Outdoor Adventures in California with Elegant Resorts
California is in a world of its own. Here, the crisp Pacific air rolls in off the ocean waves, casting a charm over the sun-baked west coast, from golden beaches hemmed by frothy sea bluff, to staggering rocky valleys and wildly beautiful mountain ranges. Home of the great outdoor adventure, California proudly boasts the largest number of national parks in the United States, from the towering natural skyscrapers of Redwood National Park and the surreal fascination of Joshua Tree, to the plunging waterfalls of Yosemite and the powerfully desolate Death Valley.
Here, you can truly embrace the outdoors exploring on foot, wandering through the wildflowers or skimming the shore of the sparklingly glacial Mammoth Lake. Hike through alpine mountains and craggy, granite peaks, where the hills are seemingly alive with the sound of bluegrass, or travel back in time with a visit to a ghost town, where only skeletons of car shells and gas pumps remain of slightly spooky deserted gold rush villages. You can cycle across the iconic Golden Gate Bridge – an impressive feat of engineering, famously encircled by billows of ethereal fog – or take a thrilling kayak adventure through rocky canyons. Whether you would rather pick up the surf at Huntington Beach or spend the day peacefully fly-fishing between volcanic peaks, the ‘Golden State’ awaits.
It is here, in this landscape, that the beating heart of the pioneer spirit lives on, who once pushed on through the wilderness in search of glory; you can feel it tumbling through the current of the American River, once laden with nuggets of gold, and you can smell it in pine-fragranced air, where magnificent birds of prey swoop through the treetops overhead. If you feel overcome with inspiration simply at the thought of it all, you won’t be alone. The call of the great Californian outdoors sparked the imaginations of some of America’s most influential writers, from the free-spirited beat generation idol Jack Kerouac, to Mark Twain, who was said to be besotted with the topaz-blue of Lake Tahoe. So, if you are ready, it’s time to write your own chapter...
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