A "favorite" spot is hard to pin down. Every time I've got to hike into a place that has a semblance of what it used to be like I've enjoyed myself. There are a few that stand out...

Malibu Creek State Park, CA, in the years before they built all the campsites, was a lot of fun for me. I hiked it, biked it, fished it, and swam in the swimming hole below the water fall for several years and often had it almost all to myself.

I got to spend several weeks a couple times at Peck's Cabin in the Sequoia Forest. That's about as good as it can get anywhere you can go.

There is a spot in the Buffalo River NP in AR, just upstream from the mouth of Richland Creek where one of the best swimming holes in the world just sits there waiting for anyone who takes the time to get there. I try and go there at least once each year.

There is a canyon in the Leatherwood Wilderness in AR where, right now, all along the creek bed the Witch Hazel is in bloom and just the scent of it must be as close to heaven as I will ever get. I've been there twice.

There are our own 15 acres behind our house that border public land and Bull Shoals Lake in Taney County MO. That is my current "Favorite Nature Spot". Unless they grind all these mountains down around me I'll probably hang here till the end.

Bill S.