Welcome to Discover the West

"The tendency nowadays to wander in wilderness is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."

      -- John Muir

The American and Canadian west is home to thousands of miles of hiking trails. From the glacially carved mountains of the Canadian Rockies and Glacier National Park, to the red rock deserts of Sedona, hikers can find a wide range of hiking opportunities to satisfy their need for adventure, or to simply find solitude in wilderness.

Discover the West is based on many of the trails Kathy and I have hiked over the last several years. We've put this website together to help you discover some of the best hikes the western United States and the Canadian Rockies have to offer.

Here you'll find a range of hikes in Banff, Jasper, Rocky Mountain, Zion, Bryce, Arches, Grand Canyon, Guadalupe Mountains, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Mt. Ranier, Redwoods and Yosemite National Parks, as well as in many of the national forests, national monuments and other public lands scattered throughout the west.

* To get started, simply use the Hiking Trail Directory (organized by state) located in the upper right column 


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Hikers can also visit one of our three sister websites, each of which offer comprehensive hiking trail coverage for Glacier, Grand Teton and Rocky Mountain National Parks:

* Hiking in Glacier

* Teton Hiking Trails

* Rocky Mountain Hiking Trails


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You can also purchase the mobile version of our new online trail guides for Glacier National Park and Grand Teton National Park:

Exploring Glacier National Park: The Comprehensive Hiking Guide from HikinginGlacier.com

Exploring Grand Teton National Park: The Comprehensive Hiking Guide from TetonHikingTrails.com


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The author of this website has also published the following books:

* Ramble On: A History of Hiking, which explores the rich and fascinating history of hiking.

* Ultimate Hiking Guide to the Rocky Mountains: Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, which showcases 75 day hikes that lead to extraordinary places across the Rocky Mountain Range.

New edition of "Ramble On: A History of Hiking" released!

Virtually no one went hiking before the 19th century. What occurred that inspired ordinary people to take a walk in the woods for pleasure?

While there are enough books about mountaineering to fill a small library, very little has been written on the rich and fascinating history of hiking. Ramble On: A History of Hiking is the first book to explore how hiking evolved into one of the world’s most popular outdoor recreational activities.

Extensively researched, this book provides a broad overview of the origins of hiking, as well as the cultural trends, movements, events, and innovations that spurred its growth and allowed it to eventually flourish.

This second edition of Ramble On: A History of Hiking builds upon the original to reflect additional research and to expand more broadly on a few key topics. For example, I wanted to provide a deeper understanding of how the Age of Enlightenment and the Romantic Era influenced art, aesthetics, literature, religion and thought, which in turn allowed hiking to bloom and eventually flourish. I also thought that it was important to chronicle in more detail the crucial role the multi-generational Crawford family of New Hampshire played in the development of hiking in America. This edition also explores how the term “hiking” surprisingly evolved after the Philippine-American War to assume the meaning we understand today.

Praise for the first edition:

"Doran weaves the social, cultural, industrial, and political milieu into this fascinating history. Amusing, astonishing, and sometimes alarming anecdotes .. make this a fascinating and significant account of the history of hiking."

- Priscilla Estes, Appalachian Footnotes, Winter 2018-2019, Delaware Valley Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club


The second edition on the history of hiking is now available on Amazon.