Can you recommend one-day hikes anywhere in the southwestern US?

11 comments

1. There’s literally hundreds of thousands of one-day hikes in California alone.

   To be clear, do you mean you want a series of one-day hikes? Or places you can get to in a day from Southern California? Or are you looking at a big loop with several stops?

2. [I’ve been on a few of these](http://www.bigroads.com/usa-outdooractivities-dayhikes-top25southwest.html)

   Zion Narrows, Kaibab trail, Bright Angel, etc

   The 2nd list has Piestewa park, it’s Piestewa Peak. The trail is only 1.2 miles, but it gets very steep near the top. I always start very early so when you reach the top you can watch the valley fill up with smog from rush hour (it’s gotten better with newer cars, the 90’s were bad)

3. You need to be more specific — even though you’re open to a wide area, the area you’ve described is roughly the size of France and Spain.

4. There are so many that they cannot reasonably be listed.

   Leo Carillo outside of Malibu is what first comes to mind but there are many in the Sierras and elsewhere. The Mojave has hundreds of great day hikes, pretty brutal climate and rugged but it depends on what you are prepared for.

   That’s just in CA. If you include the whole southwest the list is nearly infinite. Any of the National Parks have amazing trails that are day hikes. Most of the state parks have great day hikes. Then you have all the wilderness areas and national forests. The amount of excellent day hikes in the southwest is unreal.

   Throw in all the rest of the country you mentioned and you have more hikes than you could do in a lifetime that are worth doing.

   I suggest narrowing down your location and then using something like trails.com to filter for day hikes.

5. Yes, please define what you mean by a one day hike.

6. You can’t go wrong with the national parks, as long as you don’t mind crowds. Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon are probably the best of the best, and each of these has lots of great stuff around it as well.

7. Zion national park, Bryce canyon national park, canyon lands national park, capitol reef National Park, arches National Park

8. Go to Albuquerque.

   You’ll need more than one day, but they’re all one day each

9. As others have mentioned the options are endless so I’ll just make one suggestion:

   Elk Meadow to Fern Canyon via James Irvine Trail and return via Miner’s Ridge in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, some of the best old growth redwood hiking around. Bring water shoes for fern canyon because it’s basically a flat creek bed with vertical fern covered sides.

10. [Zion Narrows](https://i0.wp.com/www.thehikinglife.com/the-hiking-life-2/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_1202-e1491353798394.jpg) also [Angel’s Landing](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54ad4eb3e4b08dbf5e26472d/1641147034412-P1DKMI55HATC0UOM634L/AngelsLandingChainWebOpt.jpg) also in Zion if you’re not afraid of heights. [Bright Angel trail](https://www.10adventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/USA-GrandCanyon-02_BrightAngel-03-3MileResthouse.jpg) at the grand canyon’s north rim.

11. > Southwestern US

    > Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming

    I’m a little confused about your geographic range.

    Bear in mind that iconic hikes in national parks are often overrun in peak season. ie, Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Angel’s Landing in Zion.

    In Wyoming, there’s some great day hikes in Grand Teton National Park. The best trail network for a vigorous day hike there, IMO, is made up of the N/S trails along the base of the Teton range by Jenny Lake and Leigh Lake, the N/S Teton Crest trail up in the highlands on the far side of the range, and the E/W trails that run up the canyons between the peaks connecting the lowland trails and the highland Teton Crest trail. Pick a target distance and elevation gain, read a few trail descriptions, and throw together a loop that hits your targets. Bear in mind that there are park shuttles and a ferry across Jenny Lake that can be incorporated into a hike. Also bear in mind that you’ll likely run into snow at higher elevations well into the summer. If you’ve got some basic climbing skills and you’re up for an extreme long day hike, most of the main peaks in the Tetons can be day-hiked as well.

    Idaho: check out the Sawteeth range.

    Utah: All the flagship hikes in the national parks are great, of course, but also are liable to be overcrowded. Canyonlands is big enough to offer fantastic hikes off the beaten path. Capitol Reef is the most underappreciated of the Utah national parks, so it usually isn’t overrun. Also look into the slot canyons in Grand Staircase-Escalante– specifically, the Peek-a-boo/ Spooky Gulch loop. Requires a long drive on a dirt road to access, and the road won’t be passable if it’s rained in the past few days, but that’s usually not an issue.

    Nevada: Valley of Fire and Red Rock Canyon both offer tons of day hike options, basically right next to Vegas.

    I have no personal experience with California at this point.

    Also– if you’ve never lived in a truly remote place, look into the designated Dark Sky parks in the southwest. Looking up at the night sky is a completely different experience if you’ve spent most of your life in places with significant light pollution.