Khruangbin and Lord Huron to headline Outside Festival. From miles of trails to acres of public land, the explorable and beautiful terrain in these states stand out above the rest. New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
America kicks ass. The white sands and steep cliffs that make up the coast, the mountains that rise from river valleys, the backcountry lakes tucked into flowering meadows…and all the adventure you can find.
Sand dunes and swamps, prairies and peaks. How does it stack up against its neighbors in terms of public land and trail systems?
How many national parks does it have? How are the hiking, mountain biking, and climbing? The good news? I pulled figures on total acres of public land in various states from the non-profit research group Headwaters Economics , and found the total number of state parks and national parks from the National Park Service and various state-park agencies.
I used crowd-sourced platforms like Trailforks , Mountain Projec t , and Hiking Project to find the estimated miles of mountain biking and hiking trails in each state. Note: User-generated data figures change; these are accurate for the week of March 18, That was to assess neighbor states with similar landscapes, instead of putting, say, Rhode Island against Nevada head-to-head.
