Skip to content

How to play Trail Mix

Rules, clues, hints and streaks in Trail Mix, the daily guess-the-national-park game, explained.

The goal

Name the hidden U.S. national park in eight guesses or fewer. Everyone gets the same park on the same calendar day, and a new puzzle unlocks at midnight in your own time zone. There are 63 parks in the pool, so only park names Trail Mix recognizes can be guessed.

Playing a round

  1. Type a park name into the guess box and pick it from the suggestions, or press Enter once it is highlighted.
  2. Read the row of feedback that appears: distance and direction, state, established, area and 2025 visitors.
  3. Use that row to rule parks in or out, then submit your next guess.
  4. Keep going until you name the park or use your eighth guess, whichever comes first.

Colors and arrows

Each clue is colored blue 🔵, orange 🟠 or white ⚪. Blue means a match, orange means close, and white means a miss — the exact match and close thresholds are on the “How the clues work” card below the board. Distance turns blue only when you have actually found the park; for every other guess it shows a compass arrow (↑ ↗ → ↘ ↓ ↙ ← ↖) pointing from your guess toward the hidden one. Established, area and visitors use a simpler ↑ or ↓: an up arrow means the true figure is higher than your guess, a down arrow means it is lower. State never carries an arrow, since there is no “higher” or “lower” state.

Hints

Three hints are available each round, always revealed in the same order: the park’s region, then its state or states, then the first letter of its name. Hints you take for free add a light bulb to your shared result. When a short optional ad is available, watching it reveals the same hint without the light bulb, so the choice between a clean solve and an assisted one is always visible to anyone you share with.

Streaks and statistics

Solving the daily puzzle on consecutive days builds your streak. Everything — streak, history and hint use — is stored in your browser rather than an account, so clearing site data resets it.

Archive and unlimited mode

The archive lets you play any past daily puzzle; archive rounds count toward your statistics but never toward your streak. Unlimited mode serves a random park from the full list of 63 whenever you finish a round, so you can practice reading the clues for as long as you like.

Ready? Play today’s puzzle.