Share Your Expertise

The Black Hills, Yosemite National Park, and the Smoky mountains are popular and crowded. Paved roads and signposts lead to all the most spectacular sites. Everyone drives them, and everyone should, because they are truly beautiful and interesting and wonderful to see. However, following another car while you yourself are being trailed by more tourists doesn’t really feel like a wilderness experience. Those experiences are reserved for backcountry hikers and campers. Or so I thought.

I was driving the Needles Highway in the Black Hills of South Dakota, when I wandered a few feet off the beaten path and into the wilderness. I had stopped at a pull-off along with several other cars, to gaze at a tall spire of rock and the figure free-climbing up its side. When I turned and walked several feet toward the cliff face behind the spire, I noticed a path. I decided to take it for a yard or two, mainly for a better shot of the rock climber.

The path was covered in pine needles, so soft under my feet that I kept on walking. About twenty feet back, it curved around an outcrop of rock. Suddenly I was alone. I couldn’t see the road or hear cars starting up. It felt as if I were deep into the wilderness. I walked a little farther, and found a boulder to sit on. For a while I was utterly isolated, separated from the world. I could have stayed for hours in lovely solitude. Since the curves of the Needles Highway was not a road to drive late at night, I needed to be on my way.

In a few minutes, I was back in my car, pulling it into the line of cars following the narrow, twisting road. I didn’t hike into the back country, far away from civilization. I had no tent or sleeping bag or hiking boots, but because I took those few extra steps, I had some of the magic of the wilderness. I went just a few feet off the beaten path, and found a peaceful, quiet world. When I walked those same few feet back, the spell was broken.

I learned that even if you aren’t adventurous, you can enhance any trip just by leaving the bulk of the visitors a few feet behind you. In almost every national or state park, a few minute’s walk will put you into a very different and wonderful world. Even when you are far from the wild, visiting a big city, you can choose the view that isn’t as popular, the restaurant that doesn’t have a tourist menu, or a little-visited museum. Getting off the beaten path isn’t as hard as you think it is.