Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan

Writer & Editor

What's new

July 2026: Sometimes, one story leads to another. While reporting a story about long trails in general for Trails, I found out that just 11 miles of the Continental Divide Trail in Colorado remain unfinished. What's it going to take to fix that? A whole lot of effort and time, it turns out, as I discovered for 5280. By the way, it was only after I started researching the idea that I found out that the guy in charge of the whole project? My sister-in-law's longtime partner. Small world indeed. Read it. 

June 2026: Travel stories can be hard to write. How to make it about more than just "here's what I did, here's where I stayed"? How to be both specific and universal? I tried to answer those questions with this piece on a family rafting trip on the Salmon River for 5280. You be the judge on whether or not I succeeded. Read it. 

​

Photo: Lido Vizzuti