From Colorado’s vibrant Kenosha Pass to Thoreau's famous Walden Pond in Massachusetts, the U.S. is home to a host of gorgeous trails. View photos of the most colorful, scenic, and invigorating autumn expeditions.
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The first national park east of the Mississippi River, Acadia National Park, located near Bangor, Me., features mountains, lakes, forests, and an ocean shoreline on more than 47,000 acres. There are about 125 miles of national hiking trails that range from “very easy” (smooth path over level ground), such as Bar Harbor Shore Path and Cadillac Summit, to “strenuous” (steep grades, many steady climbs), such as Acadia Mountain Trail and Champlain Mountain. In addition to the archipelago of islands known as the only fjords on the East Coast, Acadia National Park is one of the first places in the U.S. where you can see the sun rise.
National Park Foundation / AP Photo
Henry David Thoreau lived at Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., from July 1845 until September 1847, and recorded his time there is the book Walden, considered one of the founding works for conservationists. Walden Pond is a designated National Historic Landmark and has 462 acres of open space surrounding the 102-foot deep glacial kettle-hole pond. Walden Woods, a mostly undeveloped forest of 2,680 acres, surrounds the reservation. Walden Pond is a frequent swimming spot in the summer, and the trails around the reservation are a great hiking destination in the spring and fall. There’s no better place to walk than the place where Thoreau declared, “Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds that hang over our brows, and take life into our pores.”
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Forget the Appalachian Trail. The Colorado Trail, a rocky, 500-mile-long route is where fall’s colors truly come alive. “We would recommend that someone go hiking along the Colorado Trail to see the beautiful aspen trees this time of year,” says Bill Manning, managing director of The Colorado Trail Foundation. “One of the easiest access points is Kenosha Pass. People can hike east or west from there ... It’s one of Colorado’s greatest places to go when the aspens are turning.”
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Few places in the fall can compare to the raw beauty of Lake Ann in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. As Lauren Braden, communications director at the Washington Trails Association describes it, “A good three hours from Seattle, the fall color starts as soon as you get out of your car—and it’s got a lot of different color. Huckleberry bushes carpet the area; the colors are red and orange and yellow. You also have larches, which change to gold in the fall. They’re absolutely gorgeous.”
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The Manistee River loop in Michigan, part of the North Country Trail—which runs from North Dakota to New York—is, during the fall season, the trail’s most beautiful spot. Says Andrea Ketchmark, director of trail development at the North Country Trail Association, “It’s about 22 miles and a fantastic location to showcase the fall colors as things change. The portions of the trail up along the river are absolutely spectacular.”
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Bean and Bear Lakes Loop, near the town of Silver Bay, Minn., is an unforgettable 6.7-mile hike, especially in autumn. “It’s right in the heart of this gorgeous maple forest,” says Gayle Coyer, executive director of the Superior Hiking Trail Association. “You climb up and down three different ridges, and you look down on Bean Lake and Bear Lake. There’s even a campsite at the base of Bear Lake if you want to camp there as well. In the fall, there’s reds and oranges and golds; it’s just beautiful. And you have these huge, sweeping views of the backcountry and the maple forest.”
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Nevada’s Tahoe Rim Trail is beautiful year round, but for a great hike in the fall—just before the snow hits—the trail from Spooner Summit to Kingsbury is the place to go. “It’s 12.2 miles and runs on the east shore of Lake Tahoe, between Highway 50 and Highway 207,” says Teresa Crimmens, director of trail operations at the Tahoe Rim Trail Association. “It’s a pretty moderate hike, and the nice part about it is that, when you get up to the top, there’s a mile of flat terrain. You have these amazing panoramic views of Lake Tahoe and the Sierras.”
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Kent, Conn., named by Yankee magazine as New England’s No. 1 location for fall colors, is a widely renowned travel destination. But the New England Trail in Berlin’s Ragged Mountain Preserve is quite possibly the state’s best-kept secret. “It follows ledges along the cliffs,” says Clare Cain, trails-stewardship director of the Connecticut Forest & Park Association. “It’s really pretty; you can look out really far. The forest there is beautiful. There’s a nice 8-mile loop you can do. The trail is in the middle of the state—a beautiful area, a beautiful hike.”
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New Hampshire’s Zealand Valley in the White Mountain National Forest “can be jaw-droppingly beautiful when fall foliage is at its peak,” says Rob Burbank, public-affairs director of the Appalachian Mountain Club. “A 2.8-mile autumn hike (5.6 miles round-trip) over relatively gentle terrain takes you through a landscape of mixed hardwoods offering bright yellow, red, and orange leaves, past a beaver pond, and with a short climb, up to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Zealand Falls Hut, a good place to rest for the return hike or to spend the night.”
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Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains offer some of the most scenic fall colors in the U.S. One of the best places to view them: the Belmar Bridge on the Sandy Creek Trail. “The Belmar Bridge is a huge old railroad bridge that crosses the Allegheny River,” says Debra Frawley, greenways and open-space coordinator at the Allegheny Valley Trails Association. “You can get a view of the river from there, and people love to go there for photography. Both sides of the river are mountains, basically—as mountainous as Pennsylvania gets. From the trail, the bridge is tremendous with the colors in the background.”
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For those yearning to get some high-altitude action before the ski season starts, Mount Baker in Washington’s North Cascades makes for an epic weekend trip. “If you have two people and transportation—you’d leave one car down the trail—the Mount Baker area would be a good two-day hike, starting up at the ski area, then hiking around Baker Lake,” says Jon Knechtel, director of trail operations at the Pacific Northwest Trail Association. “That’d be a very scenic hike. You’re up in timberline when you start, then you come into your alpine firs. There are a couple of stream crossings: One of them has a log across it; the other is a ford—you have to ford the creek. The trail around the lake is 14 miles. It’s really beautiful.”
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In Wyoming, nothing gets quite as scenic as the North Sayles Creek Trail, near Rock Creek, in the Bighorn Mountains. “You get into some nice colors,” says Sara Donek, associate director of programs at the Wyoming Wilderness Association. “The trail’s about 3.5 miles. It opens into a big meadow mixed in with conifers and aspens, with oranges and yellows with bright greens. You might even run into snow in the late autumn. You have the potential of seeing elk, moose, too, maybe even mountain lions and black bears.”
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The middle of October is the peak season for fall colors in Missouri, and Taum Sauk Mountain is one of the state’s best places to see them. “For a day hike, I would recommend Taum Sauk Mountain—the tallest point in Missouri,” says Steve Coates, president of the Ozark Trail Association. “From there, you can hike down hillsides, or what we call glades, which are very specific in their natural features. They’re wonderful to hike through. This area around Taum Sauk is formerly a volcanic region that goes back 1.5 billion years—old, old rocks. The trail runs down to Mina Sauk Falls, the state’s highest waterfall, which is about 90 feet high. Then the trail winds itself down into the Devil’s Tollgate, an interesting rock formation featuring two large boulders.”
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