When I moved to Colorado from the East Coast a year ago, I had a very specific expectation. Mostly, hippies biking, climbing, running, smoking organic weed, drinking organic cage-free coffee and climbing mountains somehow all while eating kale and composting.

So it was a bit of a culture shock when I arrived at my new job, where I was living 45 minutes from the nearest town, 1 hour from the nearest “city”, 2 hours from the nearest city without quotation marks. Our neighbors were cattle ranchers and oil-field workers. My co-workers hunted duck by the river on our property. My boss burned his trash. After I got over the initial shock of being offered an elk steak on my first night (I’m pretty sure I didn’t even know what an elk was at that point) I loved it. I made friends with different viewpoints and backgrounds, learned to drive a truck, and went days without seeing anyone I didn’t know.

Having thousands of scenic acres essentially to myself to run, hike, bike, and explore spoiled me. I don’t go into nature to hike in a continual single file line behind strangers. It can be hard to find the peace and solitude you want when you get to a scenic viewpoint and there are already 50 people there Instagramming the view.

My view from Rocky Mountain National Parking Lot a few weekends ago.

Now, I’m not hating universally on National Parks. They are awesome and scenic and extremely accessible. But everyone knows about Rocky Mountain NP and Yellowstone and Arches and the Tetons. If you’re looking for an equally awesome but off-the-beaten-path experience, you have to dig a little deeper.

McCullough’s Peaks Wilderness Study Area is about 10 miles east of Cody, WY (one of the gateways to Yellowstone NP). A Wilderness Study Area means that the area is federally designated, but there is essentially no development whatsoever. It also has one of the best websites  I’ve ever seen for federal land, describing “opportunities for primitive and unconfined recreation” and a whole section devoted to the level of solitude of the area.

A giant badlands, sunrises and sunsets are incredible and opportunities abound for scrambling around the unmarked, untrailed, crazy geology of the area.

Friends explore the badlands. Not a bad idea to bring a GPS with you.

You can camp for free, just make sure you find a spot out of the wind and store your food safely- as part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, you could theoretically encounter bears and mountain lions.

We spent an afternoon and a night there and saw one other car. Truly a hidden gem of Wyoming.

Where are your favorite off-the-beaten-path places?