When I became the editor of听国产吃瓜黑料听in early 1999, the 22-year-old magazine was riding impossibly high鈥攁nd falling apart. In one of those mysterious temperamental spasms that sometimes grips even thriving publications, most of the editorial team that had brought so much success and acclaim in the nineties abruptly decamped for opportunities elsewhere, taking key contributors and vast stores of institutional memory out the door.

As part of the reboot, I took one of my luckiest steps on the way to reimaginging a 21st-century听国产吃瓜黑料听by hiring a dark-horse freelancer named Mark Jenkins as a monthly columnist, making a bet that he could uphold the heroic standards of predecessors like David Quammen, Tim Cahill, and Randy Wayne White. It paid off. Jenkins鈥攃limber, endurance athlete, ethicist of risk, connoisseur听of dicey situations, orthopedic basket case鈥攖urned out to be the perfect writer at the right time, and the living embodiment听of the unkillable idea of literate badass adventure that has been听国产吃瓜黑料's听guiding star.

All of his reportorial and expeditionary audacity, along with his predilection听for the ill-advised and the near fatal, are on spellbinding display in his synoptic post-9/11 chronicle of traversing a half-forgotten region of Afghanistan (“A Short Walk in the Wakhan听Corridor,” November 2005). So evocative that you can smell the opium fumes and yak dung, his prose delivers a hair-raising vision of geopolitical explorations as both dream and nightmare. Mark survived to tell the tale鈥攁nd, I'm proud to say, so did听国产吃瓜黑料.

鈥擧al听Espen, Editor, 1999-2006

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It鈥檚 difficult for me to believe that the indefatigable and incomparable writer Peter Matthiessen is dead. He succumbed to leukemia on April 5 at his home in Sagaponack, on Long Island, a few weeks before he would have turned 87. Over a six-decade career he produced 31 books鈥攁 final novel, In Paradise, appeared three days after his death鈥攁nd left his footprints across a huge swath of the earth鈥檚 wild places. His questing intelligence, along with his unflagging stamina and contentiousness, were by turns inspiring and intimidating, and it seemed that he might go on forever.

He poured his heart into fiction, and three of his novels should be reckoned as indelible classics of recent American literature: At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965), Far Tortuga (1975), and Shadow Country (2008). But over five decades his restless spirit sent him out, notebook in hand, on one expedition after another, a vast cumulative itinerary in which Matthiessen embraced the natural world and the indigenous people and cultures who revered that ever-diminishing realm of numinous biodiversity. A very different novelist, Thomas Pynchon, in a blurb for Far Tortuga, wrote, 鈥淚t鈥檚 full of music and strong haunting visuals and like everything of his, it鈥檚 also a deep declaration of love for the planet.鈥� Yet Matthiessen became considerably more famous for his journalism than his fiction, which was something he came to wistfully resist and regret until the end of his life.

Matthiessen and his writing were enormously influential in establishing and shaping the literary aspirations of 国产吃瓜黑料, and he was a strong presiding presence in its pages from the publication鈥檚 earliest days. Randy Wayne White, one of the writer鈥檚 closest friends (and later an 国产吃瓜黑料 columnist), profiled him for the brand-new magazine in 1980. Matthiessen鈥檚 own sporadic contributions include a rollicking, classic 1990 account of close encounters with roaming gangs of grizzly bears in the company of Doug Peacock, another legendary 国产吃瓜黑料 character who had also become one of Matthiessen鈥檚 best friends and a perennial fishing buddy. In 1994, 国产吃瓜黑料 published a feature by Matthiessen about his expedition to study endangered cranes in China that was eventually incorporated into The Birds of Heaven (2001).

But 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 debt to Matthiessen transcended his appearances in its pages. When the magazine came into being in 1977, it鈥檚 no exaggeration to say that he, more than any other single voice, made it plausible to treat travel, rugged exploration, and heroic endurance as worthy of literary ambition. Matthiessen鈥檚 work fused travel, nature, and adventure writing in a new way, and so would 国产吃瓜黑料. He encountered wild corners of the world with sophistication and self-deprecating honesty, rather than with the hoary, hairy-chested posturing of the danger-mad adventure genre鈥攁nd so would 国产吃瓜黑料. His books and articles () projected their author as a post-Hemingway beau ideal, audacious but without macho bluster. He was a meticulous observer of ecological phenomena and advocate for indigenous cultures and the integrity of untrammeled places. Matthiessen looked the part, too, with his long, weathered terrapin face, raptor鈥檚 eyes, and tall, shambling frame.

As a model who inspired admiration and emulation, Matthiessen brought a range of contradictory attributes and swashbuckling credentials to his roles as naturalist and existential travel writer. A son of WASP wealth and privilege, a Yalie who co-founded in the early 1950s (while secretly working for the CIA), he was also a rebel who, early on, was obsessed with snakes and birds and who ran away to join the Coast Guard at 17. He toiled (unsuccessfully) as a commercial fisherman in order to write his first novels, and became a vehement environmentalist, man of the left, and Zen Buddhist adherent. He was the master of the far-flung epic journey (as in his elegiac 1959 narrative survey Wildlife in America), of the remote immersive expedition (to the Amazon and Andes for The Cloud Forest in 1961, and to tribal New Guinea for Under the Mountain Wall in 1962), of the meditative long-walk safari (in a number of books about Africa, including 1972鈥檚 The Tree Where Man Was Born and 1991鈥檚 African Silences).

Two of Matthiessen鈥檚 greatest books appeared just as 国产吃瓜黑料 was born and began to take shape. His 1975 novel Far Tortuga was based on years of venturing under sail across the southwest Caribbean with the last of the old Cayman Island turtle hunters. And The Snow Leopard (1978), his non-fiction masterpiece, chronicled a 1973 Himalayan expedition with the conservation biologist George Schaller that was physically overwhelming, emotionally lacerating (Matthiessen鈥檚 young wife had recently died of cancer), spiritually inspiring, and even absurdist鈥擬atthiessen sees snow leopard footprints but never glimpses the rare and beautiful beast itself. When The Snow Leopard became a best-seller and won the National Book Award, it was a favorable omen for the kind of unprecedented magazine 国产吃瓜黑料 hoped to be and the subjects it planned to explore.

I got to know Peter Matthiessen in the mid-1990s, when I was astonished to find myself appointed his editor at The New Yorker. I was terrified by the prospect of working with him, and he lived up to my expectations by being one of the crankiest, most impatient, and generally forbidding writers I鈥檇 ever edited. Matthiessen had been contributing to The New Yorker for decades, under rubrics such as “The Last Wilderness” and “Annals of Conservation,” and his disapprobation toward editorial intervention was reinforced by the lapidary near-perfection of his prose, the result of discipline and relentless self-revision.

Our first, and only, collaboration at The New Yorker was on a 1995 report he had written about Inuit and Inuhuit whalers in Greenland. Not long afterward, when I left New York to live for a year in the Rogue River wilderness of Oregon, it was a backcountry detour that I could blame, in part, on the spell cast by that fleeting proximity to Peter Matthiessen. But when I joined the staff of 国产吃瓜黑料 as its features editor, in late 1996, I assumed that he would view my employment there as an act of disloyalty.

At the time, Matthiessen was furious with 国产吃瓜黑料 and with Mark Bryant, who edited the magazine from 1991 to 1999, for publishing an 11,682-word feature story in July 1995 by a young war correspondent and investigative journalist named Scott Anderson. 鈥�The Martyrdom of Leonard Peltier鈥� reexamined the aftermath of the 1975 killings of two FBI agents during a stand-off on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Peltier, a Chipewa-Lakota Sioux activist in AIM (the American Indian Movement), was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.

In 1983, Matthiessen published his furious, explicitly one-sided investigation of the killings and the prosecution of Leonard Peltier, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, charging that Peltier was innocent and the victim of a shoddy, vindictive criminal investigation. His book gave impetus to a documentary film, a Hollywood drama based loosely on the Peltier case, the involvement of 60 Minutes and Oliver Stone, and an international human-rights campaign to free Peltier.

Like other incidents involving a brew of violence and assassination and 60s-era radical groups, the FBI-AIM confrontation was a murky, complex, ideologically riven event. It spawned fervid conspiracy theories and competing visions of a racist miscarriage of justice versus a scenario of cold-blooded political homicide and righteous punishment.

A dozen years after In the Spirit of Crazy Horse was first published, Scott Anderson interviewed Peltier and other key players for his 国产吃瓜黑料 article, and he argued that Matthiessen鈥檚 narrative had omitted or distorted evidence pointing to Peltier鈥檚 culpability, and that the movement to obtain a new trial or a pardon for Peltier was possibly a whitewash that was doing the convicted murderer more harm than good.

Matthiessen had devoted years to researching and writing In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, successfully fighting a landmark libel lawsuit against the book, and trying to free Peltier. Rather than offering a brief response in 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 Letters column, Matthiessen insisted that the magazine publish 鈥淢ean Spirit,鈥� his contemptuous rebuttal. At 5,400 words, it was nearly half as long as Scott Anderson鈥檚 original piece. It appeared in the October 1995 issue. Anderson in turn replied a few months later.

Apart from its impact on the long-running debate over Peltier鈥檚 legal fate, the editorial battle between 国产吃瓜黑料 and Matthiessen was one of the most painful episodes in the magazine鈥檚 history. To admirers of Anderson鈥檚 reporting, it was an instance of 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 fearlessness in letting a reporter follow the facts where they led. To others, it was a political and personal betrayal of one of its own.

That Leonard Peltier remains in prison to this day must be counted as one of the great defeats of Matthiessen鈥檚 life, and he blamed the 国产吃瓜黑料 article for providing crucial support for the legitimacy of Peltier鈥檚 guilty verdict. Peltier鈥檚 next parole hearing is not scheduled until 2024, and he is currently eligible to be released in 2040, when he would be 96 years old.

It seems plausible to infer that Matthiessen鈥檚 bitter experience with the Peltier case provided part of the driving force behind his 20-year obsession with turning the story of the murder of outlaw and plantation owner Edgar Watson in Florida in 1910 into a brooding fictional epic. Having written 1,400 pages in a trilogy of novels鈥�Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man鈥檚 River, and Bone by Bone鈥攊n his attempt to tell the tale, Matthiessen enjoyed a crowning literary vindication when his revised and shortened one-volume version of the Watson legend, Shadow Country, won the National Book Award in 2008.

When I arrived at 国产吃瓜黑料 I sent Matthiessen a note with my news, adding that his estrangement from the magazine distressed and saddened me. He responded cordially but made it clear that 国产吃瓜黑料 was, so to speak, dead to him.

After I became 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 editor in 1999, I began a low-key campaign to lure Matthiessen back into its pages, and finally succeeded in 2001, when the magazine excerpted the stirring, outraged essay he had written for Subhankar Banerjee鈥檚 landmark book of photographs, The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land. And in 2002, he contributed a story about the fate of tigers in India to 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 25th anniversary issue. I experienced for the last time his short-fused, curmudgeonly attitude toward the impostures of magazine editors, along with the pleasure of observing his impeccable writerly skill in action.

Like many writer-editor relationships, ours was conducted exclusively by phone and correspondence. I saw Peter in person only once, in 2004, when he came to Santa Fe for a Lannan Foundation talk in defense of ANWR with Banerjee. One of my abiding regrets is that I never took up Doug Peacock鈥檚 invitations to come up to Montana to go fishing with him and Matthiessen.

Despite his dark and dour and sometimes melodramatic tendencies, the quality that rings the clearest for me about Peter Matthiessen is his endless joy in experiencing the depths of the natural world and its creatures, including we hapless, fumbling humans. He was far more convivial than the image of the glowering Zen master might suggest, as one can glean in the lovely reminiscence his friend and neighbor James Salter wrote for The New Yorker shortly after Matthiessen鈥檚 death. Although he often expressed contempt for unnecessary risk, near the end of his life Matthiessen told a radio interviewer about deciding to run a fearsome Class V rapid with his fishing guide in a canvas riverboat on Montana鈥檚 Madison River, rather than portaging around.

鈥淚 just had this impulse,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淚 said, 鈥榊ou know, I am 82. My best work is behind me. I want to go down with you.鈥� 鈥� It was whitewater and tumbling boulders and waterfalls, everything from side to side and there wasn’t any open water there…. When we got to the bottom of this thing, at the end of the run, we were just like two little boys. We were just grinning from ear to ear. I was just so happy. I never thought I would have an adventure again like that. I have had a lot of them in my life, but I didn鈥檛 expect one at my age. So that was my last thrill.鈥�

Hal Espen was the editor of 国产吃瓜黑料 from 1999 to 2006.

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Get ready for the new age of adventure on the world's wildest continent. Whether it's the Ugandan National Kayak Team leading raft trips on the raging White Nile or entrepreneurial young guides building stylish bush camps with an eye toward helping local communities, a fresh generation is redefining travel in Africa. Leave your pith helmet at home.

Mozambique: The New “It” Country

South Africa: The New Paradigm

Safari Camps: The New Aesthetic

国产吃瓜黑料 Guides: The New Adrenaline

Thrill Seekers: The New 国产吃瓜黑料s

The Isles Have It

After 16 years of civil war, Mozambique is back in the bliss business, with 1,500 miles of Indian Ocean coastline, thriving coral reefs . . . and peace at hand

“Tem for莽a,” said Abudo, in Portuguese. “O vento h谩-de soprar.”

Have strength. The wind will come.

The sail flapped listlessly as we drifted in the sun's growing heat. We'd hired the 70-year-old fisherman to sail us in his wooden dhow across a channel from Ilha de Mo莽ambique, a tiny speck off the northern coast, to a nearby isthmus of the mainland. Soon the wind did come, billowing the patched sails of nearby fishing dhows and winging them to sea. Beaching at a thatch village under coconut palms, we waded through tidal inlets to a spectacularly empty, several-mile-long curve of white beach. After snorkeling in the quiet shallows, avoiding enormous sea urchins, we hiked back to discover our dhow sprawled on its side on a sandy flat at least 500 yards from the water's edge.

“What do we do now?” I asked Abudo.

“Now we wait for the sea,” he replied.

听

Back in the fifties and early sixties, Mozambique then a Portuguese colony was on its way to becoming the Caribbean of Africa for white South Africans, landlocked Rhodesians, and others. After Portugal granted independence in 1975 commemorated in Bob Dylan's song “Mozambique” a new black socialist government came to power. Then came 16 brutal years of civil war.

Now, after more than a decade of peace, Mozambique is rebuilding, and tourism is one of its brightest spots. But you don't go there to zoom your crystalline lenses across the African savanna and zing off photos of the Big Five. During the war, bush fighters slaughtered many animals for food, and, as a result, there really isn't much big wildlife in the scrubby interior. Where you do find stunning wildlife is among Mozambique's palmy archipelagoes, coral reefs, and 1,500 miles of Indian Ocean coast that the civil war paradoxically kept pristine from development. Some 700,000 visitors arrive in the country annually (nearly double from 2001), many of them eco-tourists who've quickly spread the word.

During our year's stay in the capital city, Maputo, where my wife, Amy, was doing research on dance, we took advantage of the coastline most weekends. On our children's five-week Christmas school break, we flew deep into the subtropics, 12 degrees south of the equator. It was here, in 2002, that the World Wildlife Fund helped Mozambique establish Quirimbas National Park. This encompasses 11 of the 28 islands of the Quirimbas Archipelago, plus a large swath of the mainland's mangrove and miombo forests and the St. Lazarus Bank farther offshore, considered one of the world's premier diving and sportfishing locations.

The park is an experiment in eco-tourism, approved by the area's traditional fishing villages in order to preserve their way of life, manage marine resources, and develop basic services in a region with a life expectancy of less than 40 years. Rather than bringing in the masses, the park emphasizes limited, high-end tourism. Opened in 2002, the Quil谩lea Island resort offers elegant thatch-and-stone villas with access to empty beaches and some of the archipelago's best diving right offshore. The Medjumbe Island Resort, also on its own small island, gives easy access to bonefishing and scuba diving. At the Vamizi Island lodge, outside the park on a seven-mile-long island, you can luxuriate in a house-size villa. Backed by European investors, Vamizi collaborates with researchers from the Zoological Society of London to preserve the area's sea turtles and the mainland's elephant habitat.

In the clear waters of another island group, the Bazaruto Archipelago, off the southern coast and protected by a national park, you can swim (if you're lucky) with the threatened dugong a shy sea cow that supposedly inspired the mermaid myth. Upscale lodges here include the Benguerra and the Marlin.

My 51st birthday happened to find us on Ilha de Mo莽ambique, which lies partway between the Quirimbas and the Bazarutos. The Portuguese built their stronghold in East Africa on this tiny, 1.5-mile-long sliver of old coral and shipped out the interior's gold and ivory from here. Today there's still no place on earth like Ilha, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Tree roots sprout from the broken walls of old coral-and-stone villas in its narrow streets, rusted cannonballs lie about the massive fortress, the tiny chapel of the Southern Hemisphere's oldest church overlooks the sea, and the ornate St. Paul's Palace seems untouched dusty furniture and all since the time of the Portuguese.

European artists and architects are rehabilitating old villas into small hotels. We stayed at the Escondidinho, which had been renovated by an Italian doctor. Under its portico, looking onto a courtyard where it's rumored slaves were once sold, a French ballerina and her computer-engineer partner who chucked it all to move to Africa run a bistro featuring a delicious cuisine that, like the island itself, takes its accents from Africa and Europe, Arabia and India.

At the hour Abudo predicted, the ocean refloated our dhow. Soon we were broad-reaching amid flying spray. We would land just in time for me to join a fast-paced game with Ilha's men's soccer team near the fortress walls. Then I would meet my family in the bistro for kid-goat stew and birthday flan. But for now, it was just the wind and the sea.

Access & Resources
Getting听There:听Fly South African Airways () from New York to Johannesburg to Maputo for about $1,400 round-trip. From there, it's a two-hour flight on LAM () to Pemba, the launch point for charter flights to the Quirimbas. (For the Bazarutos, flights depart from Vilanculos.) Prime Time: April September, with crowds peaking in August. Where to Stay: The Quil谩lea Island resort has nine villas ($400 per person; 011-258-2-722-1808, ). There are 13 chalets at Medjumbe Island Resort (from $345 per person; closed for renovations until March; 011-27-11-465-6904, ). Vamizi Island lodge has ten beach houses ($560 per person; 011-27-11-884-8869, ). Escondidinho, on Ilha de Mo莽ambique, is a ten-room guesthouse (doubles, $50; 011-258-2-661-0078, ). Benguerra Lodge offers 11 chalets ($395 per person; 011-27-11-452-0641, ). There are 19 chalets at the Marlin Lodge (from $213 per person; 011-27-12-460-9410, ).

Peter Stark's book Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson鈥檚 Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival will be published in March 2014 by Ecco.

国产吃瓜黑料 Capital

More than just the darling of Bono and the Bills, South Africa is breaking down barriers鈥攆rom cosmopolitan Cape Town to the wild superparks of the future

IT'S THE DREAMLIKE, cinematic power of Africa unfolding yet again. This time, it's late afternoon when the leopard emerges from the bush, 20 feet away, crossing the sandy wash with a lazy stride, pelt rippling in the golden light. Then the radio crackles and we're fishtailing across the 54-square-mile Ngala Private Game Reserve, on Kruger National Park's western edge. Another cat's been spotted, and Jimmy Ndubane, our Shangaan tracker, leads us straight to it. This one is anything but lazy; seconds after we see the white tip of its tail twitching in the grass, the beast leaps forward and zigzags explosively through the meadow. We hear its prey, a mongoose, screaming and, finally, silence. It's awful, it's beautiful, it's what you came for: Africa forever.

However unforgettable, such classic safari epiphanies explain only part of South Africa's allure. You could come for the climbing or surfing, to dive with great white sharks, or to experience the spectacular two-ocean sailing. (The sleek black hull of Shosholoza, South Africa's 2007 America's Cup challenger and the race's first African entrant, was hauled out on the dock across the harbor from my hotel room in Cape Town.) You could come to beat the crowds flooding Johannesburg for the 2010 World Cup soccer finals聴though you'll probably miss Oprah's glittery 2006 New Year's Eve bash.

The best reason, however, is hope聴the dream that things can get better in Africa, that South Africa is leading the way, and that you can be part of it. A dozen years after the nightmare of apartheid, South Africa can still be a tough, bitter environment. But Mandela's vision of a democratic, multiracial African nation is alive and well, and tourism, once the target= of a global boycott, is the fastest-growing area of the economy, providing 1.2 million jobs for the country of 47 million.

On a wide-ranging journey through the nation's wild and urban landscapes, my goal was to max out on the abundant pleasures on offer while witnessing that transformed face. This meant obligatory visits to sprawling, hustling Jo'burg and laid-back, spectacular Cape Town, cities where the street life is set to a booming kwaito beat and revolutionary history is so fresh it's like 1776 was yesterday. South Africa, of course, remains happy to outfit you in khaki, mix you a gin-and-tonic, and make your Hemingway fantasies come true. But in the bush, too, big ideas are taking shape. The first is black empowerment, the integration of economic realms long dominated by whites. The second is South Africa's role in the global movement to create vast “transfrontier” parks that transcend borders while restoring wildlife routes.

Both ideas are being enthusiastically enacted at Tembe Elephant Park, a 190-square-mile preserve just south of Mozambique. The co-owner of Tembe's serene lodge compound, former Durban private detective Ernest Robbertse, manages the operation in partnership with the Tembe tribe. And walls will be coming down: In 1989, war in Mozambique led South Africa to erect an electric border fence, cutting off Tembe's massive 220-strong elephant herd from much of its range. The goal is to remove that barrier, reuniting Tembe's herd with their relatives in Mozambique's Maputo reserve.

An even grander expansion is planned at Kruger National Park, where I took a revelatory, weeklong game drive with naturalist Mike Stephens, experiencing close encounters with lions, rhinos, and a fantastic array of birds. Vast as Kruger may be (it's bigger than Israel), it's part of a pipe-dream-in-the-making called the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which will one day unite Kruger, Mozambique's Limpopo, and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou in a superpark the size of Maine. “Hopefully,” one official told me, “we'll get herds the size of the Serengeti.”

For now, nothing I saw matched the luxurious wildness of Ngala. The lodge's 20 cottages are unfenced, so you must summon an armed guard if you want to leave your room after dark. This frisson of danger, along with manic four-wheel sprints cross-country looking for game (not allowed in Kruger), adds a keen adrenaline edge. Yet here, too, Ngala quietly preaches the transfrontier vision and, via its support of the Africa Foundation, social justice. In nearby Welverdiend, I saw the foundation's work: new schoolrooms and families piloting “hippo rollers,” easy-to-roll barrels, to the well.

Small steps, small connections. Will South Africa's future include prosperity, huge parks stretching over the horizon, and all its people experiencing Africa's riches, traveling in the footsteps of the wild herds of long ago? All I know is that I'm going back.

Access & Resources
Getting There: Fly to Johannesburg from New York on South African Airways () for about $1,200 round-trip. From there, fly to Durban to see Tembe Elephant Park. Conservation Corporation Africa's Ngala Private Game Reserve () is a two-hour flight from Johannesburg on Federal Air (011-27-11-395-9000, ). Prime Time: 狈辞惫别尘产别谤耸惭补谤肠丑. Where to Stay: Tembe Elephant Lodge offers ten safari-tent suites for $162 per person (011-27-31-267-0144, ). Ngala's 20 thatched chalets start at $280, including an overnight walking safari (011-27-11-809-4300, ). In Cape Town, try the hip little Kensington Place Hotel (doubles from $190; 011-27-21-424-4744, ), on the slopes of Table Mountain.

Bed, Bush, and Beyond

The latest safari camps aren't only rediscovering the rugged glamour and extravagance of canvas; they're also letting the community in on the action

Africa

Apoka Lodge // Uganda Good-quality digs were in short supply in Uganda until locals Jonathan Wright and his wife, Pamela, opened the remote Semliki Safari Lodge and Kampala's Emin Pasha Hotel. Now comes their latest addition, Apoka, in the northeast's Kidepo Valley National Park聴the choice place to see cheetahs. Ten elegant tent-cottages outfitted with locally made furnishings look out on the savanna聴a landscape traversed by the Karimojong, seminomadic pastoralists who receive a percentage of the lodge revenue and sell their crafts in the lodge store. Doubles from $640; 011-256-41-251-182,

Naibor Camp // Kenya The Art of Ventures, the company that started the groundbreaking Zen-like lodge Shompole in partnership with a group of Masai in southern Kenya, created nearby Naibor in 2004. The camp has recently been moved to the banks of the Talek River in the heart of the Masai Mara Game Reserve, flush with rhinos, cheetahs, hippos, zebras, and tons of birds. Its eight opulent canvas tents with verandas sit in a riverine forest, close to a wildebeest migration route. Doubles from $860; 011-254-20-883-331,

Onguma Camp // Namibia Built just outside Etosha National Park on a 50,000-acre private reserve, the luxury camp at Onguma has seven spacious tents incorporating wood, steel, and stone, all under billowing canvas ceilings. The U-shaped layout of tents, lodge, and a pool allows 24/7 views of a central watering hole. As in Kruger National Park, plans are afoot to remove fences between private reserves alongside Etosha to create one greater park. Doubles from $500; 011-264-61-232-009,

Nkwichi Lodge // Mozambique So lavishly remote is Nkwichi, the only way to reach it is by boat. Hidden on the eastern shore of the vast white-sanded Lake Malawi聴one of the world's largest freshwater lakes聴Nkwichi's six chalets (each with secluded open-air baths) are surrounded by the 370,000-acre Manda wilderness reserve, the perfect setting for exploring, canoeing, sailing the cerulean waters, or hammock time. The owners have helped the community with everything from growing vegetables to creating the reserve and developing a sustainable environment for tourism. Doubles from $320;

Marataba // South Africa Opened in 2005 on a private concession in Marakele National Park, a few hours north of Johannesburg, this 15-suite camp is owned by the Hunter family, which also runs the excellent Gorah in Addo Elephant Park, in the Eastern Cape. Set in a malaria-free landscape that quickly changes from veldt to mountain, Marataba has stonework reminiscent of African ruins聴and huge windows to take in the expanse of Big Five habitat. Doubles from $1,000; 011-27-44-532-7818,

Edo's Camp // Botswana In a 300,000-acre private reserve in the western Kalahari Desert, the four twin-bed tents of Edo's Camp overlook a water hole frequented by antelope and are the latest offering from esteemed outfitter Ker & Downey. Resident guides or the indigenous San people can help you track the seven endangered white rhinos relocated to the reserve from South Africa. Doubles from $660 (closed December through February); 800-423-4236,

Mequat Mariam // Ethiopia A two-bedroom tukul聴a round thatch-roofed hut of stone and mud聴sits at the edge of a cliff at nearly 10,000 feet, overlooking endless canyonland. This small piece of nowhere is Mequat Mariam, some 400 miles north of Addis Ababa. Mequat and its sister property, Wajela聴a seven-hour trek away, with photo ops of baboons聴are the work of Tourism in Ethiopia for Sustainable Future Alternatives, which supports nearly 300 local families. From $35 per person; 011-251-11-122-5024,

Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge // Rwanda Virunga Lodge, with its gorgeous vistas of the lakes and volcanoes of Parc National des Volcans, set the standard for comfort in gorilla-watching country, and it will soon have company: the Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge, set to open this spring. The brainchild of the people behind Governors' Camp, in Kenya, Sabyinyo is owned by a trust that helps support 6,000 households in the area. Doubles from $600; 011-254-20-273-4000,

Lupita Island Resort and spa // Tanzania The 14 open-air suites, each with a plunge pool, are carved into a hillside on lush Lupita Island with views across Lake Tanganyika. For off-island awe, take a four-hour drive to Katavi, one of the mainland's most remote savanna parks, or try a two-day trip on a lake cruiser to chimp-filled Mahale Mountain National Park. Doubles from $1,300; 011-255-27-250-8773,

Shumba camp // Zambia Wilderness Safaris, winner of multiple conservation and community-involvement awards, never does things in small measures. So it's no surprise that it opened four camps at once in Kafue National Park, one of the biggest reserves in Africa. All are intimate; the best of the quartet is Shumba, in Kafue's remote northwestern corner. Its six immense safari tents on raised platforms have four-poster beds and inviting couches looking onto sweeping savanna and wetlands. Doubles from $1,480; 800-513-5222,

Additional reporting by Danielle Pergament

Access & Resources
Since these lodges are remote, it's usually wise to book them as part of a bigger, customized itinerary聴your best bet is to have a reputable outfitter plan the logistics for you. Lodges can direct you to favorite outfitters, or you can try these recommended companies (check out the Web sites to see what each specializes in): Abercrombie & Kent (800-554-7094, ), Bushtracks Expeditions (800-995-8689, ), Explore Africa (888-596-6377, ), Ker & Downey (800-423-4236, ), Mango African Safaris (888-698-9220, ), Maniago Safaris (800-923-7422, ), Micato Safaris (800-642-2861, ), Africa 国产吃瓜黑料 Company (800-882-9453, ), Uncharted Outposts (888-995-0909, ), Volcanoes Safaris (770-573-2274, ), Wildland 国产吃瓜黑料s (800-345-4453, ).

The Wild Bunch

Nine Stellar guides with new-school safari smarts鈥攁nd a commitment to conservation鈥攖ake adventure and altruism where they've never been before

Phil West
The Nairobi-based West, 31, who guided for Kenya's Lewa Wildlife Conservancy before striking out on his own, is as passionate about ethnobotany as he is about tracking leopards. His custom-designed East African safaris might include a six-day walk through the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy and two Masai areas, Il Ngwesi and Lekurruki Masai, plus rafting down Kenya's Ewaso Ng'iro River. Like most outfitters, West has arrangements with local tribes and parks, so nights can as easily be spent in a tent or a lodge and days spent ambling or driving.

Grant and Brent Reed
The two South African brothers, Grant, 32, and Brent, 33, come from a family of naturalists聴which explains their safari savvy and bird and reptile expertise. (Grant has been collecting snakes since he was five.) Cofounders of Letaka Safaris, the brothers offer everything from walking safaris to birdwatching in Botswana. But for a triple shot of adventure, sign up for one of the nine-day Wildguides courses at their Okavango Guiding School. Participants of all skill levels learn how to handle rifles, track animals on foot, and find their way back to camp on their own, while becoming versed in geology, fauna, and conservation issues of the lush Okavango Delta. ,

Endale Teshome
Born in Ethiopia, Teshome, 31, herded goats in the remote Bale Mountains until his teens. After guiding on his own, he joined Ethiopian Rift Valley Safaris, studying his nation's ancient and cultural history along the way. If it's the vastly diverse flora and fauna of the south you want to see, that's his home turf. In the north, Teshome tours rock-hewn churches聴places few foreigners have seen.

Craig Doria
South African Doria, 44, guided for ten years in Zambia, where he helped create an anti-poaching unit in the national parks, a passion he's carried to Tanzania, his current base. He's written two books about snakes and also collects DNA for wildlife research. His deluxe tented-camp- and lodge-based safaris, tailored to clients' interests, include hikes, driving, sailing, and more.

Derek Shenton
The third generation of his Zambian family to go into guiding and conservation, Shenton, 41, has built two camps, Kaingo and Mwamba, deep in the game-rich South Luangwa National Park, the launchpad for his guided walks and drives. The stylish Kaingo offers big-game close-ups. (Shenton's forte is tracking cats.) Three hours away by foot is the simpler but equally wild Mwamba. Shenton is a founding member of the South Luangwa Conservation Society, which fights poaching, offers job training, and educates children about wildlife.

Peter and Tom Silvester
The Silvester brothers, from Kenya, merge hipness with high ideals. Peter, 42, runs Royal African Safaris, an ultra-luxe outfitter operating in East Africa, Botswana, and South Africa. Frequented by celebs, CEOs, and royalty, RAS specializes in custom itineraries. (Guides usually visit clients in their home country to iron out details.) Guests stay in tented camps or at lodges like Loisaba, a 60,000-acre community ranch run by Tom, 39, who works it in tandem with the local Laikipiak Masai and Samburu and offers clients everything from mountain biking and camel safaris to rafting. A portion of the profits goes to wildlife research and the community. ,

Corbett Bishop
Originally from Texas, Bishop, 35, moved to Tanzania in 1994 to lead trips up Mount Kilimanjaro and, two years later, started a safari company there, offering mobile luxury camping and camel- or donkey-assisted treks. Bishop's most recent project, the two-year-old Ol Tukai Conservancy, funds both community development and conservation projects; it's named for a village in a critical wildlife corridor between Tarangire and Lake Manyara national parks.

Beyond Kakhi

Two-story rapids, hot, spouting lava, a frenzy of sharks, lions in the dark鈥攊f it's thrills you're after, you'll find them in Africa

Rafting
White Nile, Uganda
There's a simple way the guides at Nile River Explorers measure waves on the White Nile: If a 16-foot raft disappears entirely, the wave is about the size of a two-story building. But while the river's 30,000-cubic-feet-per-second flow (roughly three times that of the Colorado) creates monster rapids, there are swimmer-friendly calm spots in between, and NRE's guides include charter members of the Ugandan national kayak team. The 18-mile day trip begins with five Class IV聳V rapids, each with placid, crocodile-free pools below. Day trips, $95; luxury tented accommodations at the Nile Porch from $54; 011-256-43-120-236,

Hiking
Ol Doinyo Lengai, Tanzania
Allan Mbaga, Tanzanian owner of African Outdoor Expeditions, has worked with David Breashears and Imax film crews on Kilimanjaro, and he'll take you up Ol Doinyo Lengai, a 9,235-foot peak north of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. You'll spend two days climbing steeply through volcanic ash and lava rock; near the top, hikers pitch camp in the inactive south crater before exploring the north crater's steaming vents and magma pools. The five-day trek includes a visit to Lake Natron, where flamingos flock by the thousands. $1,900, all-inclusive; 011-255-744-263-170,

Surfing
Southwest Madagascar
This May through October, African Surfaris will guide clients around the planet's fourth-largest island聴considered one of the last undiscovered surfing outposts. The trip starts in the Toilara Reef region near the southwestern town of Toilara, just 25 miles north of Flame Balls聴a hollow 200-yard-long left reef break two miles offshore. Ten-day trips from $1,600, including airfare from Johannesburg, lodging, meals, and boat trips; 011-27-82-836-7597,

Fly-fishing
Zambezi River, Namibia
Cast a fly on the Zambezi, where 15-pound dagger-toothed tiger fish prowl. The posh Impalila Island Lodge, at the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi rivers, is not only the best place to find the ferocious fish; it's also within striking distance of Victoria Falls and beast-rich Chobe National Park. Seven-day trips with Aardvark McLeod from $4,000, all-inclusive, from Johannesburg; 011-44-1980-840-590,

Lion Tracking
Tsavo East National Park, Kenya
In 1898, two lions ate scores of railroad workers near what is now Tsavo East National Park. Today, area lions regularly kill livestock in nearby settlements, which is why in 2002 Earthwatch Institute launched its Lions of Tsavo program. Volunteers join American and Kenyan scientists to track and study the cats during night drives in order to help people and prides coexist. Thirteen-day trips from $3,249; 800-776-0188,

Horse Trekking
Malawi and Zambia
This fall, Malawi and Zambia are set to create the Nyika Transfrontier Conservation Area, a 13,500-square-mile international peace park. The best way to explore this remote region is by horseback on a mobile safari: two nights at the upscale Chelinda Lodge, followed by a week of galloping through montane grasslands and forested valleys, and hoofing it to the top of 8,553-foot Nganda Mountain. Ten-day trips from May through October, $3,090, including lodging, meals, and riding; 011-44-1-837-82544,

Diving
Port St. Johns, South Africa
Each winter, as the water temperature drops along South Africa's eastern coast, millions of sardines rocket the 300 miles from East London to Durban聴serving as the main course for sharks, seals, whales, and superpods of 5,000-plus common dolphins. June and July are the best months to catch the frenzy. Six-day dive trips from $1,800, including lodging, diving, and meals at iNtaba River Lodge; 011-27-21-782-2205,

The post Africa Now appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

, setting you up for our top ten do-it-now dream trips:

Australia

JUMP START: A kangaroo at home in Queensland

PLUS: , .

Go Feral

Kangaroo Island’s got fauna in spades

AFTER A PLEASURABLY hectic week in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, followed by a long, serpentine drive along the spectacular Great Ocean Road (Australia's Big Sur, between Melbourne and Adelaide), it was time for a strong dose of solitude鈥攁nd for an intimate encounter with the wildlife of Oz.

Kangaroo Island's untamed west end gives you both. Ninety-six miles long, the nation's third-largest island is 70 miles southwest of Adelaide and a short ferry ride across Investigator Strait. This isolation from the mainland has preserved an abundance of native species鈥攖he island has invasive pigs and goats but lacks the cats, foxes, and rabbits that wreak havoc on indigenous wildlife elsewhere in Australia. Moreover, a third of the landscape is protected in 21 national and conservation parks. Much of the east end is rolling, pastoral lowland and farms, but Kangaroo Island tilts upward as you head west, and juts into the Indian Ocean, with sheer cliffs rising as high as 900 feet. At the far southwestern tip, there's nothing between Cape du Couedic (pronounced cootie), in Flinders Chase National Park, and Antarctica, except the Roaring Forties and 3,000 miles of open water.

The best introduction to the island's natural history is a stay at one of three century-old lighthouse keepers' cottages at Cape du Couedic; like the lighthouse itself, these were built from limestone quarried out of the Cape's own rock, strong enough to withstand the fiercest southern gales. The dim, cool, echoey interiors are furnished with funky period furniture, wood-fired cookstoves, and鈥攁ccording to the guestbook鈥攇hosts. (There have been more than 50 shipwrecks along the Kangaroo Island coast, and the survivors' tales make for grisly reading.) Our only visitation came daily at dusk, when nocturnal Tammar wallabies鈥攎iniature 'roos nearly extinct on the continent鈥攁ppeared at the back door, nibbling the grass.

The wallabies were only a taste of the critter action to come. Just down the road from Cape du Couedic are the high cliffs surrounding Admirals Arch, a massive open-sided cave lined with convenient haul-outs for a colony of 6,000 New Zealand fur seals, presided over by power-mad beach-master males. Despite violent breakers and an intense reek of seal poo, wooden walkways and stairs allow unparalleled viewing of the bellowing, frolicking, moshing, and bickering populace. (Seal Bay, on the island's southern coast, is another great place to ogle pinnipeds; rangers escort groups on walks to view Australian sea lions鈥攕ome scarred by encounters with great white sharks鈥攁nd, if you're lucky, their pups.)

Elsewhere in Flinders Chase National Park, we were approached by a few harmless K.I. kangaroos (a subspecies of the western gray) that were interested in our water. But soon we were staring up: Koalas, wedged in the forks of a eucalyptus tree, were swiveling their teddy-bear heads in slow motion, staring down at us. And that was just in the parking lot of the visitor center.

On the Rocky River hike, which starts at the center and takes you along dense bush trails to blinds along the Platypus Waterholes Walk, you're likely to spot Cape Barren geese, goannas, and wallabies crossing your path. The fur-bearing, egg-laying platypuses are more elusive, but we were thrilled to see the bubbles rising from their underwater dens.

The birdwatching was first-rate during our entire week on Kangaroo Island, the highlight being our sighting of a white-bellied sea eagle soaring low over the dusty Playford Highway, on the north shore. The only disappointment: Our late-afternoon ferry from Penneshaw back to the mainland sailed before we had a chance to watch the nightly parade of fairy penguins returning to their harborside nests after a day spent at sea. Next time.

For bookings at the lighthouse cottages and information about Flinders Chase National Park, 011-61-8-8559-7235, . Kangaroo Island information, 011-61-8-8553-1185, .

Sea Star

The Great Barrier Reef’s greatest hit—Lizard Island

ASK AUSSIES the ultimate Great Barrier Reef trip and they’ll sigh for Lizard Island, a resort in the middle of the world’s most stellar dive sites, with enough high style to lure the likes of Vince Vaughn and a honeymooning Russell Crowe. A light plane ferries guests an hour north of Cairns, skimming over interlocking reefs until the green, coral-ringed isle rises 17 miles off the coast. Part of six-island Lizard Island National Park, the 2,500-acre paradise is shared by only 80 resort guests, four scientists at the island’s research station, a handful of campers, and a few moored yachties. Once the plane departs, silence descends, broken only by the coos of bar-shouldered doves and the popping of corks for the welcome libation.

The digs are equally glam: a string of villas along a white-powder beach framed by smooth boulders, the favorite basking spots for statuesque goannas, the Aussie monitor lizards that give the island its name. Each cabana is a miniature temple to nature, with timber floors, a sundeck, and the blue horizon filling every view.

Amazingly, some visitors make it no farther than the Azure Spa, for a seaweed mud mask, or the open-air restaurant, to scarf up mangrove jack reef fish. The water draws the rest: Lizard sits on top of the reef, so you can dash straight from your villa to snorkel over a rookery of yard-wide giant clams. And it’s only 50 minutes by powerboat to the fabled outer reef, the fertile coral ribbons where you can spot the largest fish. In one hyperactive day, I dived the Cod Hole, where 150-pound potato cod tore bait from my fingers; cruised with the predators of Shark Alley; and swam with dwarf minke whales. Then it was back to the resort for sips of Bollinger while the lizards eyed me contentedly from their rocks.

From US$584 per person per night, including meals and many activities; 800-225-9849, . Lizard Island National Park, 011-61-7-3405-0970, .

Devil’s Deep

Tasmania’s luxe new look

freycinet lodge

View from outside the Bay Restaurant

PADDLE A SEA KAYAK on Coles Bay, off the stunning east coast of Tasmania, and the only sound you’ll hear is the slice of your blade through the water. Or the squeaking of dolphins at your bow. Or maybe the plink of your jig just before you haul in a squid for dinner.

Welcome to “Tassie,” a pleasure-packed paradise filled with vast wilderness areas, spectacular beaches, and an ever-expanding number of deluxe eco-lodges, expeditions, and adventure ops.

Situated about 150 miles south of the mainland, Tassie was once considered the Appalachia of Australia—a derided island outback with a timber economy and no pizzazz. But thanks to the state’s growing commitment to courting eco-tourists and protecting landscapes (national parks and preserves make up more than 40 percent of the island), Tasmania’s wild character is paying off. In the past five years, the number of climbers, paddlers, divers, and other visitors has increased by 50 percent.

Spend a day on the eastern shore, along the Freycinet Peninsula, and it’s easy to see why. You can swim, bushwalk, or wildlife-watch on gorgeous Wineglass Bay, then retreat to the Freycinet Lodge to slurp down local oysters with boutique Tasmanian wines. Or sea-kayak on Great Oyster Bay with Freycinet 国产吃瓜黑料s, and enjoy upscale camping and canapes on the white sands of Hazards Beach. Before the bliss overload sends you to sleep, you’ll be lucky to hear one more thing: the scuffle of wallabies and wombats foraging in the bush.

Doubles at Freycinet Lodge, US$248–$377; 011-61-3-6257-0101, . Half-day-to-five-day sea-kayaking trips with Freycinet 国产吃瓜黑料s, US$65–$1,066; 011-61-3-6257-0500, .

Lush Life

When the Kimberley goes green, it’s a splash

“YOU CAN’T GET much more outback than the Kimberley,” says 60-year-old Russell Willis, of Darwin-based Willis’s Walkabouts. And though this vast wilderness in northwestern Australia remains largely inaccessible, it has attained mythic status among Aussies. It could be its pioneer history, rife with cattle rustlers and gold speculators, or maybe it’s the sheer grandeur. From white-sand beaches to endless red-rock canyons, the Kimberley has it all—except crowds. “Imagine a scenic area the size of Arizona with only 30,000 people,” says Willis. Then there’s “the Wet.” From May through October, the Kimberley is bone-dry, but a metamorphosis occurs in November, when the rainy season hits: Boab trees leaf out, waterfalls gush, and shallow gorge pools become deep, inviting swimming holes.

One of the best ways to see the area at its greenest is in January and February on Willis’s 16-day canoe-and-hiking trip into the interior. After a few days exploring the valleys, gorges, waterfalls, and Aboriginal art around the town of Kununurra, you spend five days paddling the Ord River about 34 miles, from Lake Argyle—a birder’s paradise of purple-crowned fairy-wrens, yellow-rumped mannikins, and 200 other species—back to Kununurra. You’ll cruise past freshwater crocs, rock wallabies, and flying foxes, stopping for optional two-to-four-hour cross-country hikes to the top of the canyon. “There are no trails in this part of the world,” says Willis. “It’s pure scrub bashing 100 percent of the way.”

From Kununurra, groups are choppered into Keep River National Park, 354 square miles in the Northern Territory, a land of mind-blowing red-rock arches peppered with palm trees. With a comfortable camp—private tents and a three-course dinner—and the Keep massif as your base, you’ll boulder, climb to caves filled with Aboriginal rock art, and cool off in waterfall pools. Yes, sometimes inaccessibility is a very good thing.

US$2,358 per person; 011-61-8-8985-2134, . Keep River National Park, 011-61-8-9167-8827, .

Baa-Nanza

Home on the woolly Flinders Ranges

SILVER-HAIRED RANCHER Dean Rasheed plunges his Land Cruiser into the deep stream. Water slaps the windshield and licks the side-view mirrors. Rasheed, 60, lets out a howl and turns onto a steep track, where a family of western gray kangaroos grazes among his 7,500 sheep. Rasheed calls this work. He drives this road a few times a week to monitor his flock and give tours of Arkaba Station, his stunning 63,000-acre sheep ranch in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. I have arrived in the outback.

The Flinders are not big mountains (the highest is 3,832-foot St. Mary Peak). But they have their majesty—rolling red-clay hills scattered with pale-green blue bush, sheer rock faces, and caves with Aboriginal art. Travelers who want to taste the real outback—where wildlife are the neighbors and the earth is boss—come here, to the Rasheeds’ place. Dean and his wife, Lizzie, accommodate four guests in ranch-house bedrooms with Flinders views and fill you up with home-baked bread, mutton, kangaroo, and fine South Australia wines.

Then there’s the outdoors—jaw-dropping gorges in nearby Flinders Ranges National Park and the rock formations of 32-square-mile Wilpena Pound. Or you can work: herding sheep, cleaning troughs, or, if you arrive in September, playing barber in the 19th-century shearing shed. When you’re on Arkaba, amid endless acres, the outback invades your soul, and you understand its ultimate attraction: space.

US$318 per person per night, including meals and activities; 011-61-8-8648-0004, .

Bush Tucker

Aboriginal adventure in Kakadu National Park

SAB LORD is demonstrating a traditional bush remedy for sore throats. Grabbing a nest of green ants from a paperbark tree, the 45-year-old safari guide explains that these nests work nicely for a quick vitamin-C fix. Grinning impishly, he flattens the fist-size morsel, rolls it into a ball, pops it into his mouth, and begins sucking the lemony enzymes from the ants’ posteriors. Within seconds, he spits out the remnants of his snack and offers a fresh nest to a rapt audience of novice bush foragers.

The small group has gathered in Kakadu National Park—a 4.9-million-acre expanse of red cliffs etched with ancient rock carvings, and verdant wetlands rich in birdlife and croc-infested billabongs, 186 miles east of Darwin in the Northern Territory—to learn about Yolngu (East Arnhem Land Aboriginals) beliefs and practices. Lord, an ex-pro rugby player, a white guy, and owner of Lords Kakadu & Arnhemland Safaris, would be an unlikely guide to indigenous culture except for one key fact: Thanks to a childhood spent on a water-buffalo station in Kakadu, he was ceremonially adopted by an Aboriginal family in the Mamakala community.

He learned the ant-nest trick—and plenty more about indigenous foods, or “bush tucker”—from his adoptive grandmother, Rosie Lundduy. Four feet nine inches tall and utterly engaging (“Leeches are some tasty tucker!” she cries), Lundduy is one of several Aborigines leading food-foraging tours through Kakadu and adjoining Arnhem Land, a 24-million-acre Aboriginal-owned wilderness.

The entertaining duo of Lord and Lundduy will help you carve a digging stick to root up bush yams and demonstrate how to strip pandanus leaves—also used for weaving bags—to get to the artichoke-flavored hearts. You can sleep out in the bush, relaxing at night in a fully equipped safari camp, or opt for day trips and the comfort of one of the park’s six hotels. But whatever you do, leave your taste for Taco Bell at home.

Lords Kakadu & Arnhemland Safaris’ custom Maningrida Arnhem Cultural Tour includes a bush-tucker course and a sunset barbecue; 011-61-8-8948-2200, .

It Rips

Sydney’s endless summer

WHAT COULD BE BETTER, when you know the surf's cranking, than waking up to a room-service cappuccino under a feather quilt at the InterContinental, overlooking Sydney's spectacular harbor? Or pulling on boardshorts and descending to the lobby, where the concierge procured you a Cohiba the night before? The entire bellhop corps seems drawn from the local surfer population, so don't be surprised if one tanned 'hop tells you the morning surf report while another picks out a board from your quiver, which they've politely stored in the luggage room.

Then it's time to catch the ferry to Manly, a quaint beach town at the northern mouth of Sydney Harbour, where there's nothing left to do but paddle into first-class beach-break surf.

Think of it as the Ultimate Urban Pleasures Surf Safari, the best way on earth to get your warm-water waves and high-end sushi, too. Numerous world champions have been minted on these breaks, including female shredder Layne Beachley. A drive north from Manly brings you to clean beach breaks like Freshwater, Curl Curl, and North Narrabeen. Drive south from Sydney's Bondi Beach, near Aussie actor Heath Ledger's home, and there's another string of great breaks en route to lunch at the Pavilion Cafe, in Maroubra Beach.

Apr猫s-surf, kick back at Sydney's Newport Arms, the classic surfer pub. Or stroll to Rockpool for celebrity chef Neil Perry's salad of wild greenlip abalone, mussels, clams, tea-smoked oysters, and fine noodles. You just might be ready to get tubed again in the morning.

Doubles at the InterContinental, from US$228; 011-61-2-9253-9000, . Dinner for two at Rockpool, US$192鈥�$230; 011-61-2-9252-1888, . Manly's Dripping Wet Surf co. rents boards for US$35 a day; 011-61-2-9977-3549, .

Path Perfect

On the Cape to Cape Track, you walk alone

TAKE A SUN-WASHED coastline with white-sand beaches, add a wildflower-filled 83-mile trail along limestone cliffs—with warm surf below and, a brief jaunt away, prized wines to sip—and you’ve got an overcrowded tourist trap, right? Wrong, mate, if you’re on the Cape to Cape Track, in 49,400-acre Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, between Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin.

Located in one of the most isolated coastal areas on earth—three hours south of Perth in Australia’s southwestern corner—the track and parkland are barely on the radar for most travelers.

But just minutes from the trail by car lies the trendy town of Margaret River, a hot new epicenter of epicureanism and home to some of Australia’s best wineries. And just a mile and a half away are the cushy chalets of the Merribrook Retreat, whose owners, veteran guide Richard Firth and his wife, Lorraine, run a variety of Cape to Cape trips.

The Firths’ six-day trek winds through headlands above sculpted dunes, empty beaches, and world-class surf breaks. Watch for southern right and humpback whales during migration season, from October to December. Or let Firth rappel you 150 feet down into one of the park’s huge limestone caves.

At day’s end, a chilled wine will be ready to pour, and Firth, a skilled cook, will snag seafood for that night’s dinner from your own private coastline.

Merribrook Retreat’s six-day Cape to Cape walks cost US$1,422 (based on double occupancy); doubles at Merribrook start at US$177, including breakfast; 011-61-8-9755-5599, . Check out for do-it-yourself information.

Spinning Uluru

The monolithic Ayers Rock gets some respect

AYERS ROCK IS LIKE an inverse Grand Canyon. Instead of a giant chasm, the near-six-mile-circumference, 1,115-foot-high, 300- to 400-million-year-old arkose sandstone monolith sticks out of the surrounding outback like a giant mood ring. Clashing perceptions of Australia’s iconic symbol are a good measure of the outback’s politically charged temperament. In the eighties, the Australian government returned 327,578-acre Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to the local Anangu Aboriginals, who changed the rock’s name back to Uluru. Then they leased the parkland back to the government, giving the 400,000 annual tourists continued access to the steep, mile-long hiking trail that trespasses a sacred Aboriginal site en route to the top.

But just “because it’s there” doesn’t mean you have to summit. In fact, dodge a karmic bullet by circumnavigating Uluru instead. On a perfect late-September day, I cycled the six-mile-plus ribbon of pavement around Uluru. Sure enough, as the sun sank, this massive shade-shifter absorbed the universe. Lap one was brilliant yellow. Lap two was bright orange. Lap three was deep purple. By that last lap, it was evident that Uluru was in an ebullient mood—and so was I.

Stay nearby at Longitude 131掳, a luxe tented camp (US$690 per person, all-inclusive, based on double occupancy; 011-61-2-8296-8010, ). Ayers Rock Campground offers mountain-bike rentals for US$23 per day (011-61-8-8957-7001, ).

Essential Australia

GETTING THERE*
With the QUANTAS AIRPASS, you can fly nonstop from L.A. to Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane for $999–$1,599 (800-348-8145, ); purchase includes three domestic flights within Australia. AIR TAHITI NUI (877-824-4846, ) flies from L.A. to Sydney for $998, and from New York for $1,198, including stops in Tahiti and Auckland, New Zealand.

PRIME TIME
Hit the south during Australia’s legendary summer (December–February), or enjoy the less steamy months in the tropical north between May and October.

GETTING AROUND
To do Australia right, you need to cover a lot of ground. QUANTAS operates out of 59 cities (800-227-4500, ); VIRGIN BLUE hits 23 destinations (011-61-7-3295-2296, ). Ride from Melbourne to Cairns with the EAST COAST DISCOVERY PASS (valid for six months; $302), or take a three-night, 2,700-mile transcontinental rail journey on the Indian Pacific to see the spectacular country between Sydney and Perth (from $330 per person; ATS TOURSs, 310-643-0044, ). Considering Oz’s vast distances and incredible national parks, camper vans are a popular option for road trips. KEA CAMPERS offers decked-out, pop-up rides from $46 per day (011-61-2-8707-5500, ). Avis, Budget, Hertz, and National all rent cars; rates start at $27 per day.

LUXURY BASE CAMPS
DAINTREE ECO LODGE & SPA, Daintree, Queensland. Sleep in one of 15 tree houses on stilts at this award-winning 30-acre eco-resort, where you can explore the world’s oldest living rainforest or dive into the nearby Great Barrier Reef. Doubles from $349, including breakfast (011-61-7-4098-6100, ).
NORTH BUNDALEER, Jamestown, South Australia. This restored four-room 1901 mansion sits on 470 acres near the 17-mile Riesling Trail, which leads pedalers to tasting rooms at Clare Valley wineries ($19 per day; Clare Valley Cycle Hire, 011-61-8-8842-2782, ). Doubles from $369, including meals and drinks (011-61-8-8665-4024, ).
FARAWAY BAY, THE BUSH CAMP, Western Australia. Set in a secluded cove on the Kimberley Coast, this permanent camp of eight cabins combines wilderness luxury with awesome scenery—think crocodiles and dolphins cavorting off a white-sand beach backed by red cliffs. Open April 1–October 31; $1,500 per person for two nights, including air transfer from Kununurra, meals, drinks, and excursions (011-61-8-9169-1214, ).
ECHOES BOUTIQUE HOTEL AND RESTAURANT, Katoomba, New South Wales. All 13 suites in this eclectic hotel have panoramic views of the craggy buttes and temperate rainforests of the Blue Mountains, a World Heritage site. Explore the stunning sandstone range by rock-climbing with High N Wild Mountain 国产吃瓜黑料s (half-days from $84; 011-61-2-4782-6224, ). Doubles from $258 (011-61-2-4782-1966, ).
CAPELLA LODGE, Lord Howe Island, New South Wales. Overlooking both the lagoon and the signature green mountains of Lord Howe Island, 434 miles northeast of Sydney, the Capella Lodge offers Zenlike suites, an insane adventure menu, and exceptional dining. Doubles from $346, including breakfast, dinner, and airport transfers (011-61-2-9918-4355, ).
SEVEN SPIRIT BAY WILDERNESS LODGE , Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory. This rainforest eco-lodge in Garig Gunak Barlu National Park has 23 hexagonal “habitats”—swank screened bungalows with garden showers secluded in the bush. Open March 17–December 15. Doubles from $995 for two nights, including round-trip flights from Darwin, all meals, and wildlife safaris to see buffalo, crocodiles, and cockatoos (011-61-8-8979-0281, ).

Essential Australia

MORE EXPLORING
SAIL AND DIVE THE WHITSUNDAYS: Island-hop this archipelago of 74 coral-fringed, rainforested isles on the Great Barrier Reef aboard Bliss, a skippered 60-foot yacht that sleeps six (double cabin from $1,346 for three nights, with meals; diving is extra; 011-61-7-4946-5433, ).
DRIVE THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD: Roll the 219 miles between Torquay and Warrnambool on one of the world’s best drives, past old lighthouses and the famous 12 Apostles rock formation (011-61-3-5222-2900, ).
COMMUNE WITH THE TINGLE FORESTS: Get dwarfed in Walpole-Nornalup National Park’s Valley of the Giants, Australia’s answer to the Redwoods, 280 miles south of Perth (011-61-8-9840-1027, ).
RUN THE FRANKLIN RIVER: Take a mind-blowing nine-day whitewater trip with Tasmanian Expeditions through pristine Tasmanian wilderness ($1,761 per person; 011-61-3-6339-3999, ).
OFF-ROAD ON THE CAPE YORK PENINSULA: Ford rivers, dodge crocs, and bathe in waterfalls. Getabout 4WD 国产吃瓜黑料s offers 16-day guided, self-drive camping trips from Cairns to Cape York ($3,947 for two; 011-61-2-9831-8385, ). BIKE THE OUTBACK: For the full Mad Max tour, try Wayward Bus Touring Company’s new “Outbike” tour, a fully supported two-week cycle from Alice Springs to Coober Pedy ($1,553; 011-61-8-8410-8833, ).
DIVE WITH WHALE SHARKS: From April to July, migrating whale sharks converge on Western Australia’s central coast near Exmouth ($284 per day with the Exmouth Diving Centre; 011-61-8-9949-1201, ).
INDULGE IN THE WILSON ISLAND EXPERIENCE: Spend five days at permanent luxury camps on two coral cays, Heron Island and Wilson Island, on the Great Barrier Reef ($1,533 per person, including meals; 011-61-2-8296-8010, ).
KITEBOARD IN ST. KILDA: Melbourne’s hip beach ‘hood is a magnet for kiteboarders and windsurfers. RPS, a local surf shop, offers half-day lessons for $192 (011-61-3-9525-6475, ).
SURF BYRON BAY: Paddle out to Tallows, Byron’s hallowed beach break. Byron Bay Surf School rents boards for $23 per day (011-61-2-6680-9761, ). Then chill at the Byron at Byron Resort and Spa (doubles from $230; 011-61-1-300-554-362, ).

BEST EVENTS, 2005-2006
MELBOURNE CUP CARNIVAL (October 29–November 5): Experience Australia’s version of the Kentucky Derby. COMMONWEALTH GAMES (March 15–26): These Olympic-style games, which occur once every four years, come to Melbourne in 2006. IRONMAN AUSTRALIA TRIATHLON (April 2): Hundreds of finely sculpted masochists race in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. RIP CURL PRO at Bells Beach (mid-April): Surfers and wannabes descend on Victoria during Australia’s top pro-surfing contest. SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL (June): Rub shoulders with Nicole Kidman, Baz Luhrmann, and Cate Blanchett in the heart of Sydney. HOG’S BREATH RACE WEEK (August 10–17): It’s party time when one of Australia’s most competitive regattas kicks off in the Whitsundays.

OUTFITTERS
OUTBACK ENCOUNTER is one of Australia’s premier luxury tour operators (011-61-8-8354-4405, ). WILDERNESS AUSTRALIA specializes in custom guided safaris (011-61-2-9231-2113, ). BACKROADS runs a nine-day multisport adventure in Queensland (800-462-2848, ). WILDERNESS TRAVEL offers 12-day Wild Australia and 10-day Wild Tasmania trips (800-368-2794, ).

RESOURCES
For general information, visit . And to try to make sense of Aussie slang, pick up a copy of A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (Oxford).

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THE SCIENCE EXPERIMENT

Lance Armstrong

MAIN SQUEEZE: Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow at the champ’s ranch, near Dripping Springs, Texas

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong

“TUCK AND GO”: With one more Tour to ride, the soon-to-be-retired cyclist looks forward to “a whole bunch of other stuff I want to do.”

“This individual was born on September 18, 1971. He engaged in competitive swimming at ages 12–15 y and competitive running and triathlon racing at ages 14–18 y. Thereafter, he competed in and trained primarily for bicycle road racing…. Before turning 22 years old in 1993, he became the youngest winner of the World Championships in Bicycle Road Racing, a one-day road race. At age 25 y, this individual was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Thereafter and during the period of October through December of 1996, he underwent surgeries to remove the involved testicle and then to remove cancerous brain tumors and he received chemotherapy… During the 3rd and 4th mo. following chemotherapy, he cycled approximately 5 d/wk for 2–5 h/d at moderate intensity. During the 5th and 6th mo., training intensity was increased…. He resumed international bicycle racing in 1998, and… went on to become the now six-time ‘Grand-Champion’ of the ‘Tour de France’ over years 1999, 2ooo, 2oo1, 2oo2, 2oo3 and 2oo4…. During the months leading up to each of his ‘Tour de France’ victories, he reduced body weight and body fat by 4–7 kg (i.e.; approximately 7%). Therefore, over the seven-year period, an improvement in muscular efficiency and reduced body fat contributed equally to a remarkable 18% improvement in his steadystate power per kg body weight when cycling at a given VO2… It appears that [even] in the detrained state, this individual’s VO2max is in the range of the highest values that normal men can achieve with training.”—Dr. Edward F. Coyle, “Improved Muscular Efficiency Displayed as ‘Tour de France’ Champion Matures,” Journal of Applied Physiology, June 2005


WE ALREADY KNEW Lance Armstrong was a unique physical specimen, a paragon of human self-propulsion. But a just-published paper by Edward Coyle—the result of a seven-year study he conducted at the University of Texas’s Human Performance Laboratory, in Austin—proves that Armstrong is, as they say, off the charts. Looking for a solid measurement of what it takes to win the world’s toughest bike race? You can’t do much better than an 18 percent improvement in efficiency from a man who can kick your ass even when he’s out of shape. Power per kilogram of body weight may be a clinical measurement, but power plus heart, technology, aggression, and superior tactics is what Lance used to win an unprecedented six Tours de France. Armstrong will bring the same mix to the starting line on July 2, when, in what will be his final professional bike race, he begins his drive to win a seventh.


Earlier this year, as Armstrong commenced training for the race, my 国产吃瓜黑料 colleague John Bradley and I caught up with him for two remarkable conversations. The first took place in February on Armstrong’s ranch, 30 minutes west of Austin, as his serious training was just getting under way and his personal calculations about his fitness level were still in flux.



国产吃瓜黑料: You’re getting a late start this year. How’s the schedule?

Armstrong: You know, I don’t know where I am. I’ll find out in a week, when I go to Europe. But I’m not very good.


But you’ve got the data on your training.

Yeah, that’s why I say I’m not very good. Because it doesn’t lie. It’s funny, for about a week my SRM [a device that measures a cyclist’s pedaling power in watts] wasn’t calibrated right. I was like, God, I’m—damn, I’m crankin’, I’m doin’ good. And then I realized: I don’t know. And so I went and looked at it and realized it wasn’t set up right, and then I recalibrated it, and the truth hurts. Literally. So much of it is power to weight, so I’ve got to increase the power and lower the weight and, you know, you can lower the weight anywhere, but you can’t increase the power just anywhere. To increase the power, you have to have great training.

THE IRONIST

The interview was held on the patio of Lance’s ranch house, which is perched high on a spot overlooking the West Texas Hill Country as it rolls away to infinity. As we spoke, I was thinking about the Ed Ruscha canvas hung in the living room inside. More sign than painting, it reads, in bold white capital letters set against a stormy blue background, SAFE AND EFFECTIVE MEDICINE.


The painting works, dizzyingly, on all the levels that Armstrong himself works. It can be read as a sincere acknowledgment of the medical intervention that saved his life, the surgery and the drugs and the rehab that brought him back for an exquisitely leaner, more potent second chance. Or as a reflection of the gratitude, passion, and empathy he brings to his work with the Lance Armstrong Foundation on behalf of cancer survivors.


The painting, one speculates, is also a defiant example of the withering aggression Armstrong aims toward his detractors and tormentors, the conspiracy theorists who say there has to be something more to his amazing achievements than healing, training, natural ability, calibrated teamwork, and angry, focused, uncompromising prowess. Namely, performance-enhancing drugs.


Or finally, could it be a dark joke? If Lance has secretly managed to dope all these years—a myth as unkillable as the one about the ruthless efficiency of the CIA—the Ruscha painting is just about the most cynical gesture imaginable, a true leap into the moral abyss.


God knows the things people are capable of, but the idea of Lance leading a Faustian double life of dishonesty and deception just won’t fly. Forget the straight-arrow stance, forget the courage and intelligence of his victories, the total absence of stupid moves. Look at the conclusion of Coyle’s paper in the Journal of Applied Physiology, a revealing longitudinal study that required Lance’s voluntary participation over its seven-year duration.


“Clearly,” Coyle writes, “this champion embodies a phenomenon of both genetic natural selection and the extreme to which the human can adapt to endurance training performed for a decade or more in a person who is truly inspired.”


SIXES AND SEVENS

A few months after the Texas interview, Lance was training in the mountains near Los Angeles. We caught up with him by telephone just before he announced that 2005 will mark his last Tour.


Are you sure you’re ready to hang it up?

There’ll be moments when it’s hard. At first Sheryl said, “There’s no way you’re stopping.” But it’s done. It can’t be any simpler: The farewell is going to be on the Champs-Elys茅es.


Last year, obviously, was a mountaintop experience in every way.

Six held a special place in my mind, in my heart, and in my soul, as an athlete. But the jinx thing really worried me—like, This just can’t happen. If guys like Merckx and Indurain can’t do it, then nobody can do it. So I was like, God, maybe that’s true. Maybe I should do it and I deserve to do it, but something freaky comes along and, you know, sticks a shovel in my wheel…. But to do that—it was special.


Now, seven. For me, I have to eliminate the first six and go back to focusing on just one Tour. And being used to winning, and accustomed to winning, being able to provide a victory for my team and for the sponsors and seeing the joy in their faces, ’cause they really, really love it. And to remember what it’s like to look in their eyes at the dinner table and just get through on that.


How would it feel to lose?

I don’t want to lose. At all. It’s a hard race; you suffer a lot. It’s a long race, so it’s long suffering, which is worse than suffering. Now, having said that, if I train hard, and if everything equates the way it should in terms of my preparation, and I know that I’m where I need to be—if somebody beats me, hey, you get beat by somebody better. That’s sport.


What do you think about the course this year?
Only three uphill finishes, only one long time trial. Kinda not so hard, but maybe not bad for a guy who’s getting older. You’ve got other mountain days, but they’re not so tough. You’ve got Courchevel [Stage 10], which is tough, and big mountains before it. Then you come down around the bottom [of France] and you’ve got Pla-d’Adet [stage 15], which I won in 2001. Took the jersey finally in 2001, which is a tough, tough day. So you’ve got those and then, you know, you stay close there and then you’ve got the long time trial, which, you know, you use all our experience and hard work and technology. Tuck and go.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE

We’re tired of asking Lance about drugs, and he’s tired of answering. He says that he’s never tested positive and that he’s never used performance-enhancing substances, period. Yet he’ll never escape the paradox of a sport in which some riders cheat, some are caught, and many believe others get away with it.


So if Lance Armstrong had absolute power in cycling, we asked, what would his prescription be for making the drug problem go away?


The race controls could not be made any better. The winner is tested every day. Three or four people tested at random. And on certain days even the top three are tested. There’s a lot. And I think at the Tour they do 10 to 15 controls a day. And now they’re doing both urine and blood. I don’t think very many sports can say that they do that.


The one thing that I think will change a lot in the future is the out-of-competition controls. That’s the best way to control drugs in sports. Surprise controls. Knock on the door: We’re here, where are you? I would think that is a serious deterrent for any athlete tempted by drugs. I got four surprise controls this season.


TANNED, RESTED, AND READY

Two months after this year’s Tour, Armstrong will turn 34. Many great athletes fail to go on and have interesting second acts, but his chances seem better than most. For one thing, he’s already had a second act, and his aura—the idea that here’s a man who enjoys still being alive against all odds—surrounds him convincingly.


You’re going to be changing professions at some point.

I’ll obviously stay involved with the team for the remainder of its existence. Many of the sponsors, I have long-term deals with—like Trek and 24-Hour Fitness and Nike and Discovery.


There’s just a whole bunch of other stuff I want to do. I want to go ride my motorcycle on my ranch. I want to go kayak the Pedernales down to friggin’ Lake Travis and call somebody and say, “Uh, can you come pick me up?” I’ve got a lot of stuff, goofy things like that. I want to build a rock wall out here. Just weird things. Right now, I can’t go build a rock wall, because I’d get arm muscles that I can’t use. It sounds funny, but it’s true—everything you do.


Maybe I’ll run for governor.


Joke or serious?

There’s no follow-up. I’ll leave it at that. Not in ’06, though. I drove Sheryl by the governor’s mansion last night on the way home from dinner. It’s a nice mansion. Nice place, nice house—I hate the word mansion, but it’s a nice house.


Location, location, location.

Well, it’s next to work, next to the capitol.


That’s more like it. I mean, it all sounds good—building walls and taking vacations—but you don’t strike us as that kind of person.

No, and everybody says that. But that stuff I’m talking about—I’m not talking about doing that for 20 years; I’m talking about taking a year or however long I need to just step back from the sport, decompress, download, figure out where I am in my life, where my children are in their lives. How much traveling I want to do or don’t want to do. But no, I’m a person who needs projects and needs to work and needs to be building something or trying to create something. Otherwise I’ll go crazy.


I would want to do Australia, do Malaysia, just some stuff that’s different. Everest is not on my list.


What about staying fit?

Ex-athletes get soft and they’re not as fit as they were, but I’ve got to be fit. Forever.


No beer gut?

No. I mean, I get a little beer gut in the winter. You know, I’m not going to turn into a Greg LeMond. Forty extra LBs.


Now we’ve got our scandalous headline.

I thought about it before I said it.


Any idea of going back to triathlon?

No. Listen, I am going to do a triathlon, and it’s called Luke, Grace, Isabelle. Those are the three; that’s enough. My first priority is just to be there for my children as much as I can.


Beyond that, I guess there’s no real ranking, but my commitment in the cancer community will increase significantly. I’ll go back to working a lot more on that. The relationship with Discovery will continue for years to come. I’ll be more and more involved in programming there and in all their networks.

HE’S GONE

If you’ve never heard Lance speak with a real Texas twang, rest assured that he can do a convincing cowboy. John Bradley and I were leaving his ranch at dusk after the February interview, threading through a labyrinth of twisting country roads back to the highway, when a big pickup truck roared in from behind, then pulled alongside. At the wheel, a guy who may or may not have been Lance Armstrong bawled out, “You boys ain’t from around here, are ya?”


When you spend time with the world’s greatest athlete as he heads toward his final reckoning with history, the regular-guyness is striking but deceptive. Lance’s steely self-control and drive may take him even further beyond the reach of any future rival for Tour de France domination, but he’s also a gambler who knows how lucky he’s been—win or lose. And nothing can be taken for granted when you’re trying to win the Tour, even if you’ve done it six times.


Later, during our April conversation, Lance made it very clear that the desire is still there.


Are you enjoying yourself? Is it sweeter because you know this is it?

Oh, yeah, man. You’re just on top of the gear and you’re sweatin’ your ass off. There’s nobody on the road; the occasional car passes. It was funny: Today we had people hanging out of the car, like getting aggro. We had this guy on a bike coming the other way, and I thought he was going to jump off his bike and throw it on the ground. It was unbelievable. He was all pumped up. Pumping his fists. It was like he had just won Flanders or something. He was looking over at me, conveying this energy that was just killer. Man, I hit the next canyon and I just tore the pavement off.

The post Breaking Away appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Nothing is more essential for true adventure than strong coffee. (God bless all of those who have given up caffeine and who still show up for the trip—or worse yet, how about those tea swillers? We’ll never understand you, but we try to love you just the way you are—still, until we’ve had our morning fix, WE HATE YOU!)

The Brewmug

The Brewmug

There are many nifty solutions for brewing a good cup in the backcountry, but it must be admitted that the technology generally tends to be overbuilt and clunky. But you won’t find a more minimalist and elegant solution to the morning-jolt problem than Reg Lake’s plain-jane Sunrise Moonrise Brewmug. Weighing in at seven ounces it’s light, I can personally certify it’s idiot-proof, and it works.
Operating on the tuck-everything-inside principle of a nested Russian doll, the Brew Mug is basically a big ol’ plastic 16-ounce insulated mug with a snap-on top and base. Tucked inside the cup is a small plastic canister for storing ground coffee. Tucked up inside the bottom is the brains of the Brewmug, an ultralight filter tube outfitted with a permanent cloth filter and a transparent “view port” and steam vent. The Brewmug is a stable, lucid, and cleanly engineered java-delivery system.
The final bonus is the pinch of legend that surrounds the Brewmug, thanks to its designer. Reg Lake is one of the pioneers of North American whitewater kayaking, and he owned the first true whitewater specialty store in Northern California when the sport was in its infancy. A well-known and charmingly witty teacher and guide with innumerable first descents to his credit, the Washington State-based explorer is a familiar presence at Otter Bar Kayak Lodge & School, the wilds of Chile, and the waters of Puget Sound. $15;

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SURVIVAL

Tom Brown’s Tracker Shool
Ashbury, New Jersey
For 26 years, Tom Brown has been teaching backcountry self-sufficiency to students鈥攊ncluding a Survivor cast member鈥攁t his farm in northern New Jersey. In his Seven-Day Standard Course, you and 12 other campers will learn to forage for edible violets, make tools from stone, navigate by starlight, and build shelters from mud and animal hides. “After this class,” says Brown, “you’ll be able to survive in any condition, track a mouse across a driveway, and no longer be an alien in your own environment.”
End Game: Living comfortably鈥攚ithout matches, food, or a compass鈥攊n uncomfortable conditions.
Info: $800 (all-inclusive), April to September; 908-479-4681,
Or Try: Boulder Outdoor Survival School, in Boulder, Utah, where you’ll learn to explore in desert conditions with little more than the clothes on your back; seven-day field course, $985; 303-444-9779,


WILDERNESS SKILLS

National Outdoor Leadership School
Lander, Wyoming
NOLS’s leave-no-trace philosophy and leadership training have set the standard in outdoor education since 1965. Who better to show you the backcountry ropes? Sign on for its 30-day Wind River Wilderness Course and trek up to ten miles a day, setting up minimum-impact camps and learning to lead your teammates and two instructors. Lessons in route finding and GPS navigation, plus three days of climbing instruction, will help even those without prior backcountry experience get around (and over) the 12,000-foot peaks. Culinary perk: You’ll be catching and cooking your own cutthroat trout and baking campfire pizzas in no time.
End Game: Planning, leading, and cleaning up after yourself on an extended wilderness trip.
Info: $3,150 (all-inclusive), June to September; 800-710-6657,
Or Try: REI 国产吃瓜黑料s’ seven-day Rainier Backpacking Trip, combining instruction with a 40-mile trek on the Northern Loop and Wonderland trails; $1,095; 800-622-2236,

Climbing, Mountaineering, and Canyoneering

ROCK CLIMBING

American Alpine Institute
Bellingham, Washington
A 29-year-old outfit with some of the most rigorously trained guides in the industry, AAI offers dozens of camps in six states and 13 countries. The THREE-DAY INTRODUCTORY ROCK course at Red Rocks, Nevada, teaches proper footwork and technical skills like rigging and equalizing a top rope. More adventurous rock rats can lead on a trad climb up 1,500-foot, 5.6 Solar Slab.
End Game: Setting up and climbing top ropes with confidence.
Info: $470 (instruction only), October to April; 360-671-1505,

Or Try: International Mountain Climbing School, in North Conway, New Hampshire, for sport-, trad-, and ice-climbing instruction in the White Mountains; one- to three-day clinics, $95–$360; 603-356-7064,


MOUNTAINEERING

Rainier Mountaineering INC.
Ashford, Washington
The venerable Avalanche institute runs avalanche and backcountry ski seminars in five locations across Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado—including a three-day level 1 Course at Red Mountain Pass, in Colorado’s slide-prone San Juan Mountains. From the warm bunks inside the St. Paul Lodge, at 11,500 feet, you can talk surface hoar and slab avalanches with AAI’s wilderness pros. Then snowshoe or skin up to 12,500 feet on telemark or randonn茅e skis to assess real-time avalanche conditions and practice beacon-assisted rescues.
End Game: Developing a healthy respect for volatile winter terrain—and the smarts to travel safely.
Info: $470 (all-inclusive), December to April; 307-733-3315,
Or Try: Pro Guiding Service, in North Bend, Washington, for novice to expert snow-safety workshops in the Cascades; two- to four-day trips, $180–$340; 425-888-6397,

CANYONNEERING

American Canyoneering Association
Cedar City, Utah
ACA’s laid-back guides are masters at teaching safe travel in the narrow sandstone canyons outside Cedar City, Utah, and Globe, Arizona. On the Three-day Basic Canyoneering course, you’ll begin by practicing belay technique, rope deployment, and rigging. Explore area slots on succeeding days, learning to safely descend into and ascend out of canyons, swim in swiftwater, and prepare for—and avoid—flash floods.
End Game: Rappelling and splashing your way through a descent of three-mile-long Mystery Canyon in Zion National Park.
Info: $265 (instruction only), March to September; 435-590-8889,

Or Try: Zion 国产吃瓜黑料 Company, in Springdale, Utah, for a primer on pothole swimming and self-rescue; three-day beginner course, $495; 435-772-1001,

Snow Sports

SNOWBOARDING

Mount Hood Summer Ski Camps
Government Camp, Oregon
Twenty-year-old Mount Hood Summer Ski Camps draws the best coaches in the business to the only year-round ski hill (elevation 11,235 feet) in the country. In the mornings at the Six-Day Snowboard Camp, when the snow’s still firm, you’ll practice drills at 8,500 feet on the Palmer and Zig Zag glaciers and rail slides in the terrain park; later, when it warms up to 65 degrees, burn turns in Lower Cuervo Canyon. Back at the chalet-style Lodges at Salmon River Meadows, nurse your glacial sunburn—and a cold one.
End Game: Wowing your friends with a backside 540.
Info: $725–$925 (all-inclusive), May to September; 503-337-2230,
Or Try: Southshore Soldiers Ski and Snowboard Camp, in Heavenly, California, where coaches include X Games gold medalists Jimmy Halopoff and Shaun Palmer; six-day sessions, $599; 888-712-7772,


AVALANCHE SKILLS/BACKCOUNTRY SKIING

American Avalanche Institute
Wilson, Wyoming
The venerable Avalanche institute runs avalanche and backcountry ski seminars in five locations across Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado—including a three-day level 1 Course at Red Mountain Pass, in Colorado’s slide-prone San Juan Mountains. From the warm bunks inside the St. Paul Lodge, at 11,500 feet, you can talk surface hoar and slab avalanches with AAI’s wilderness pros. Then snowshoe or skin up to 12,500 feet on telemark or randonn茅e skis to assess real-time avalanche conditions and practice beacon-assisted rescues.
End Game: Developing a healthy respect for volatile winter terrain—and the smarts to travel safely.
Info: $470 (all-inclusive), December to April; 307-733-3315,
Or Try: Pro Guiding Service, in North Bend, Washington, for novice to expert snow-safety workshops in the Cascades; two- to four-day trips, $180–$340; 425-888-6397,

SKIING

North American Ski Training Center
Truckee, California
Every year, NASTC snaps up the country’s top alpine instructors to teach its total-immersion ski camps, held in Tahoe and La Grave, France, and 15 powder points in between. Its weeklong alaska heli-skiing and powder technique course addresses the irony of skiing off-piste steeps: You’re ready for another thousand feet, but your legs and form aren’t. Stay at the posh Alyeska Prince Hotel, 45 minutes south of Anchorage, and spend four days finessing your edging and pole plants in Alyeska Ski Resort’s steep chutes and powdery terrain. On day five, fly deep into the Chugach Mountains’ 750 square miles of heli-accessible backcountry, where your skills—and your strength—will surprise you.
End Game: Learning to carve thigh-deep powder.
Info: $4,450 (all-inclusive), April 2005; 530-582-4772,
Or Try: All Mountain Ski Pros, in Lake Tahoe, California, and ski with extreme-skiing film star Eric Deslauriers; three days, $495; 888-754-2201,

DOGSLEDDING

Yogageur Outward Bound
Ely, Minnesota
Realize your Call of the Wild fantasies while mushing through the maze of frozen lakes and boreal forests of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Voyageur Outward Bound’s 22-day Northwoods Dogsledding Course trains neophyte mushers in the care and feeding of their four- to six-dog teams, basic winter-camping and survival techniques, and winter navigation. At the end of the program, students are encouraged to try a night or two of solo camping with the hounds. But it’s not that brutal—the canvas expedition tents are warmed by wood-burning stoves.
End Game: Competently managing a dog team—and winter’s chill—in the backcountry.
Info: $2,795 (all-inclusive), January to March; 866-467-7640,
Or Try: Paws for 国产吃瓜黑料, in Fairbanks, Alaska, and embark on an instructional expedition in the wilds of the true north; three- to seven-day courses, $550–$3,300; 907-378-3630,

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING

Methow Valley Nordic
Winthrop, Washington
With its near-perfect conditions—dry snow and 124 miles of groomed trails through the ponderosa forests of the eastern Cascades—Methow Valley draws former Olympians and pro racers from the U.S. and Canada to teach its Three-Day Cross-Country Ski Camp. From your base at the swanky Sun Mountain Lodge, you’ll start with morning yoga, then hit the snow for instruction in classic and skate skiing. Evenings are filled with equipment demos and one-on-one video analysis.
End Game: No more flailing when you point those skinny sticks downhill.
Info: $300 (instruction and lunches only), December to February; 509-996-3152,
Or Try: Lone Mountain Ranch’s three-day Spring Ski Clinic in Big Sky, Montana, which ends with a nine-mile nordic tour in Yellowstone; $940; 800-514-4644,

Cycling and Horseback Riding

MOUNTAIN BIKING

Single Track Ranch Inc.
Seattle, Washington
You don’t need to be the best mountain biker, but you need to be serious about getting better. That’s the main advice eight-time Iditasport champion John Stamstad gives his campers as they kick off the Six-day Moab Singletrack camp, held on Utah’s world-famous trails. Each morning, sharpen basic bike-handling skills, like strategic braking and shifting, then bump up your singletrack technique: picking a line, doing wheelie drops, cornering at high speed, and getting restarted on the steeps. Accommodations are in condos near downtown Moab.
End Game: Skirting Porcupine Rim’s 300-foot drop-offs without losing your cool.
Info: $1,850 (all-inclusive), September; 888-310-1212,
Or Try: Dirt Camp’s singletrack Classics, in Utah and Vermont, for fat-tire tutelage from the oldest mountain-biking school in the country; seven days, $1,500; 800-711-3478,


ROAD CYCLING

Carmicheal Training Systems
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Open to all but geared toward speed freaks looking to better their performance, this Five-Day Colorado Climbing Camp, run by Chris Carmichael (Lance Armstrong’s coach of 14 years), starts with an equipment tune-up—then it’s all uphill from there. For the next three days, you’ll ride 10 to 70 miles each day (and spend one sprinting repeatedly up the same 1,200-foot hill) while CTS coaches critique and tweak your pedal stroke. Day five brings the Stinger, an 80-mile, 5,000-foot climb through the Front Range. (Altitude slowing you down? The sag wagon is always an option.) Massages and a hot tub await you nightly at the upscale Cheyenne Mountain Resort.
End Game: Hammering hills with Lance-like power.
Info: $2,400 (all-inclusive), May and June; 719-635-0645,
Or Try: Marty Jemison’s Cycling, in Park City, Utah, where you’ll ride with the pros as they train for the U.S. Championships; seven-day clinic, $750; 800-492-9159,

HORSEBACK RIDING

Bitterroot Ranch
Dubois, Wyoming
No nose-to-ass trail riding here. At the Bitterroot Ranch, you’ll get all levels of instruction from Donna Snyder-Smith, author of the revered horsey bible The Complete Guide to Endurance Riding and Competition. In her Seven-Day Riding Clinic, you’ll learn how to trot, canter, and gallop fluidly on the ranch’s more than 160 Arabians and quarter horses. Each day begins with morning instruction in the ring, followed by afternoon trail rides. Nights are spent in private cabins along the East Fork of the Wind River. And thanks to Snyder-Smith’s emphasis on equine psychology, your horse will respect you in the morning.
End Game: Heading out with wranglers for the annual weeklong cattle roundup in the Shoshone National Forest in September.
Info: $2,150 (all-inclusive), August; 800-545-0019,
Or Try: Hill Country Equestrian Lodge, in Bandera, Texas, for instruction on 6,000 acres of unspoiled Hill Country; five days, $1,195–$1,322; 830-796-7950,

Water Sports

SWIMMING
Peak Performance Swim Camp
Orlando, Florida
Peak Performance runs its Weeklong swim camp for all levels—from competitive high-schoolers to lap swimmers to masters-class racers—at the National Triathlon Training Center’s 50-meter pool, in Clermont, Florida. Led by 1996 Olympic coaches, you’ll spend four hours a day in the water, finessing your kick-and-pull technique in the four major strokes. Dry-land sessions include flexibility and strength training, as well as visualization and nutrition workshops. Underwater videotaping will reveal your bad habits—the first step toward breaking them.
End Game: Streamlined technique and faster times.
Info: $999 (all-inclusive), year-round; 407-872-0604,
Or Try: Doug Stern’s Open Water Swim Camps, in Yulan, New York, and learn straight-line swimming in open water; three-day sessions in New York, $300; ten-day camps in Cura莽ao, in the Netherlands Antilles, $1,595; 212-222-0720,


SCUBA DIVING
Ocean Enterprises
San Diego, California
Ocean enterprises boasts a PADI five-star rating and it’s one of the only career-development dive centers in the country. (This is where teachers come to learn.) Better yet, San Diego’s coastal waters offer shipwrecks, kelp beds, and ledge diving. Most of the school’s 30-plus instructors have logged more than 500 dives each and can handle the needs of beginners, as well as scuba vets looking for specialty training in wreck and nitrox diving. In its TWO-Weekend open-water beginner course, you’ll move at your own pace from a dry-land introduction to a pool session, and finally to four 20- to 40-foot dives in the open Pacific.
End Game: Earning your PADI open-water certification, and the ability to dive with a buddy, sans instructor.
Info: $230 (instruction only), year-round; 858-565-6054,
Or Try: Olympus Dive Center, in Morehead City, North Carolina, for basic scuba-certification courses and deep-diving clinics; $105 per day; 252-726-9432,

SURFING
Nancy Emerson School of Surfing
Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii
International surf professional Nancy Emerson and her golden retriever, Apache, welcome groms and shredders to a five-Day maui surf clinic in the warm waters off Lahaina, where gentle two- to four-foot waves can make standing up on your first day a snap. On days two and three, you’ll learn the nuances of reading reef breaks and timing waves. Stay in one of Maui’s nearby beachfront accommodations and you’ll have round-the-clock access to—and inspiration from—your Pacific classroom.
End Game: Walking the board—the first step to hanging ten.
Info: $780 (instruction and lunches only), year-round; 808-662-4445,
Or Try: SoCal-based Paskowitz Family Surf Camp’s newest campus, in Baja’s Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; seven-day sessions, $2,900; 949-728-1000,

FLY-FISHING
Andre Puyans Fly Fishing & Fly Tying Seminars
Island Park, Idaho
A member of the federation of Fly Fishing Hall of Fame since 1995, Andre Puyans, at age 12, could hit a pack of Lucky Strikes with a cast from 35 feet away. Now 68, he’s taught more than 4,000 students, from novice to expert. His seven-day seminar at the rustic Elk Creek Ranch covers casting, entomology, and fly presentation, followed by four days angling for 16- to 25-inch rainbow trout in Hemingway’s stomping grounds: Idaho’s Henry’s Fork and Buffalo rivers, Montana’s Madison River, and Wyoming’s Yellowstone River.
End Game: Reeling in a big one—on your own cast.
Info: $2,975 (all-inclusive), July; 925-939-3113,
Or Try: Dave and Emily Whitlock’s Fly Fishing School, near Mountain Home, Arkansas, for top-notch angling instruction on the White River; three-day clinic, $750; 888-962-4576,

SAILING
Annapolis Sailing School
Annapolis, Maryland
The Chesapeake Bay’s consistent winds and flatwater are ideal for sailing. No wonder the Annapolis Sailing School has been teaching there since 1959. On its five-day bay country cruising course, you and three other students will live and study aboard a 37-foot O’Day twin-sail—touring marinas, exploring islands, and overnighting in coves along Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Your Coast Guard–certified instructor emphasizes a learn-by-doing approach, which means he’ll look over your shoulder, but you’ll be in charge as you tack, jibe, weigh anchor, and navigate using nautical charts.
End Game: Sailing a sizable boat with confidence.
Info: $1,430–$1,490 (all-inclusive), April to October; 800-638-9192,
Or Try: The Modern Sailing Academy, in Sausalito, California, for a five-day basic cruising course in the big water of San Francisco Bay; $995; 800-995-1668,

KITEBOARDING
Real Kiteboarding
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
Imagine 70 miles of white sand, a steady wind, 80-degree, waist-deep ocean. This is Cape Hatteras, where six hours of daily instruction at the three-day zero to Hero camp will have you shredding the sunrise oil—that’s flatwater—in no time. You’ll practice rigging, flying on land, launching in Pamlico Sound, and bailing out when a sudden gust slingshots you toward a pier.
End Game: Touring downwind as your kite catches the breeze overhead.
Info: $895 (instruction only), March to November; 866-732-5548,
Or Try: New Wind Kiteboarding, in La Ventana, Mexico, for one-on-one coaching along Baja’s gulf coast; two days, $467; 541-387-2440,

Paddling

SEA KAYAKING
Maine Island Kayak Co.
Peaks Island, Maine
More than 2,000 islands鈥攈ome to hundreds of protected coves and isolated pools鈥攃reate the ultimate location for Maine Island Kayak Co.’s Five-Day Fast Track camp. For the first three days, hover in nearby coves to hone paddling technique, self-rescue, wet exits, route selection, and navigation. Spend the final two days in the open Atlantic, where seals trail the kayaks. Stay in one of the island’s three hotels, or set up tents in the grass behind the boathouse and steep in the briny sea mist.
End Game: Leading your own 21-mile circumnavigation of Isle au Haut, in nearby Acadia National Park.
Info: $750–$1,250 (all-inclusive), June to September; 800-796-2373,
Or Try: Body Boat Blade International’s five-day camp on Orcas Island, Washington, where you can learn to sea-kayak in the San Juan archipelago; $520; 360-376-5388,


ROWING
Craftsbury Sculling Center
Crafsbury Common, Vermont
Don’t get the wrong idea when you’re told you’re velvety, silky, or seamless鈥攖hat’s how sculling coaches describe a smooth stroke. You’ll learn from Olympic and world-champion rowers at Craftsbury’s Weeklong Sculling Camp on the 320-acre campus of an old boarding school in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Practice synchronizing your catch, drive, and release as you row a 26-foot-long single scull across Great Hosmer Pond, then give yourself some well-deserved TLC with evening yoga classes and Craftsbury’s famous home-cooked meals.
End Game: Showing off your fluid form in the Head of the Hosmer, a two-mile race on the last day of camp.
Info: $795–$895 (all-inclusive), May to September; 802-586-7767,
Or Try: Lancaster, Virginia’s Calm Waters Rowing, for sculling fundamentals on 80-acre Camps Millpond; three to four days, $615–$960; 800-238-5578,

RAFTING
Destination, Wilderness
Sisters, Oregon
If you’ve ever dreamed of bossing your friends down a river, Destination Wilderness’s Seven-day Whitewater Rafting Workshop is the place for you. You’ll spend the first three days camping on Oregon’s North Fork of the Umpqua River, taking turns captaining your raft down Class III–IV rapids and stopping on the way for sandbar seminars on paddle technique, boat repair, and navigation. Then spend four days floating the Class III Rogue River, refining the skills you need to guide a private paddleboat or oar boat downstream. The training, which has a three-to-one student-teacher ratio, includes simulated rescues and addresses leadership issues—like how to deal with your rowdy cousin Tony on your next trip down the Rio Grande.
End Game: Rowing or paddling a Class III torrent.
Info: $1,150 (all-inclusive), April to May; 800-423-8868,
Or Try: Far Flung 国产吃瓜黑料s, of Taos, New Mexico, whose courses on New Mexico and Colorado rivers transform first-time rafters into Class IV boat captains; seven days, $900; 800-359-2627,

CANOEING
Nantahala Outdoor Center
Bryson City, North Carolina
Since 1972, the legendary NOC, tucked in the woods on the banks of the Class III Nantahala River, has been schooling people in proper paddling technique鈥攆rom the basic J-stroke to peeling out, ferrying, and boofing drops. During the Four-day Rapid Progression Course, you’ll start out with a day of dry-land and flatwater paddling instruction before transferring those skills to Class I flatwater on day two. Days three and four are spent testing yourself on more challenging Class II sections of the Nantahala. Chow down on riverside picnic lunches and overnight in NOC’s woodsy cabins.
End Game: Planning your own trip down Maine’s Allagash and St. John rivers.
Info: $755 (all-inclusive), April and September; 800-232-7238,
Or Try: Tuckamor Trips, in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec, for instructional adventures on Quebec’s Class I–II Dumoine River; six days, $890; 819-326-3602,

Racing

TRIATHLON

Total Immersion
New Paltz, New York
For those who have always wanted to try triathlon, Total Immersion’s six-day Tri Camp in Killington, Vermont, specializes in teaching proper technique (rather than beating you into the pavement) whether you’re a newbie or a repeat Ironman. Typical days start with stretching and core-strength exercises and progress to strategy sessions, where you’ll learn to draft in the open water, ride with the pack, and run faster using less energy.
End Game: Improving your mental toughness—and your time—in the Lake Dunmore Triathlon the day after camp ends.
Info: $1,095 (all-inclusive), August; 800-609-7946,
Or Try: Multisports.com, in Encinitas, California, and train with eight-time Ironman world champ Paula Newby-Fraser; three to five days, $599–$999; 760-635-1795,


ADVENTURE RACING

Odyssey 国产吃瓜黑料 Racing Academy
New River Gorge, West Virginia
Odyssey gets beginners race-ready in less than a week in its six-day adventure racing training camp, starting with Trailblazing 101—orienteering by way of map, compass, and stars in West Virginia’s rugged New River Gorge. The following days bring crash courses in river safety, kayaking, canoeing, and whitewater swimming on the Class II New River; climbing at the Endless Wall; and mountain-biking area trails. Evening classes at Camp Washington Carver cover basics from team dynamics to snacking.
End Game: Pounding through the Endorphin FIX, a 125-mile, 40-hour race with your course mates in the New River Gorge.
Info: $1,725 (all-inclusive), May; 757-645-3397,
Or Try: Gravity Play’s 国产吃瓜黑料 Racing Retreat, a 12-hour intensive in Moab, Utah; $75; 970-259-7771,

Running and Wellness

YOGA
Dharma Yoga Center
Miami Beach, Florida
Shri Dharma Mittra, 65, earned the nickname “The Teacher’s Teacher” in 1984, when he demonstrated 908 postures for the Master Yoga Chart, one of the most comprehensive yoga references in the world. Each December, the guru leaves his Manhattan studio to run a seven-Day miami beach yoga intensive for yogis of all levels. Attend up to five one- to two-and-a-half-hour sessions a day in open-air classrooms and spend your free time practicing downward dogs on South Beach.
End Game: Accepting, not perfecting, your half lotus.
Info: $710 (including accommodations and daily breakfasts), December; 212-253-1289,
Or Try: Shambhala Mountain Center, in Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, for seven days of hatha yoga practice and meditation; $687–$1,219; 970-881-2184,


RUNNING
Coach Benson’s Smokey Mountain Running Camps
Asheville, North Carolina
After 32 years, former Olympic coach Roy Benson is still drawing all levels of runners to his Six-day Adult Running Camp on the UNC–Asheville campus. Using a videotaped deconstruction of your stride, you’ll learn how to correct pronation and other common problems with Benson’s biomechanic drills. Mornings, pace yourself on a spiderweb of trails through the Pisgah National Forest; after lunch, sit in on talks by Nike pros and carbo-load on fresh-baked bread in the dining hall.
End Game: Training for your next鈥攐r first鈥�10K or marathon with a personalized, Benson-approved workout.
Info: $695 (all-inclusive), June; 770-457-9866,
Or Try: Beyond Running Trail Running Camps, in Sonoita, Arizona, to take your training off-road, compliments of Scott Jurek, five-time winner of the Western States 100; three- to six-day camps, $650–$1,350; 206-325-0064,

FITNESS
Seal Training Acadamy
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Founded in 2000 by 21-year Navy SEAL vet Don Mann, with a faculty of burly former Special Forces instructors, this hard-charging seven-day fitness camp for civilians is as close as you’ll get to an authentic SEALs Hell Week. After a 5 a.m. wake-up call at “barracks” (your tent at nearby First Landing State Park), you’ll be coached through killer sessions of sit-ups, push-ups, beach sprints, and endurance runs. You’ll also skydive from 12,500 feet and earn your scuba certification. “Some people train all year and then come to camp, others come looking to get in shape,” Mann says. “They get their asses kicked, but everyone enjoys it.”
End Game: Being tough enough to crank out another 12-mile lap while your Navy coach razzes you on.
Info: $2,450 (all-inclusive), May; 757-645-3397,
Or Try: Cycling and running sessions at Davis Mountain Fitness and Training Camp, in Fort Davis, Texas; seven days, $400–$750; 915-584-0227,

Skydiving and Paragliding

SKYDIVING

Perris Valley Skydiving
Perris, California
PVS, one of america’s largest skydiving centers, boasts its own bunkhouse (the IHOP: International House of Parachutists), full-service gear shop, and wind tunnel (to fine-tune free-fall technique). During the One-day Accelerated Freefall Training for neophytes, you’ll spend four to six hours on the ground learning hand signals and safety procedures before your first jump. (Lines in a tangle? Cut your chute and pull the reserve!) Perris’s 15 instructors have logged more than 7,000 jumps between them, so don’t panic as you prepare to hurl yourself out of the plane at 13,000 feet.
End Game: Notching your inaugural instructor-assisted jump鈥攕even leaps away from your first solo skydive.
Info: $309 (instruction only), year-round; 800-832-8818,
Or Try: Skydive Arizona, in Eloy, Arizona, for a 14-day, 25-jump course that will earn you a Class A solo free-fall license; $2,940; 520-466-3753,


PARAGLIDING

Super Fly Paragliding Academy
Sandy, Utah
Point of the mountain, south of Salt Lake City, is considered one of the best paragliding training grounds in the world, thanks to a consistent 300-days-a-year updraft that keeps fliers aloft for hours. In Super Fly’s Two-day Introduction to Paragliding, you’ll start on the ground, boning up on basic wind and weather strategies, the physics of gliding, and maneuvering your canopy. Then it’s a solo jog off the “bunny hill,” where you’ll catch 100 feet of glide before touching down on the grass. Day two includes a tandem launch with an expert coach, then your first solo endeavor: a 300-foot-high, quarter-mile soar.
End Game: Earning a P1 rating鈥攖he first hurdle in obtaining your paragliding license.
Info: $395 (instruction only), year-round; 801-255-9595,
Or Try: Torrey Pines Gliderport, in La Jolla, California, one of the largest and oldest schools in the country; three-day beginner camp, $795; 858-452-9858,

Stick Together

Get cliquey at a specialty camp芒鈧€漚 booming new trend in sports schools

It’s a Guy Thing
Big Mountain Resort, Whitefish, Montana. Ski the double-black Picture Chutes, then analyze your technique on video with expert coaches. Three-day men’s workshop, $250; 406-862-2909,
Real Men Cook, Annapolis, Maryland. Make like Mario Batali and learn to whip up a frutti di mare Mediterranean feast without looking like a sissy. Weekend courses for men from $695; 410-849-2517,

Let Her Rip
Las Olas Surf Safaris, Mexico. Discover your inner wahine on beginner-friendly waves in a sleepy Pacific surf town 45 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta. After your morning session, siesta on the sand. Women’s six-day safaris from $1,995; 707-746-6435,
Alison Dunlap 国产吃瓜黑料 Camps, Moab, Utah. World-champion mountain biker Alison Dunlap will put you through the paces on 100 miles of slickrock and singletrack around Moab. Five-day women-only camps from $1,295; 800-845-2453, 脗听
Singles-Minded
Club Med Turkoise, Providenciales Island, Turks and Caicos. Little kids are outlawed at this Caribbean watersports paradise, so the big kids have all the fun: windsurfing lessons on Grace Bay, scuba certification off coral-ringed West Caicos, or acrobatic trapeze practice overlooking the palms. One-week vacations from $1,595; 800-258-2633,
Singles Travel International, Moab, Utah. Spend a week getting chummy with your belayer on this multisport sampler. Raft the Colorado’s Class II脗鈥揑II Fisher Towers section, mountain-bike the Gemini Bridges Trail, and explore Medieval Canyon’s red rocks. One-week singles camps from $1,999; 877-765-6874,
We Are Family
Rocky Mountain Outdoor Center, Salida, Colorado. Dangle from a 5.9 route on Davis Face, near the Buffalo Peaks, while your daughter works her way up a beginner’s pitch (or vice versa). Five-day family course, $488 per person; 800-255-5784,
Durango Mountain Bike Camp, Durango, Colorado. Seven- to 14-year-olds tackle singletrack for two hours each morning, then build balance by popping wheelies and playing bike tag. Five-day family camp, $250; 970-385-0411,

Follow Through

Get a shot of confidence at camp, then sustain the commitment at home with these six strategies.

Join the Club
Like-minded enthusiasts can get you off your butt with organized events like group-training programs for a first marathon. Pete & Ed Books (800-793-7801, ), an online bookstore and clearinghouse of sports clubs, has links to about 1,000 outdoor organizations in the U.S. and abroad.

Get Tuned Up
Hook up with expert instructors for one-day refresher courses. Keep working on your weak points and sooner or later you’ll nail that stubborn crux move. Eastern Mountain Sports (888-463-6367, ) hosts climbing, camping, and kayaking clinics throughout the Northeast.
Local Motion
People who hit the neighborhood trails and local surf breaks know what’s best, and when. When you take your sport on the road, ask around at shops or scour the Web for advocacy groups. California Kayak Friends (818-885-6182, ) is a boaters’ network that shares event and condition information on hot spots at rivers, lakes, and oceans across the West.
Give Back
Volunteer to clean up your favorite play spot (and conscience). Meet your brethren, then hit that debris-free singletrack. Oregon’s Portland United Mountain Pedalers () hosts weekly “work parties” on nearby trails.
Push Yourself
Nothing gets you fired up to practice like a little healthy competition. The New York Road Runners (212-860-4455, ) hosts the New York City Marathon and some 75 shorter races throughout the year.
Cross-Training
Just because your sport is seasonal doesn’t mean your training should be. Minnesota’s North Star Ski Touring Club (952-924-9922, ) has been organizing cross-country-ski clinics and outings for more than 30 years. Come summer, members hike and bike together to stay in shape till the snow returns.

Start Me Up

At a school like Otter Bar, every beginner has a shot a greatness

I’M FINALLY HITTING MY ROLL.
A whitewater kayak is an unstable platform in the slippery grip of Old Man River鈥攊t will flip. Not maybe; will. And when you find yourself hurtling through a rapid upside down, with the lower half of your body entombed inside a plastic shell, you’d better know how to use your arms, your paddle, and a twist of your hips to roll the boat upright鈥攁 subtle, balletic move that takes you from an inverted, fishy kingdom of death to the bright realm of light, air, and gasping life.

Consistently hitting my roll is the high-water mark of my success after three weeks of kayak instruction over three summers at the Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School, way up in the attic of northern California. Otter Bar has a wild stretch of the Salmon River in its backyard and is probably the best whitewater school in the world, not least because it is the most decadently luxurious. Its proprietors, Kristy and Peter Sturges, are superb hosts, and the instructors are world-class boaters. But you don’t have to be a hardcore jock to gain something deeply rewarding by taking the uncharacteristic (for an adult) risk of signing up for summer camp.
Decades after leaving childhood and the classroom behind, it’s a humbling, revelatory experience to become a beginner again, to face down a primal fear of the difficult and the unknown. But once intermediate status is within reach, you open the door to the epic possibilities of real adventure.
At the moment, I’m dreaming about Otter Bar’s annual autumn trip down the Grand Canyon. I’d have to get serious about tuning up my paddling to handle the Class III–IV water, but places like Otter Bar specialize in making big dreams come true. Even for a slow learner like me.
Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School, Forks of Salmon, California; seven days, $1,605–$1,890 (all-inclusive), April to September; 14-day Grand Canyon trip, $2,900 (Class III+ paddling skills required), September 15–29; 530-462-4772,

Hold the Adrenaline

Learning anything new takes effort—but that doesn’t mean you have to work up a sweat

Camp Cooking Learn to churn out gourmet-on-the-go feasts, like breakfast quiche and Cornish game hen, from a Dutch oven and an open flame. Royal Tine guide & Packer School, Philipsburg, Montana; 800-400-1375,
Boat Building Wield a spokeshave to hew graceful curves in your very own northern white cedar kayak, skiff, dinghy, or canoe. If you’re good, your creation might even float. Wooden Boat School, Booklin, Maine; 207-359-4651, www.woodenboat.com
Wilderness Photography Join nature photographer Frans Lanting, who has eight acclaimed books to his name, to shoot the pastel wildflowers and jagged mountainscapes of the eastern Sierra. Mountain Light Photography, Bishop, California; 760-873-7700,

Green Architecture Help build a snug, eco-friendly structure using hand tools, mud, straw, and recovered forest timber—and start planning your dream home. Lama Foundation, San Cristobal, New Mexico; 505-586-1269,
Backcountry First Aid A Wilderness First Responder course in injury prevention, assessment, and treatment might save your life or that of a teammate someday. Wilderness Medical Associates, Bryant Pond, Maine; 888-945-3633,
Landscape Design Study permaculture (permanent agriculture) and create sustainable, organic gardens with water-catchment and gravity-fed irrigation systems. Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, Occidental, California; 707-874-1557,
Escuela de Espa帽ol Practicing Spanish while surrounded by the 500-year-old colonial churches, frescoes, and open-air markets of central Mexico will make you feel like you’re already fluent. Habla Hispa帽a Spanish Language School, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; 011-52-415-152-1535,
Star Trekking Experience weightlessness and learn to pilot your very own space shuttle . . . simulator. Space Camp, Huntsville, Alabama; 800-637-7223,
Meditation Vipassana is all the rage in inner peace. Enjoy (or endure) seven silent hours a day of sitting and walking meditation. Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, California; 415-488-0164,
Fly-Rod Crafting Make your own bamboo rod just like Norman Maclean, then use it to pull trout from the fish-rich waters of Willowemoc Creek. The Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum, Livingston Manor, New York; 845-439-4810,

The post The Thrill of the Skill appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

IN EARLY FEBRUARY, roughly a thousand miles south of Algiers in the Sahara, European adventure travelers started disappearing without a trace. By mid-April, 15 Germans, ten Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman, and a Swede—an astonishing total of 31 men and women—had simply vanished into the void.

Left behind: an abandoned vehicle on the Grave Route in Algeria, April 2003

About the only thing these unlucky travelers left behind was a single vehicle in an archaeologically rich stretch of southern Algeria known as the Grave Route. At press time, after a massive hunt that included more than a thousand searchers—some on camels, some in helicopters equipped with heat-detection equipment—17 of the travelers had been liberated by Algerian commandos during a rescue operation near the Libyan border. A second rescue mission was reportedly being organized. Observers were not yet able to confirm the identity of the abductors (no group claimed responsibility), but speculated that they were part of a militant Islamist organization known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which the State Department suspects has links to Al Qaeda. The motive? One theory was that the kidnappings were part of a plan to negotiate the release of four Algerians recently convicted of plotting a terrorist bombing in Strasbourg, France. Ordinarily, a mass disappearance of this magnitude would make front-page headlines around the world. But this story was lumped in with a broader convergence of bad news that served to heighten widespread anxiety about the safety of international travel. The war in Iraq, the ongoing threat of anti-American terrorism, and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) transformed the jitters of early 2003 into unmitigated fear. In late April, a survey by the Travel Industry Association of America showed that 71 percent of U.S. citizens had decided that, thanks all the same, they would rather vacation on the home front this year. Many travel companies reported that SARS had caused an alarming drop in overseas bookings. The impact has been most severe in Asia, where the bulk of SARS fatalities have occurred. As news of the epidemic spread, flights on Pacific routes plummeted 38 percent, a devastating economic loss in a region that was fast becoming a tourism hot spot.


So is it time to forget your dreams of adventure and stay put? Not really. Obviously, now is not the best year to head for Algeria or southern Iraq. But despite reasonable concerns about security and the course of the SARS outbreak, the latest travel panic is largely unjustified. In fact, for adventurous types inclined to gripe about crowds overrunning the world’s last best places, the next few months could shape up as a singular opportunity to thumb your nose at paranoia and express the basic human right to wander and explore.


By most measures, the current mass aversion to travel is far out of line with actual risks. In 2002, the odds of an American civilian dying in a terrorist attack were one in nine million, while the odds of dying in a traffic accident in the United States were one in 7,000. Worldwide, the risk of dying from SARS is even smaller. And there may be a silver lining in the current cloud of gloom: Right now, adventure travel bargains are available everywhere as outfitters strive to regain momentum. Airline fares are at a 14-year low, and the cost of lodging and travel packages is steadily dropping. In the spring, many flights to Europe were less than $500; Caribbean airfares were under $400; a week in Chamonix, including flights, was going for $900. There are even bargains for elite climbers: Pakistan recently waived all climbing fees for peaks under 6,500 meters and cut fees in half for taller mountains.

AS THE SITUATION SHAKES OUT, some intrepid travelers are hedging their bets by planning domestic trips and saving exotic destinations for later. Mountain Travel Sobek reports that reservations have been lower than average overall but that bookings for North American trips have jumped 42 percent over the past year. “This season, a lot of people are going to stay closer to home and take driving vacations,” says Jerry Mallet, president of the 国产吃瓜黑料 Travel Society. “But travelers are pent up and getting tired. I think eventually people are going to travel again.”


On the international front, some hardcore outfitters and their clients argue that the Great Panic of 2003 is mostly a reflection of an urban mind-set and a stampede toward zero-risk timidity. Savvy adventure travelers typically blow through cities on their way to the good stuff and do their homework first. (The European trekkers who disappeared in the Sahara apparently had not recruited seasoned guides to accompany them, in an area known for lawless activity.) An informal survey of adventure travel companies by 国产吃瓜黑料 found that most diehard adventurers are unfazed by world events. “Our folks—the adventurous clients—are still going,” says Robyn Gorman, marketing director for Mountain Travel Sobek. “They’re much more attuned to the rest of the world than the average traveler.”


This attitude is justified—in most destinations, the locals are still more interested in collecting dollars than defending political ideologies. “The average person in other countries is concerned with putting food on the table,” says Robert Link, founder of the adventure travel company Mountain Link. “They couldn’t care less about nationalities.”


And while terror is always a concern, Tom Sanderson, an international-threat analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, D.C., says, “I wouldn’t panic or cancel trips. You just need to stay away from certain areas.” Those areas include trouble zones like Pakistan, Colombia, Afghanistan, and portions of the Middle East.


Luckily, there have been few significant attacks since 9/11—and no terror incidents on U.S. soil in the past 20 months. But the threat is still there. “The huge U.S. presence in Central Asia and the Middle East is not sitting well with many people,” Sanderson warns. “There’s definitely the potential for terrorism to get worse.”


It’s also difficult to predict the future of SARS. “I can’t say whether it’s going to peter out or spread or come back next fall,” says Steve Ostroff, deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, in Atlanta. “Even if you damp down or stamp out the clusters of illness that have come about, you always run the risk that it could be introduced over and over again.” At press time, the World Health Organization was optimistic that the disease had been contained in most countries, though, predictably, they urged caution in Beijing and Hong Kong.


Terrorist threats, anthrax, violent conflict, recession, anti-Americanism—getting things back on track seems like a big task. On the other hand, anyone who thinks that history won’t take unexpected U-turns hasn’t been paying attention. It’s worth noting that geopolitical hot spots of decades past—Nicaragua, Vietnam, South Africa, most of Eastern Europe—have become friendly tourist destinations for U.S. travelers. Who knows? In ten years, Iraq’s Persian Gulf port of Umm Qasr could be hosting a beach volleyball tournament.


No matter how bad things get, the urge to travel won’t disappear, even if it takes us to not-so-distant ports of call. Almost two years of apprehension, vague dread, and sheer frustration may be what ultimately gets the ball rolling again. “There have been a lot of people jumping on the fear wagon as far as adventure travel goes,” says Robert Link. “People think the world is falling down around them. But that’s just not the case.”

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From that first stinging cannonball off a riverside bluff to the last day at the beach, our idea of a sweet summer is one by, on, and in the drink. To get things flowing, we’ve charted the waters for you.

Blissful Indolence Made Simple

A Florida Stream, an inner tube, and no ambition in sight.



There are two ways to tube down north-central Florida’s Ichetucknee River: the easy way and the easier. Let’s examine the easier first, assuming it’s a radiant midsummer day, air temperature about 95, humid enough to confuse a frog.
Lie on your back, hindquarters submerged in the 72-degree water, gazing drowsily up through the overarching canopy of Spanish moss. Recall the First Law of tubing physics: The chill of the booty is directly proportional to the circumference of the vulcanized vessel. Fail to think of a Second Law. As the black rubber heats up, regulate body temperature by idly flicking water onto your belly and sighing.


Among Florida’s many artesian springs, famous for their mermaids and manatees, none is more beloved by inner tubers than this perfect conduit for the indolent. Though parts of the Ichetucknee are narrow and serpentine, its banks are buffered by a luxuriance of eelgrass that will gently catch and release your tube with a soft, whispering sound. Do not attempt to steer the tube, except in slow circles to rotate the sky and invite musings on the immensity of the ether, which is frankly miraculous and ultimately exhausting. It’s possible at any moment to be struck by a falling stinkpot, a turtle known to climb high into the canopy and leap into the water when startled. Possible, but unlikely. Disregard the threat, or think to yourself, If the blow must come, let it be fatal. Drifting, drifting, you’ve made your peace.


With the easier path, it’s more likely you’ll fall asleep, only to be wakened by the laughter of other tubers. You’ve gone aground in a shaded eddy, your mouth comically gaping. Sit up, blinking and grinning sheepishly. Now is a good time to tackle the easy way.


This way is more gear-oriented (a mask and snorkel). Flop onto your belly and, chin resting on rubber or head slightly elevated, survey the banks for stalking egrets, sunning Suwanee cooters, or periscope-nosed softshell turtles. You might see otters and beavers, but by and large this is wilderness writ small, though with startling clarity. Because many springs feed the Ichetucknee as it winds through pines, hardwood hammocks, and swampland, visibility is forever. It opens wee mysteries like a microscope slide.


Plunge your mask into the stream. Now you see the spring’s power, pumping an average of 233 million gallons a day. The fish, you see, the bream and bass and little sailfin mollies, are working hard not to drift. The eelgrass is waving as if in a gale. You see breaks in the streambed, phosphate pits and sudden overhanging caverns. Unable to resist, you slither from the tube like a gator and dive deep, and are rewarded by a chance meeting with a siren, a three-foot-long legless salamander. Which is thrilling and, ultimately, quite chilling.


You’ll need to get warm again. Clamber back aboard the tube like a cooter (from kuta, an African word for “turtle”), and take it easier.

Wild, Wild Midwest

This just in: You can say Wisconsin and wilderness in the same breath.

The kayak is often associated with rugged terrain, where rivers rise and fall with the melting of mountain snows. Wisconsin, on the other hand, is canoe country, which is to say it’s mostly flat, pressed smooth by the weight of long winters and the Ice Age, the longest winter of all. Topographic relief appears not on land but in the bouldery staircases and slick-water chutes of the rivers that drain it. Midwesterners feeling hard-put to explain why they even own a kayak need only run the Flambeau, a splash-and-dazzle river that barrels out of the North Woods as if from a glacier.
The Flambeau cuts across north-central Wisconsin in two branches. The North Fork has more quiet water, the South Fork more rapids. Between the forks lies some of the wildest country anywhere: pine forests banded in autumn with sugar maple, yellow birch, and hemlocks; trackless alder marshes like the Million Acre Swamp; and black bears, otters, eagles, ospreys, and at least two packs of timber wolves. Not to mention the isolated tavern, all knotty pine and smoke, with more antlers than bottles above the bar.


“It’s a gem of a river,” David Kelly says of the South Fork. “No dams. No towns to speak of. And it doesn’t get the traffic of better-known rivers like the Brule or Wolf. Already today I’ve seen a bald eagle and a coyote just out my front window.”


Kelly owns the general store in Lugarville—in fact, the only store in Lugarville ten miles northwest of Phillips and overlooking the South Fork. He also runs a shuttle service and canoe rental. Put in at Lugarville and you can cover the 20 miles to Little Falls in a day of hard paddling or two days at a leisurely pace, allowing time to play in the rapids.


The first half of the trip is easy, Class I rock gardens and a couple of Class II rapids. (Water levels fluctuate according to weather; September usually beats out the dog days.) On the second stretch, the rapids are more concentrated and evocatively named: Cornsheller, Big Bull, Prison Camp Rapids. The last is just upriver from the State Prison Forestry Camp, where trustees in green dungarees and white T-shirts, many of them former urbanites, stand around and perfect the long stare.


The best whitewater comes at the finale at Slough Gundy, where the river accelerates as it enters a narrow cleft between a cedar island and a high granite ledge, dropping in three separate pitches over a half-mile. The first pitch is a straight shot down a center chute; the second is complicated by a crosscurrent that sweeps you toward the rock ledge.


On my initial trip, this current caught my paddle and neatly rolled me, so I rode the third set of rapids hanging upside-down, submerged rocks whizzing past my head. I managed to tow the kayak to shore before it went over Little Falls and, after sun-drying on the rocks, lugged it up the footpath to run Slough Gundy again.

A Piece of the Shore

Skinny-dipping under the stars, and other reasons to go cottaging in Ontario

In Ontario, “cottage country” is a precise geographical term, “to cottage” a common verb. The province has a pleasing ratio of 220,000 lakes to 200,000 or so private cottages beside them; about one of every 20 families owns one. And most of the other 19 families manage to cadge an invite or two.


Muskoka, Georgian Bay, the Kawarthas: The topography of the cottage regions changes from one to the next, and the cottages range from million-dollar showplaces to rustic one-rooms (like mine, where running water means hustling from the dock with a bucket). The uninitiated can’t see the appeal of suffering through Friday gridlock out of Toronto, of returning to the same place time after time. “You have to do it to understand it,” says a friend.


For me, the reasons come clear each time I arrive and slide my kayak into Mississagua Lake. I make a circuit to see what’s new, knowing almost nothing is. But always discoveries await: the loon’s nest on the edge of an islet; the heron stalking its supper; evening light striking the long fingers of granite that reach into the water.


Perched on Precambrian rock, our tiny, green-stained cottage is barely visible from the water, hidden among pines. The land around us belongs to the Crown and can’t be built on, so the bay is almost ours alone. When the urge for greater exploration strikes, we pack dry bags into the kayaks and go, because Mississagua Lake spills into the Mississagua River, which alternately meanders and rushes into a lake a dozen or so portages downstream. At its other end, Mississagua connects to a chain of other lakes via a wetland where snakes slither in the shallows, frogs bask on logs, dragonflies mate, and platter-size snapping turtles paddle in deeper stretches.


Any cottager will tell you a cottage is a place stacked with memories of what you can’t wait to do again. Skinny-dipping on a starry night. Devouring the season’s first ear of fresh-picked peaches-and-cream corn slathered in butter. Screaming along on the Laser, hiked out, head almost touching the water, laughing out loud. Sometimes when I’m back home, caught in the city’s hustle and hassle, the clatter seems to retreat and I hear instead the slap of the waves against the dock. I’m up north again, and all’s right with the world.

To the Inland Sea

The best swimming in Mexico: Ocean?

Somebody asked Subcomandante Marcos, the figurehead of Mexico’s Zapatista movement, how he first came to Chiapas. Half-jokingly, he answered that he got drunk and wound up in Ocosingo instead of Acapulco. “There is a lake near there called Miramar,” he said. “I asked which way the sea was, and they told me, ‘That way,’ so I started walking. Pretty soon I realized I was in the mountains, and I never left.” It’s not a bad story, and it’s even plausible once you’ve seen Miramar for yourself.
I’m a lake lover of four decades, and I have never seen anything like it. Laguna Miramar (“sea view”), as it is called in Spanish, lies in a ring of mountains 47 miles southeast of Ocosingo, in the southern state of Chiapas, the heart of the Lacand貌n rainforest and the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. It is also the Zapatista heartland, one reason Miramar may not be for everybody. Access is through the Maya community of Emiliano Zapata, where you are already “back there,” so to speak. Then it’s a four-and-a-half-mile hike to the lake.


The trail ends at a long, narrow beach. There, beneath chicozapote trees bristling with orchids, bromeliads, and epiphytic cacti, the community has erected two thatched, open-sided palapas, one for tents or hammocks and one with a traditional raised hearth for cooking. Zapata and the other lake communities bar hunting and logging near Miramar, so the only sounds are “lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore,” in Yeats’s words, and the unceasing drone of howler monkeys.


I visited Laguna Miramar with Fernando Ochoa, a bilingual outfitter from San Crist贸bal who helped Zapata develop its tourism plan. We paddled the lake’s more than seven square miles for three long days and didn’t see it all, though we did visit pictographs, rock carvings, and a full-scale island ruin left behind by Miramar’s ancient inhabitants, ancestors of the Maya who live there now. A thousand feet deep, Miramar sustains enough aquatic life to entertain a Cousteau, including turtles, crocs, and a cryptozoological creature the Indians say resembles a manatee. In our canoe cruising, however, all we saw were several dozen species of tropical and migratory birds, a bewildering array of plant life, and fish. Mostly we swam.


And the swimming was the best I’ve ever had, anywhere. The few divers who have sampled Miramar’s depths can get downright poetic about it. We paddled from one travertine shoal to the next, diving into water the color and clarity of Aqua Velva and basking in shallow depressions eroded along the shore. Once in a while we saw a single dugout in the distance. The rest was silence.

The Hillbilly Autobahn

West Virginia’s most wicked whitewater, speed limits be damned.

I’m supposed to be listening to my guide, Sib, who barks directions at us in fluent Appalachian. But I can barely hear him over the roar of the water, so I stare at the snarling froth thundering out of Summersville Dam and feel my leg stubble prickle against my rented wetsuit. The first raft to launch is a rowdy all-male squad from Buffalo. They grunt like apes as they try to muscle downriver, but their raft gets swirled around and sucked sideways while the guides on the shoreline whoop with uncivil glee. Our group pushes off next, thwacking paddles and stroking furiously, only to have the Gauley’s unforgiving current push us back to shore. We finally make it through the spin cycle, and Sib yeehaws while grabbing a smoke from his waterproof pack. Fortunately, I’m upwind.


It could drive anyone to tobacco, or worse, taking boatfuls of tourons into world-class West Virginia whitewater. The Gauley has more than a hundred Class IV and V rapids in a 28-mile stretch; even in late summer and beyond, when western rivers whimper down to a trickle, the Gauley rages. Back in 1988, Congress mandated that on 22 days between Labor Day and late October, Summersville Dam must release 2,800 cubic feet of water per second—2,800 basketballs with each tick of the clock—just for rafters and kayakers. Not surprisingly, guides from around the world migrate here before they follow the sun to the Southern Hemisphere.


We approach Insignificant, the first Class V. Sib keeps his instructions light and funny, but since he’s puffing like a furnace while trying to position the raft, I’m not sure I shouldn’t be terrified. The white foaming jaws come into view just before they swallow us. Sib’s yelling, “Paddle, paddle!” but all five of us have been thrown to one side, and we paddle only air. When I dig in for a real stroke the raft suddenly buckles, and I’m waterborne, sucked under like driftwood.


Before I can panic, though, the river’s spit me out and I’m swimming jerkily toward the rocky shoreline, instead of toward the boat as instructed. But, serendipity: The boys from Buffalo are waiting in the eddy, and they yank me up by my life jacket. I lie sputtering in their boat until my own raft comes, then I grin a goofy thanks-for-saving-my-sorry-butt smile and hop back in. Cold, beat-up, and sure I’ve broken my foot, I couldn’t be happier. I’ve been baptized by the mighty Gauley. Just 99 more rapids to go.

God’s Own Plunge Pool

A grotto behind the waterfall, a bracing New Hampshire river, and thou.

During a desert-dry lull in an otherwise water-obsessed lifetime—in west Texas—I used to drift off to sleep imagining perfect swimming holes. They always had a waterfall, for aesthetics and to keep the air moist, and cliffs for diving, 脿 la Acapulco. The diving had to be into a deep pool of exceptionally clear water, with underwater formations to explore. The outlet was usually a tumbling riffle over smooth granite. Maybe fruit trees lined the banks, dropping, oh, ripe plums in my lap while I sunbathed.
Years later I discovered just such a place, although the fruit is blueberries and their season ends just before the swimming gets really enjoyable. My nomination for the world’s best swimming hole is the Upper Falls of the Lower Ammonoosuc, near Fabyan, New Hampshire. Pure snowmelt flows from Mount Washington, plunges 12 feet into a succession of three glacial potholes, and exits gracefully over the required smooth rock, spilling into a trout pool to break Izaak Walton’s heart.


The slick granite chute above the waterfall is sized for human buttocks, a natural slide. A small cave behind the waterfall can hide a couple of swimmers at a time. But it’s the potholes themselves that cause swimmers’ hearts to flutter. The first, probably 20 feet around and nearly as deep, is ringed by 20-foot cliffs. The second, connected to the first by an underwater passageway, is larger, and its cliffs offer launch points from perhaps 10 to 40 feet, choose your height. The third pothole is larger yet, with even more diving heights, and sunnier, thus attracting more leisurely attention.


Pardon my obsession with structure: The sheer geology of the place offers all a swimmer could devise for fun in water, except a rope swing. Its only problem: See “snowmelt,” above. The water temperature is bearable for about three weeks in August, past the blueberries’ prime. So bring your own.

Flipper . . . Is That You?

North mixes with tropics in the Channel Islands’ underwater bizarro world.



Suspended 40 feet beneath the surface. Visibility, maybe five body-lengths. Kicking in slow motion through a forest of kelp. Enormous, sinuous stalks, some nearly 200 feet long, rise from the sea floor and grope for light.


To the right, a large, dark shape lingers, barely discernible in the green murk. Consider the possibilities. It’s not a curious sea lion, or it would’ve already stormed your face mask. A great white shark would make great bar-stool fodder, but those are thin odds; people dive southern California for decades without even glimpsing one. Charlie the Tuna? Easy, man; don’t lose your grip here.


Whatever it is, it’s approaching. The other divers seem to have vanished. But then, adrenaline surges and otherworldly ambience are the draw in the Channel Islands, less a Disneyesque reef dive than a bushwhack through the jungle. Warm and cold currents collide here, attracting a through-the-looking-glass collection of species that rarely lurk in the same circles. Other kelp forests grow up north, and some of the same fish, invertebrates, and mammals swim farther south, but only here do they mingle.


At last, the behemoth emerges from the soup: a giant sea bass longer than you, bulkier than you (maybe two or three hundred pounds), and probably tastier, too. Gargantuan up close but a runt among its peers. Its world-record forebear, weighing in at almost 600, succumbed to a hook near Anacapa Island in the sixties. Mouth gaping and eyes bulging, this one circles around and then back for a second pass unusual for a fish—before it slips away into the gloom. The pulse gradually slows.


Nights later come the surreal dreams, of hulking, amorphous creatures seen only out of the corner of the eye. And in the morning, musings about the ones that choose not to be seen at all.

Time Off the Grid

In blissful isolation along the Rogue River, where it’s easier to find a fly rod than a phone.

From its headwaters near Crater Lake, the Rogue River twists and veers for several hundred miles through the lower left-hand corner of Oregon before arriving at its broad estuary on the Pacific at the town of Gold Beach. But the part of the Rogue I love is its 40-mile run through a corridor of Klamath Mountains wilderness—one of those faraway worlds you can still find in pockets all over the Northwest, where the nineteenth century lasted at least halfway through the twentieth. Even today, it’s a long way to a phone.
The surrounding landscape is an absurdly crenellated empire of sharp ridges, steep fir-covered slopes, and deeply notched ravines; a perfect refuge for coots, renegades, and survivalists; and a terrible place for cars. (A wag in Yreka once put up signs that read, “Our roads are not passable, hardly jackassable.”) The sheer cussedness of this terrain has been the Rogue’s best defense against civilization’s embrace.


The Rogue played a supporting role in the Meryl Streep vehicle The River Wild, and it’s a popular summer run for rafters and kayakers. Dams upstream have partly tamed it, but once it enters this coast range the river reverts to a primordial rush of swift and sometimes ferocious Cascadian snowmelt. Still, the pleasures I’ve found along the Rogue have mostly been slow ones. They began with a six-month caretaking job I had at a remote ranch homestead near Horseshoe Bend, a blissful interlude that offered a pretty good argument for the Unabomber lifestyle. I hiked through gorgeous swaths of old growth, saw a pair of cougars lope side by side up a hillside, heard the kind of lore that seems to thrive in the absence of electricity, and had my first taste of fly-fishing for the late-summer run of Rogue steelhead, the signature species of the place.


Steelhead embody the secretive, once-upon-a-time glamour of the Rogue. Like their cousins the salmon, steelhead spawn in rivers and migrate to the sea. But these Homeric fish sojourn in the ocean and return to the river twice before they attain the four- to eight-pound size and quick-strike savagery of the classic Rogue steelhead. Alas, like the Rogue itself, they are threatened, but like the wild Rogue, they triumphantly persist.

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