When we dream of outdoor recreation destinations, it’s usually best-in-class spots like Yosemite, or wild and remote places like Patagonia and Everest—the types of places that you can read about in the travel section of this very publication. But, of course, most people aren’t introduced to wilderness and our favorite sports on the most scenic trails and the raddest crags. ܳٲ’s editors are no exception. Here, they fondly recall the local parks and other little pockets of naturethat opened them up to a whole world of outdoor adventuring.
South Table Mountain, Golden, Colorado
I’m spoiled: I grew up at the foot of the Rockies in Golden, Colorado. The hiking trails started just a short walk from my front door on South Table Mountain, a flat-topped volcanic plateau blasted by winds and covered in Prairie grass and prickly pear cactus. My friends and I lovingly referred to South Table as “The Mesa,” and over the years it was our go-to destination when we needed adventure or some space from our parents. As a youngster, these outings revolved around wildlife-spotting, flying kites, and gazing at the Denver skyline to the east. As I entered adolescence, my trips to the Mesa, admittedly, reflected my bottomless teenage desire for boy-mayhem. It became the place to shoot BB guns and slingshots, light off fireworks, and later, sneak a few puffs of cannabis.
When I was 17, the Mesa became the focal point for my budding interest in political protest. In 1998, local developers in Denver tried to woo apparel giant Nike to build a soaring campus atop North Table Mountain. My buddies and I hated the plan, as did most everyone in our neighborhood. On a windy summer afternoon, three of us hiked to the summit of The Mesa carrying lumber, tools, and bedsheets. We erected a massive sign that read “NO NIKE” that was clearly visible from the neighborhood 1300 feet below. The sign stood for several days until a violent gust blew it over the side. Nike never did build that campus on The Mesa, and I couldn’t be happier. —Fred Dreier, articles editor, ϳԹ
The Arroyos, Northern New Mexico
I used to spend weekends on epic road trips to far-flung climbing, camping, or running destinations, but between the pandemic and motherhood, my adventures have moved closer to home. I’ve fallen in love with the outdoors all over again exploring the web of arroyos that run down the road from my home north of Santa Fe. While you catch the occasional glimpse of a far-off mountain range, most of the vistas are flat, desert stretches, and the sand is not my favorite terrain on which to run. But I rarely see another person out there, and it’s BLM land, so my dogs can run free alongside me. My backyard trails have taught me to appreciate the beauty in more understated outdoor spaces and have reminded me that an adventure doesn’t have to be epic to be worthwhile. —Abigail Wise, digital director, ϳԹ
Carkeek Park, Seattle, WA
Growing up in Seattle, Washington, there were ample nearby opportunities to experience the outdoors. But as far as I was concerned, the absolute best spot was 220-acre Carkeek Park, just a couple miles from my parents’ house. It contained all the ecosystems that make the lowland Pacific Northwest special: a beach blanketed with dark pebbles and driftwood; a creek where my preschool watched salmon spawning every fall; and lush woods full of sword ferns and cedars.
Carkeek also had an elite playground, the centerpiece of which was a 25-foot slide shaped like a 3-dimensional salmon (you climb in the mouth and pop out the tail). We went there for picnics, birthday parties, class trips, and to get some fresh air on weekend mornings. I was free to run and climb and explore in this slice of nature, and it always felt like there was no limit to the treasures I might discover (usually cool rocks, the perfect stick, 0r sites to build fairy houses). I still go to Carkeek sometimes when I’m visiting my parents, to jog on the trails through the woods or watch the sunset from the beach. It always makes me feel like a little kid in an endlessly delightful world. —Miyo McGinn, assistant editor, ϳԹ
Carderock Crag, Maryland
Growing up as an aspiring rock climber in the nation’s capital, my options were limited. I learned to climb on a summer trip to Looking Glass Rock in North Carolina when I was 13 and fell head-over-heels for the sport. But when I returned home to D.C., I was too young to drive and had little interest in pulling on plastic. I couldn’t make the journey out to Seneca Rocks or the New River Gorge in West Virginia, but I could take two buses and a long static rope to Carderock, a tiny crag on the Potomac river near the kayaking mecca of Great Falls.
The flaky mica-schist was too soft to place proper gear into, which was fine by me because I had no money for a rack of cams, but I took my copy of Freedom of the Hills and built top-rope anchors in the trees above the cliff face. My friends and I could climb the same 40 foot face for hours before we got bored. My time at that scruffy crag propelled me into bigger mountains later in life, including scaling a few big walls in Zion, buffeted by the confident ropework I learned in Carderock, Maryland. —Jake Stern, digital editor, ϳԹ
Elk Mountain, Scranton, PA
I grew up on the Severn River, which fed into the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. We were always on the water. We swam—I remember a neighborhood raft and mudfights with the other kids, diving deep for cold stinky handfuls—and went crabbing and waterskiing. Later we windsurfed. Most summer and fall weekends, my family raced sailboats in different places around the bay.
When I was 13, my parents also, bless them, took us skiing: geared up four kids, loaded the station wagon, and drove five hours to Elk Mountain in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Skiing—my Maryland friends and I were so used to waterskiing that we called it snow skiing—was where I made my own strongest connection to nature. I remember the look and colors and lifts at Elk Mountain, the excitement of the surroundings and movement, and wanting to go every chance I could. One spring day I boarded the chairlift with my dad laughing and saying, “This is so much fun.” A few minutes later, he said, “You know, that makes a parent feel good, to hear that.” We began taking one or two trips to Vermont each year with other families and friends, and I started making decisions around skiing. When I applied to colleges, I only looked north. I went to Vermont, and after that moved West in part for the skiing and climbing, which had become even more central to my life. I thought I would miss the water and bay, but never did. —Alison Osius, senior editor, ϳԹ
Shu Swamp Nature Preserve, Mill Neck, New York
I feel infinitely lucky that I grew up in the type of house where being outside was heavily prioritized (thanks, Mom and Dad, for not letting us have cable). In an effort to keep us outdoors for as long as possible, my parents frequented Shu Swamp in my early years. Less than 15 minutes from home, this preserve offered everything a young adventurer could possibly want: mud, fresh streams, and a large pondfilled with catfish that we would feed old bread.
Shu Swamp was the perfect place to be year-round. Winter offered endless questions about how catfish swim under ice, spring brought squishy mud to get your shoes as dirty as possible, summer brought bright green shade, and fall let the foliage shine. I have endless memories of walking across downed trees with friends, and the preserve even showed up as I aged—pulling into the parking lot to switch drivers during driver’s ed, serving as a haven while I was home during the worst of the pandemic. Shu Swamp is forever an, “if you know, you know” spot for those I grew up with, especially because of those weird-looking catfish. —Jamie Aranoff, digital editor, SKI
The Woods at the End of the Gravel Road, West Virginia
I spent my early years in a house at the end of a gravel road in a neighborhood on the outskirts of a small town in West Virginia. Rather than feeling like a Luke Skywalker-type, cast to the outer rim of the Empire, I actually believed that the whole universe existed right there in my backyard. Our house was bounded on two sides by the kind of temperate deciduous forest you find in Appalachia, and I explored it endlessly.
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees in hand, my dad and I would leave the front door and quickly journey to another planet entirely, one that we called “Buckland” due to the fact that we regularly spotted trophy deer there. We’d press leaves into the field guide as we identified the trees they came from: oak, maple, birch, walnut. We’d practice quiet footfalls, making a competition out of creating the least noise while crossing the crunchy leaves. We’d scramble down one hillside, cross a deep-cut creek, climb the opposite hill via a deer path, and walk until we came to the incongruous radio towerthat sat in the lonely field just beyond the trees’ edge.
I especially loved a wide, thick bed of evergreen pin cushion moss that bordered one edge of our forest, upon which I would languidly lay, comfortable upon my fairy bed as summer light filtered through the trees. Looking back now, I realize our forest was really a very small patch of woods that bordered a sewage treatment plant (which you could frequently smell) at the end of a gravel road on the outskirts of a small town. But it’s still the place I learned my trees, and it’s still the place I fell in love with being outside. —Ryleigh Nucilli, contributor
A Tree On A Hill In My Childhood Backyard, Carlsbad, California
Deep in the suburban wasteland of HOAs and subdivisions, a hill in my backyard was my own wild escape. It’s the setting of a lot of my best childhood memories. My cat and I would spend hours sitting in carved-out spots under the trees that grew along the slope, watching the ants move and hearing the rustle in the leaves. (When he eventually passed at age 16, my family buried his ashes on our favorite spots on this hill.) I was just steps from the inside of my house, where I could play on my Nintendo DS or watch reruns on TV, but I preferred the feeling of squishy mud between my toes.
In sixth grade, I wanted to see how high I could climb on the most prominent tree out there. I scaled branches until I got to the highest one that could support my weight, and it’s almost like that branch was ergonomically designed to contour my back. I felt so connected and grounded that I stayed there until dinnertime. Like a young Henry David Thoreau, I even brought a notepad and wrote a poem up in that tree. That experience, plus a whole childhood of exploration on that hill, helped me become who I am as an outdoor writer and adventurer.—Emma Veidt, associate editor, Backpacker
The Jersey Shore, Spring Lake, New Jersey
When I was a kid, at that age where you ask annoying questions, I wanted to know where the ocean ended. My dad and I were at the Jersey Shore—Spring Lake specifically—and I was mesmerized by the cresting waves. The Jersey Shore is beautiful, even if the name conjures images of spray tans, big hair, fist-pumping, and gym-tan-laundry folk. They’re there, part of the scenery, and that’s okay because the ocean is a miracle and nothing takes away from how you feel in its presence. Born in Jersey, I was there every summer of my childhood. Sun-drenched, sandy, with salt clinging to my skin—it was the first place I felt totally at ease outside. We’d collect shells, find starfish, and swim, but I could sit on the beach for hours and watch the tide.
I still remember the answer my father gave me when I asked where the ocean ended. “Nowhere,” he said. “It’s everywhere connecting everything.” —Ali Nolan, digital editor, RUN
The Woods Near My Childhood Home, Iowa
Like many immigrant parents, my mom and dad weren’t too keen on me going to friend’s houses or inviting them over to ours. But for whatever reason, they were perfectly fine with me playing outside with the neighborhood boys so long as I returned home before the streetlights came on. Between the tender ages of seven and ten, we spent summer days exploring a small wooded area at the end of our block, wading in the shallow creek and roaming the narrow dirt paths.
It was no outdoor oasis—there were used mattresses and discarded tires and Hot Cheeto bags everywhere. But the trees were a break from the monotony of churches, gas stations, and cornfields that populated the edge of our Iowa hometown. When we played there, I imagined I was in the forest from Bridge to Terabithia or The Chronicles of Narnia. Now, knowing that my home state ranks 48th in the country for access to public land, this little slice of nature is all the more precious to me. It reminds me of how important it is to protect natural spaces. A little bit of wilderness can open up a person’s entire world. —Isabella Rosario, associate editor, ϳԹ