Destination: Idle Wild

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WEST
Camp Like a King, California
The Sequoia High Sierra Camp, set at 8,282 feet (2,524 meters) overlooking Kings Canyon in Great Sequoia National Monument ($250; www.sequoiahighsierracamp.com), is the newest and perhaps most remote of the West's emerging genre of cozily furnished canvas-cabin camps. It's hike-in only with a choice of routes: a mile (2 kilometers) hike for weenies or an 11-miler (18-kilometers) that starts at Lodgepole, in Sequoia National Park. The tents, shaded by red fir, have plush mattresses and down pillows, and sit within hiking range of seven sequoia groves.

Hike to Luxury, Oregon
When you stroll six miles (ten kilometers) on southern Oregon's Rogue River Trail to off-the-grid Clay Hill Lodge ($120, including meals; www.clayhilllodge.com), you'll encounter Roosevelt elk in the meadows and a welcoming committee of deer in the lodge yard. The redoubt, surrounded by Siskiyou National Forest wilderness, is set on the Rogue River's edge—ideal for casting for chinook, silver salmon, and steelhead, or just sitting on your wooden deck with an eye out for osprey, otters, eagles, and the odd bear.

Raft Constant Class IIIs, Washington
Most Northwest rivers slow to a trickle in September, but the White Salmon—which courses between Mount Adams and the Columbia River Gorge—is a year-round spigot for Class III and IV white water. Skamania Lodge's Extreme Getaway program ($419; www.skamania.com) nets you a half day on the river plus a night at the rustic-fancy retreat (think swarthy wood interiors with huge stone fireplaces) overlooking the Columbia River. Stick around post-paddle and hike to dozens of unrunnable falls in the Columbia Gorge, including 620-foot (189-meter) Multnomah. 

ROCKIES
Topple a Fourteener, Colorado
The swankiest route to the summit of a fourteener is by way of the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek (www.hyatt.com), 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of Vail at 8,100 feet (2,469 meters). Starting September 9 the tony resort is running a four-night Hike Week package ($1,474) that includes a pair of guided warmup hikes to high alpine lakes and a shot at the big time: 14,433-foot (4,399-meter) Mount Elbert, crown of Colorado. Other perks: two spa treatments, hiking goodies such as Leki hiking poles, and mountains of fine food.

Commune With Ancients, New Mexico
The Pueblo architects of the 700-year-old rooms in Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (www.nps.gov/gicl) got the perennial real estate maxim right: location, location, location. The dwellings were eked from conglomerate rock on terraces overlooking the West Fork of the Gila River. Rangers lead daily one-mile hikes to the 46-room settlement. September weather is mighty fine for camping on the river beneath (unpopulated) cliffs, at the Forks Campground, and for hiking Gila National Forest's 33-mile (53-kilometer) West Fork Trail.
 
Float the Great Gates, Utah
Superlative alert: "The Green River is the best Class III white water you'll ever find," says Tim Martens, head guide for Vernal-based Dinosaur Expeditions (www.dinoadv.com). Martens, who started his career in the Grand Canyon, likens the canyon of the Green—the 3,000-foot-deep (914 meters) Gates of Lodore—to the Big Ditch, "only much greener," thanks to an abundance of ponderosa pine and juniper. On a four-day, 44-mile (71-kilometer) trip with Dinosaur ($725), you'll navigate Hell's Half Mile, which drops 16 feet (9 meters) in a quarter mile (less than half a kilometer), and search the cliffs for bighorn sheep, deer, and black bears.
 
CENTRAL
Find Flat-Out Wilderness, Illinois
Lake Shelbyville is one of the Midwest's unsung assets—the nexus of an exceptional backcountry oasis hidden in plain sight. Two state parks, Eagle Creek and Wolf Creek, front the fish-stuffed, 11,100-acre (4,492-hectare) lake (it has 250 miles [402 kilometers] of shoreline) and account for 501 campsites (http://dnr.state.il.us). But if you take the backpacking trail through Army Corps of Engineer lands from Eagle Creek to Lone Point (www.recreation.gov) then you'll camp alone, a well-earned reward for negotiating 11 rugged miles (18 kilometers) of ups and downs through oaks, hard maples, and hickories.
 
Paddle a Thousand Acres, Michigan
Marquette Island's Aldo Leopold Preserve, a three-quarter-mile (1-kilometer) paddle from Hessel on Lake Huron, is a thousand-acre (405-hectare) netherworld of cedar forests, dunes, marshes, protected bays, and sheltered coves. Civilize your expedition by hooking up with Woods & Water Ecotours, which provides meals such as plank-barbecued whitefish and lodging in a private log cabin ($750 for three nights; www.woodswaterecotours.com). Woods & Water also rents kayaks ($55 a day) and mountain bikes ($30 a day) for exploring Drummond Island (a ferry hop from Hessel) on your own.
 
Head 'em Up, South Dakota
You don't just watch the buffalo roundup in Custer State Park, you feel it in your viscera as expert riders guide more than 1,400 magnificent beasts across the rolling prairie. The buff are bound for corrals, where they get branded, vaccinated, and either auctioned or released. Spectators get to watch from a hundred yards (91 meters) away—close enough to taste the dust and feel the boombox bass of 6,000 hooves. The historic State Game Lodge ($110; www.custerresorts.com), once Calvin Coolidge's summer White House, is 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the buffalo corral.
 
EAST
Tour a Panhandle Anomaly, Florida
Dune lakes are a spectacular—and spectacularly rare—commodity, found only in New Zealand, West Africa, and Florida's southern Walton County. For a weekend trip, we suggest the latter, where more than a dozen brackish-water, sandy-bottom lakes lie a dune away from sugar-sand Gulf beaches. Naturalist Matt LaBo runs half-day trips in the lakes ($55; www.blueskykayak.com) and through a network of marshes, estuaries, and the Gulf of Mexico. Hibiscus Coffee & Guesthouse ($125; www.hibiscusflorida.com), in Grayton Beach, is a shabby-chic haunt near the water.
 
Ride the Smokey Rollers, North Carolina
With fewer splashy thrills, biking gets second billing to rafting in Nantahala National Forest, 65 miles (105 kilometers) southwest of Asheville. The happy result: The quartet of challenging routes in the Tsali Recreation Area is often crowd free. The loops range from 7.7 to 11 miles (12 to 18 kilometers), with singletrack, stream crossings, and great views of the Smokies. The Nantahala Outdoor Center ($57; www.noc.com), seven miles (eleven kilometers) away, rents bikes ($40 a day), serves a tasty buffalo rib eye, and—when you're ready to join the crowd—runs daylong trips on the dam-released Nantahala River ($40).
 
Swing Like le Spidey, Quebec
It's the Peter Parker in us that thrills to the sky-high obstacle course at Aventure Laflèche ($42; www.aventurelafleche.ca). Spend three hours traversing the full
network of trails—1,319-foot (402-meter) ziplines, "Tarzan ropes," and 86 footbridges—all suspended high in the emerald Laurentian forest, 35 minutes north of Ottawa. Two routes are tabbed for kids. For home base, swing over to La Grange Country Inn—a restored 19th-century barn in nearby Wakefield ($110; www.lagrangecountryinn.com)—and spend a day hiking 89,000-acre (36,017-hectare) Gatineau Park, no ropes required.









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