On the Beaten Path: Eight Awesome National Park Trails

America’s 100-year-old national park system protects some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, and the hiking trails listed below will take you right into the heart of these unspoiled wilderness areas. So why not savor our country’s natural treasures with a walk in the woods -- or a desert canyon, or a subtropical wetland or an alpine meadow? The scenic wonders within these AAA GEM^® rated national parks are just footsteps away.

Alum Cave Trail

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tenn.

This trail is a perennial favorite with hikers and not just because of the sweeping, 360-degree view of the Smokies from the top of Mount LeConte, the park’s third highest peak. From the parking lot off Newfound Gap Road, the trail crosses streams and snakes through old-growth forests and shrub lands filled with rhododendron and mountain laurel. Well-known landmarks include Arch Rock (at 1.4 miles), a tunnel through which the trail passes via stone stairs, and Alum Cave Bluffs (at 2.3 miles). The route to the lodge atop Mount LeConte spans 5 miles one-way and involves 2,763 of elevation gain as well as some skirting around steep drop-offs. But it’s worth it.

Bright Angel Trail

Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz.

Peering into the Grand Canyon is one of the most profound experiences available in any national park. The scale is impossible to convey in words or even photos. Yet the view from the rim is only part of the story. Hiking into the canyon reveals its austere splendor from a whole new angle, and no route is safer or more convenient than the Bright Angel Trail. The path descends from the South Rim more than 3,000 feet via a long series of switchbacks to the lush cottonwoods of Indian Garden and onward, all the way to the Colorado River. But only the most hardy (some would say foolhardy) attempt to pass beyond Indian Garden (the halfway point) in a single day.

Canyon Overlook Trail

Zion National Park, Utah

Although there may be more breathtaking views of Zion Canyon, these mostly involve hikes that are literally breath-taking, requiring strenuous climbs and a degree of comfort with narrow ledges and dizzying heights. Zion’s Canyon Overlook Trail, on the other hand, offers amazing vistas without testing the limits of your lung capacity or your nerves. Although traversing rocky, uneven ground, the trail climbs only 163 feet and ends after just a half mile at a stunning vantage point that takes in the soaring sandstone towers and colorful cliff walls for which Zion is rightly famous.