to prove a tunnel could be built, past a cliff that drops some 2,250 feet to the river.
Glenbrook & Spooner Summit
Lake Tahoe's east shore, where the basin was logged nearly clean to timber the Comstock—the forest that paid for the silver, and the century it has spent growing back
SR-551
US-60 / SR-2601
US-60 / US-1801
OR-622
Crater Lake Lodge
A hotel on the caldera rim that opened in 1915 with tar paper on its walls, was never quite finished, came close to demolition, and is now mostly new behind its old face.
Fort Klamath
The army post that reached the Wood River Valley four years before Klamath Falls existed, and the treaty signed near it that put three peoples on one reservation.
US-641
CO-651
I-703
Fremont Indian State Park
The largest known Fremont Indian village ever discovered
Georgetown Loop Railroad
Scrapped in 1939 for $450, rebuilt a century after it first opened, and running again over the bridge that crosses its own track.
Glenwood Canyon
Interstate 70 threaded through on viaducts in 1992, buried by debris flows off a burn scar in 2021, with Hanging Lake on a permit above it.
I-70 / US-1911
I-761
I-802
CO-822
Independence Pass
Crossed by prospectors on the Fourth of July 1879, opened as a toll road for the Aspen rush in 1881, and shut by snow half of every year since.
Maroon Bells
Two fourteeners of crumbling red mudstone, called the Deadly Bells since eight people died on them in 1965, and reachable in summer only by reservation.
OR-821
UT-831
US-841
US-871
CA-891
US-898
American West Heritage Center
A living history farm spanning 160 acres of Cache Valley
Bear Lake Raspberry Shakes
Legendary raspberry milkshakes from locally grown berries
Jardine Juniper
One of the oldest living trees in the world at over 1,500 years old
Logan Canyon
A winding National Scenic Byway through limestone cliffs and alpine forest
Manti-La Sal National Forest
Alpine peaks rising above red rock desert
Minnetonka Cave
Found by a grouse hunter, named first for a porcupine and then in a language from the far side of the Rockies. Five kinds of bats winter inside.
Sunset Crater Volcano
The volcano northern Arizona watched erupt, around 1085
Wind Cave Trail
A short hike to a triple-arched limestone cave overlooking the canyon
US-89/911
I-902
Missoula Smokejumper Visitor Center
The base of the crews descended from the first two men ever to parachute onto a forest fire.
Vore Buffalo Jump
A gypsum sinkhole where hunters trapped bison for 250 years, each hunt sealed in its own layer, and the reason Interstate 90 bends south here.
UT-923
US-951
UT-1011
UT-1111
CO-1191
WY-1301
SR-1381
UT-1432
UT-1481
UT-1504
Bald Mountain Pass
The highest point on the Mirror Lake Highway at 10,715 feet
Mirror Lake
A pristine alpine lake reflecting the Uinta peaks like glass
Ruth Lake
A hidden alpine gem reached by a short trail through wildflower meadows
Trial Lake
A popular high-alpine fishing lake surrounded by granite peaks
SR-1552
Grand Coulee Dam
An idea a newspaper buried on page seven in 1918, built as a Depression jobs program by twelve thousand workers, seventy-two of whom died on it.
Steamboat Rock
An 800-foot basalt butte that geologists read as the remains of a waterfall twice the height of Dry Falls, now almost an island in a reservoir pumped up from the Columbia.
NV-1571
US-1601
White Mountain Road (off CA-168)1
US-1801
US-1891
US-1914
Arches National Park
Over 2,000 natural stone arches in one extraordinary landscape
Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area
A turquoise reservoir carved into blazing red canyon walls
Museum of the Mountain Man
Six fur-trade rendezvous met near here on the Green; the only artist who ever saw one, Alfred Jacob Miller, came in 1837.
Steinaker State Park
A warm-water reservoir popular for swimming in the desert heat