Utah Sampler: 02/17 - 02/23/2018

I’ve got a mile long list of all the people who told me I should cancel my Utah trip. “So-and-so pulled the plug on their Utah trip and is going to Jackson instead” they’d say. Or Big Sky. Or Grand Targhee. Even TGR was dishing out the anti-stoke. I hatched a hair-brained scheme (which we fortunately didn’t execute) to ditch our last couple days in Utah and drive 5 hours north to Jackson instead.

Lucky for us, Utah’s long awaited pattern change started to kick in a week before our trip. 18 to 20 inches of snow fell across the Cottonwoods the week before our arrival with predictions of significantly more.

Jackson Hole, WY: 01/23 - 01/28/2018

Jackson Hole’s reputation for some of the most challenging terrain in North America puts it near the top of every avid skier’s bucket list, so when I was tasked over the summer with picking the destination for this year’s guys ski trip, JH was a no-brainer. Our group doesn’t get the luxury of storm chasing. Like most working schleps, we pick our dates and make our plans months in advance. Jackson’s reliable mid-winter snowfall was a big factor in our decision making process, and that reliability paid off with a foot of powder the day before our arrival and another 20 inches over our five days of skiing.

Big Sky,MT: 02/20 - 02/24/2017

When I skied Big Sky, Montana four years ago, I knew it was a place I'd eventually want to return to with the family. After a great week-long trip to Steamboat, CO two years ago, I know we were ready to make the jump up to Big Sky.

Whistler-Blackcomb: 01/26 - 01/28/2017

Whistler seems to be on every avid skier’s must-ski list, and I was lucky enough to enjoy my first visit there last week on my annual "guys' trip." It’s hard to describe Whistler-Blackcomb if you’ve never been, but “big” is a good start. With 8 thousand skiable acres, 5 thousand vertical feet and two huge mountains, 3 days of skiing was barely enough to just scratch the surface.

Truro Hills and Ponds: Mountain biking and paddling in the Cape Cod National Seashore

It's not like we've uncovered all the locals' secrets, but in the nearly 10 years that we've been coming to the Outer Cape we've gotten pretty good at finding the off-the-beaten-path spots that most of the tourists miss. My ride the other day took me to some of our favorites along the Truro / Wellfleet border.

Park City and The Canyons: 01/31 - 02/02/2016

I’ve loved every one of the western ski trips I’ve gone on over the last several years, but with the east locked in a snow drought this winter, our trip to Park City, Utah was a godsend. As if on cue, the storm cycle that started the day before our arrival deposited 22 inches of fluff during our stay. And that came on top of what’s already been an excellent snow year in Utah.

Bay to beach and back, connecting Edward Hopper and Henry Beston: Cape Cod Nat'l Seashore

For 7 out of the last 8 years we've taken a week's vacation at the same part of Outer Cape Cod (Truro), and it seems we keep searching for the perfect rental house with the right combination of price, availability and location, location, location. Maybe this year's house, steps from a quiet bay beach, Fisher Beach, is the one.

Last year's house, tucked behind a dune overlooking the Atlantic, lay on the edge of a vast stretch of ocean beach that evokes Henry Beston's description of the Outer Cape:

At the foot of this cliff a great ocean beach runs north and south unbroken, mile lengthening into mile. Solitary and elemental, unsullied and remote, visited and possessed by the outer sea, these sands might be the end or the beginning of a world.

The landscape surrounding this year's house, just a few miles away, is entirely different. Rolling hills overlook a comparatively calm Cape Cod Bay. Sometimes wooded, sometimes open, this is the landscape of Edward Hopper, the iconic American landscape artist who summered at Fisher Beach for 40 years.

While reading Beston's The Outermost House, I got inspired to put together a mountain bike ride that would connect the two landscapes, staying entirely off pavement. A bay-to-beach-and-back ride.

Steamboat, CO: 02/19 - 02/23/2015

Although our 2 kids have been skiing almost since they could walk (they are 7 and 11 now), I’ve been waiting to do a family ski trip out west until they were both at an ability level that would allow them to fully enjoy the experience. This is the year, and we just returned from 5 days of skiing at Steamboat, CO. The trip couldn’t have worked out better.

Despite being cold and snowy here in the east, it's been something of a lean year out west. Steamboat has been having a better season than many western ski areas, but still the locals were all apologetic about the lack of snow when we arrived. I can’t tell you how many times we heard “you left all that snow to come ski here?”

Telluride, CO: 01/29 - 01/31/2015

As much as I consider myself an East Coast skier to the core, there’s something about the snow, the terrain and the scenery out West that calls to me as a skier. In recent years I’ve enjoyed great skiing at Big Sky, Montana and Alta / Snowbird, Utah; this year I was lucky enough to be included in a trip to Telluride, Colorado.

See Forever

While I’ve done some skiing in Colorado in the past (A-Basin, Breckenridge, Vail, and a bunch of the 10th Mountain Division huts), I had never visited Telluride. Known for its spectacular setting in the San Juan mountains and its diverse collection of steeps, trees and bowls, Telluride is right up my alley.

Fire roads and foot trails: Mountain biking in the Cape Cod National Seashore

Some people are beach people, some are mountain people. I'm most at home in the mountains, but that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy some quality beach time too. Just put me in a place where there's large chunks of natural landscape and I'm happy. Luckily we've been able to find just that at the Cape Cod National Seashore, where we've spent a week of summer vacation 6 out the last 7 summers.

Snowbird, UT: 02/22/2014

I’m sure I would have been more than happy skiing Alta for a third straight day, but you can’t come to Little Cottonwood Canyon without skiing the Bird. Despite sharing a common boundary and appealing to expert skiers, Alta and Snowbird couldn’t be more different. Whereas Alta is spread out and has an old school vibe, everything about Snowbird is in your face, from the upscale base lodging to the 120-passenger tram that covers the Bird’s 3000 vertical feet in less than 10 minutes, passing directly over double black steeps that would make an Okemo skier wet his pants and cry for mama.

Not that in your face is a bad thing. There’s amazing expert terrain everywhere you look. I have no regrets about how I allocated my 3 days in Utah, but getting to know Snowbird better is a reason to return.

Alta, UT: 02/21/2014

I enjoyed Alta so much on Day 1 that I decided to return there for Day 2 to take care of unfinished business. Snowbird can wait.

Alta, UT: 02/20/2014

First of all, my wife’s a saint for letting me go on this year’s version of the guys’ ski trip. She took care of the kids solo for the second half of their school break while I headed to Utah for three days of skiing at Alta and Snowbird.

Instead of cramming all my photos into one trip report, I’m breaking it into three. This is day 1: Alta, UT.

Climbing at Tuolomne Meadows, Hobbit Book: 06/27/2013

With its huge granite domes, soaring peaks, and the largest sub-alpine meadow in the Sierra Nevada, the scenery and the climbing at Tuolomne Meadows are world-class and at the same time completely different from Yosemite Valley. There are enough classic climbs at Tuolomne to fill a weeks long road trip, but we had just one more day. So we turned to some climbing friends for route suggestions and settled on Hobbit Book.

Tenaya Peak, Yosemite Nat'l Park: 06/26/2013

I love hiking and I love climbing. But in places like the Sierra Nevada, with relatively easy off-trail travel, my favorite way to experience wilderness may be peak scrambling, a hybrid of hiking and climbing that adds in the challenge of route finding and the rewards of solitude and exploration. So, with a couple of classic Yosemite Valley hikes already ticked off, we consulted our maps and guidebooks for some trailless peak possibilities in the High Sierra surrounding Tuolomne Meadows, and settled on a route that included an ascent of 10,300’ Tenaya Peak.

North Dome, Yosemite Nat'l Park: 06/25/2013

North Dome's straight-on, close-up view of Half Dome

With its unsurpassed view of Half Dome from directly across Tenaya Canyon, North Dome is the perfect complement to hiking Half Dome. This moderately strenuous hike (between 8.8 and 10 miles round trip, depending on whether you believe the map, the guidebook or the trail signs) had long been on my Yosemite must-do list, yet our hike on Tuesday was something of a gamble as a departing storm had yet to fully clear.

Half Dome, Yosemite Nat'l Park: 06/23/2013

Beth and I just got back from a week of hiking, climbing and peak scrambling in Yosemite National Park. This and the next few posts will be from that trip.

With its sheer face rising more than 4,800 vertical feet above Yosemite Valley, Half Dome is an icon that belongs on every hiker’s must-do list. Though it appears inaccessible without technical rock climbing skills, cables up Half Dome’s steep east face provide hikers with a spectacular route up the final 400 vertical feet to the summit. The hike’s popularity, along with a history of fatalities, led the National Park Service to establish a permit system in 2010. When we scored a permit in this year’s pre-season lottery, we planned our Yosemite trip around hiking Half Dome.

Big Sky, MT: 02/27 - 03/02/2013

We upped the ante for this year’s “guys’ ski trip” and headed to Montana for 3 days of skiing at Big Sky and a day at Bridger Bowl. Although I used to ski out West regularly, it’s been 10 years since my last trip. As much as I love Eastern skiing, that’s a long time for an avid skier to go cold turkey on the terrain and snow conditions that can only be found in the West.

Paddling Cape Cod: two quick tours

Cape Cod may be best known for its expansive ocean beaches, but there's a surprising diversity of paddling options as well. During our family vacation there this week we squeezed in two short kayak tours.

Wellfleet Kettle Ponds
Yes, there's freshwater paddling on Cape Cod. The Cape is full of freshwater kettle ponds, formed when retreating glaciers left behind huge chunks of ice at the end of the last ice age. When the remnant ice blocks melted, they left depressions in the Cape's sandy soil that eventually filled with freshwater.

Robinson Preserve kayak tour, Anna Maria Island, Florida

Florida is a long way from the Adirondacks that I usually write about, but since this blog is about adventures in the Adirondacks and beyond, I'll let this post fall into the "beyond" category.

For the past several years, we've spent a week's vacation in the spring on Anna Maria Island, at the mouth of Tampa Bay on Florida's Gulf Coast. Although I don't generally associate Florida with an abundance of protected natural landscapes - outside of the Everglades at least - we discovered a small gem just a couple of miles from Anna Maria during our vacation last week: the Robinson Preserve.