Adventure Tour activities in USA
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Highway 178 to Badwater Basin Interpretive Trail
A few miles south of Furnace Creek is Golden Canyon, where a self-guided interpretive trail winds for a mile up to the now-oxidized iron cliffs of Red Cathedral. You can keep going up to Zabriskie Point, for a hardy 4-mile round-trip. A more challenging canyon scramble goes up Desolation Narrows to an overlook of colorful badlands, but you'll need a good topo map for it. Take the unsigned dirt road turnoff 4 miles south of the Hwy 178/190 junction, and stay to the left.
Further south on Hwy 178 is the turnoff for the Artist's Drive scenic loop through an alluvial fan, with the Artist's Palette of colorful exposed minerals and volcanic ash. Driving south again on Hwy 190,…
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Grapevine Junction Trail
Three miles west of Scotty's Castle, turn west toward 770ft-deep Ubehebe Crater, caused by the explosive meeting of fiery magma with cool groundwater. You can loop around its half-mile-wide rim and over to younger and smaller Little Hebe Crater. The mysterious Racetrack Playa is a 28-mile trip south of Ubehebe Crater, via a tire-shredding dirt road that requires 4WD.
From the natural 'grandstand,' you can observe large rocks that appear to have moved on their own across this mud flat, making long, faint tracks in the sunbaked surface. Scientific theories abound, but nothing has been proven.Want more 4WD adventure? Between the craters and Grapevine Junction, a graded dirt…
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Emigrant Canyon Road Trail
Eight miles west of Stovepipe Wells, this scenic road winds past turnoffs to Skidoo mining town site, a 4WD trek to jaw-dropping views of the Sierra Nevada, or to Eureka Mine, beyond which Aguereberry Point has 6500ft-deep views east into Death Valley. Back on the main road, it's a steep climb over Emigrant Pass (5318ft).
Further along, turn left up Wildrose Canyon to reach the charcoal kilns, a line of large, stone, beehive-shaped structures used by 19th-century miners to make fuel for smelting silver ore. The landscape is subalpine, with forests of piñon pine and juniper, and can be covered with winter snow.
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Green Mountain Dogsled Adventures
Learn about the fine art of dogsledding with Green Mountain Dogsled Adventures and meet the dog team that will hurtle you 6 to 8 miles (in 2½ to three hours) over hill and dale through deep woods. These pups are training for the 1000-mile Alaskan Iditerod, so you know they pack some speed. After helping harness the team, you can ride the runners or relax on the sled. Afterwards, warm up in the cabin and head out again for a ski or snowshoe in some of the wildest yet most serene land around. Reservations are required and availability of tours depends on the weather.
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Temsco Helicopters
The hottest tour in Juneau is a helicopter ride to the Juneau Ice Field for a 20-minute ride in the basket of a dogsled. These tours last less than two hours and are around US$400 a pop but when the weather is nice people - primarily cruise-ship passengers - are waiting to hand over their money. Temsco Helicopters has a mushing and glacier flightseeing tour (around US$410) which lasts 1½ hours and lands at a dog camp on Denver Glacier.
The company also has a 55-minute Mendenhall Glacier tour (around US$200) that includes 25 minutes' walking around high up on the glacier.
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Arctic Circle Education Adventures
Arctic Circle Education Adventures has a couple offerings that may well be the best way to crack the nut of Kotzebue. If you're just in town for the day, its four-hour custom tour will take you to look for birds - from swans to short-eared owls - explore the tundra and meet Inupiat residents.
Better yet, stick around for a few days and get the real Bush experience at owner LaVonne Hendricks' fish camp, five miles south of town, where you can hike, beachcomb and participate in the local subsistence lifestyle.
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Rainbow Tours
Whenever you're out in the bay there's a chance of spotting whales - sometimes you can even spot orca from the tip of the Spit. Rainbow Tours runs a dedicated whale-watching tour. The comfortable 65ft vessel, MV Rainbow Connection, leaves Homer at 09:00, cruises to Seldovia, and then spends six-plus hours seeking out humpbacks, orcas, minkes, finbacks and gray whales in Kachemak Bay and Kennedy Entrance. The price includes lunch. Be sure to bundle up and bring your binocs.
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Nome Tour & Marketing
Based out of the Nugget Inn, this caters mainly to larger package-deal groups, though independents are welcome. It operates three tours daily in the summer. The six-hour history-oriented tour includes gold panning at the Little Creek Mine and a hands-on dog-mushing demonstration, while the four-hour wildlife tour heads out along the highways in search of birds and beasts. The two-hour Alaska Native-culture demonstration focuses on Inupiat hunting, dancing and athletic contests.
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Valdez Heli-Ski Guides
Since extreme skiing exploded here a decade ago, numerous companies have cropped up to capitalize. Valdez Heli-Ski Guides offers a day of heli-skiing (usually six runs).
To a certain set of unhinged individuals, Valdez is legendary not for its oil spill or its earthquake, but for being the place to strap on skis, slip from a helicopter and plunge into the snowy abyss. This is the Holy Land of extreme skiing.
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Honey Charters
Offers tours of Blackstone Bay and Barry Arm, both with a four-person minimum, as well as sightseeing trips to Cordova and Valdez, which both have a 12-person minimum. It specializes in water-taxi transportation to public-use cabins and to remote hunting, fishing and hiking destinations. It's charged per nautical mile for up to 30 people; rates are 40% cheaper if you can coordinate drop-offs and pickups with other groups.
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Manhattan Express
Though your head and shoulders may take a beating, the heartline twist-and-dive maneuver produces a sensation similar to that felt by a pilot during a barrel roll in a fighter plane. The rest of the four-minute ride includes stomach-dropping dipsy-dos, high-banked turns, a 540-degree spiral and blink-and-you'll-miss-it Strip views. Enter through the Coney Island Emporium arcade.
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Tahoe Adventure Company
For guided high-Sierra adventures, contact Tahoe Adventure Company. Staff members know the backcountry inside out and can customize any outing to your interest and skill level, from kayaking, hiking, mountain-biking, rock climbing or any combination thereof. Tours also introduce you to the area's natural and human history and its geology, flora and fauna.
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Tahoe Adventure Company
For guided high-Sierra adventures, contact Tahoe Adventure Company. Staff members know the backcountry inside out and can customize any outing to your interest and skill level, from kayaking, hiking, mountain-biking, rock climbing or any combination thereof. Tours also introduce you to the area's natural and human history and its geology, flora and fauna.
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Wilma Bi-Plane Sightseeing Tours
Feeling adventurous? Wilma Bi-Plane Sightseeing Tours will take you ripping above Provincetown in a breezy 1920s vintage biplane – the oldest commercially operating aircraft in the USA. You’ll see stunning views of P-town, the hulls of shipwrecks and the Outer Cape’s curving shoreline.
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Catalina Adventure Tours
On the Inside Adventure by Catalina Adventure Tours, you'll enjoy memorable views of the rugged coast and sandy coves and may even run into a herd of bison. The only other way to access the inland areas is by foot, boat or mountain bike (free pass required; call [tel] 310-510-1421).
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Escape Adventures
Escape the neon jungle for a single-track mountain-bike, hiking or multisport tour of Red Rock Canyon, the Grand Canyon, Utah’s national parks, the Mojave Desert and beyond. Mountain-bike rentals are available from partner Las Vegas Cyclery.
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Adventure Las Vegas
A one-stop shop for outdoor adventure tours, arranges everything from guided kayaking, mountain-biking and horseback-riding trips to soaring glider rides, Grand Canyon flightseeing and Colorado river rafting, and off-road 4WD explorations of ghost towns and mines.
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Biplane Rides
Biplane Rides, at Albert Whitted Airport near Bayfront Center, offers downtown tours in a 1933 WACO biplane originally owned by William Randolph Hearst. Tours start at around US$90 for up to three people, for 15 to 20 minutes; they're best taken in the morning.
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Kenai Fjords Tours
With an office at the small-boat harbor, Kenai Fjords Tours goes the furthest into the park (Northwestern Fjord) and offers the widest variety of options, including an overnight on Fox Island. It also does package deals that include rail travel from Anchorage.
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Bald Mountain Air
Bald Mountain Air runs trips to the Katmai National Park headquarters at Brooks Camp, where countless bears converge to snag salmon ascending Brooks River - and where countless tourists converge to watch them. Once-in-a-lifetime photos are pretty much certain.
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Yellowstone Raft Company
There is exhilarating white water through Yankee Jim Canyon on the Yellowstone River just north of the park boundary in Montana. This company offers a range of guided adventures out of Gardiner starting in late May.
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Mcghie’s Bike Outpost
McGhie’s Bike Outpost is a one-stop shop for rentals (per day $40 to $65). It offers guided tours around Red Rock Canyon, and directions to more than 125 miles of single track in the Cottonwood Valley and Black Velvet areas.
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Zion Adventure Company & Zion Outdoor Center
Leads rock-climbing and canyoneering trips and classes and guided cycling tours. Pre-trip planning info and shuttle service for The Narrows. The shop sells outdoor-activity gear, clothing, guidebooks and maps.
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Emerald Air Service
Emerald Air Service is run by respected naturalists and offers a far more wilderness-oriented experience, bypassing Brooks Camp and seeking out bears along isolated Katmai beaches and lakeshores.
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HSU Center Activities
From Tai Chi and African dance to backpacking and kayaking, HSU Center Activities sponsors myriad activities, workshops, outings, sporting-gear rentals and consignment sales; nonstudents welcome.
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