If you鈥檙e a regular traveler like me, you already know this: most airports are awful. You鈥檙e constantly rushing through a crowded terminal, competing with a harried mess of humanity, only to then cram yourself into a narrow seat for a few hours until you get to your next terminal purgatory鈥攎eanwhile, dragging your luggage the whole way. Germs waft through the air. Couples argue about holding each other up in the TSA line. As I write this, I鈥檓 sitting in the F concourse at Minneapolis Saint-Paul listening to a kid whine at NASCAR-engine levels about not getting soft serve ice cream and his Chick-fil-A nuggets.

Airports are the worst.

Except鈥ot all of them. Around the world, there are a growing number of destinations that are making their airports, well, welcoming. A shocking idea, I know. I鈥檝e been to a handful of these miraculous creations (compared to the usual dreadfulness)鈥攊nternational airports like Vancouver, Zurich, and Munich. They鈥檙e clean, organized, and, best of all, have a place to get some fresh air before your next long-haul flight. With this new wave of amenities (and your travel sanity) in mind, here are the best airports in the world, from Asia and the Middle East to right here in North America, that offer incredible open-air areas to soothe your traveling stress.

Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore (SIN)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Indoor Climbing Area

Changi Airport is a perennial winner of the , thanks to a seemingly never-ending list of Disneyland-like attractions, including a onsite, a on the roof of Terminal 1, and the , at seven stories high. There鈥檚 even an indoor forest, called , with walking paths and a glass walkway that rises 23 meters above the terminal floor, allowing you to trek amongst the treetops. (To see how impressive the full list of attractions is, you can scroll through it .)

For nature lovers, though, the true gem is Changi鈥檚 series of gardens, including Cactus Garden, Sunflower Garden, Enchanted Garden, Petal Garden, and Butterfly Garden. Together, they offer the most complete botanical adventure you鈥檒l get at any airport on earth. And even though some of the gardens are indoors, it鈥檚 hard to tell.

The , for example, is set in a large conservatory designed as a tropical forest, with an 18-foot high grotto waterfall. It鈥檚 home to over 1,000 butterflies from as many as 40 species and, on your way to your gate, you can stop by and stand amidst the flora as the butterflies flutter around you. For a splash of yellow, the is worth a quick stop if you have some time to kill in terminal 2, and the , also in Terminal 2, is designed to offer Shangri-La-like atmosphere, with the sounds of a forest pumped into is a large room dominated by four giant glass bouquet sculptures that are filled with a variety of flowers and ferns.

Perhaps most Zen of all, though, is the on the roof of Terminal 1, which features over 100 species of arid plants from Asia, Africa, and the Americas鈥攅verything from prickly pear cactus to giant ponytail palm trees. It also has a bar and shaded tables, so it may just be the best place to grab a local while you hope for another hour delay on your flight out.

Denver International Airport, Colorado (DEN)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Ice-Skating Rink

This pick comes with a minor asterisk: the primary outdoor area is before you go through security, so you鈥檒l need to enjoy the al fresco offerings in advance of your flight, but the options are worth the early arrival. The space is called the , and it鈥檚 a large synthetic turf located between the Jeppesen Terminal and the Westin Hotel, underneath the airport鈥檚 famous faux mountain peaks.

In summer, the turf is set up with cornhole games and wooden benches for lounging, and there鈥檚 often live music or other events throughout the season (all of which are free to the public). In the winter months, typically from Thanksgiving to New Year鈥檚, the area features an open-air ice rink with free loaner skates.

Of course, don鈥檛 fret if you鈥檙e running on time and need to get through the TSA line: inside the airport there are three outdoor lounges with seating and fire pits, at Concourse A-West near gate A15; on Concourse B-West at gate B7; and at gate C67 on Concourse C-East.

Zurich Airport, Switzerland (ZRH)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Outdoor Walking Paths

If you find yourself craving one last view of the Alps before your flight home, , the primary hub for Swiss International Airlines, has an executive lounge with an outdoor terrace that has impressive views of the mountains beyond. The at the Midfield Terminal is open to all travelers for a fee (roughly $50) and, in addition to the outdoor terrace views, you get access to all of the lounge鈥檚 food and drink options, and other amenities.

But the real reason Zurich Airport is on this list is because of its adjacent , a 20-acre park filled with forested walking paths and a modest hill with good views from up top. It鈥檚 a great place to unwind during a long layover or if you get caught waiting for a delayed flight. You鈥檒l need to leave the terminal to access it, but the short walk and fresh air are worth it. During much of the week, there are park rangers who will take you on a , explaining the flora and fauna and how it was designed for maximum relaxation (check the rangers鈥� in advance). There鈥檚 even a free cable car to whisk you into the park in the most Swiss way possible.

From the arrivals area, walk across the parking area to the Circle, the large building adjacent to the terminal that hosts restaurants, hotels, and stores. From there you can take the cable car into Der Park.

Vancouver International Airport, Canada (YVR)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Digital Light Show

For most passengers headed through , their first introduction (or last farewell) to British Columbia is YVR鈥檚 Chester Johnson Park, located directly adjacent to (and underneath) the Canada Line train station. The park is designed to feel like an , with rock-lined paths, native trees, driftwood benches, and a large wooden sculpture鈥攖he Musqueam Welcome Figure鈥攃urving throughout its length. It鈥檚 also home to the Green Wall, a 17-meter-high vegetated art installation made up of, at last count, 27,391 individual plants.

As for inside the airport itself, there鈥檚 a new 47-foot-high open-air atrium in the international terminal, with three full-grown hemlock trees in the center. Until recently, the glassed-in atrium was only visible to passengers as they commuted past, like looking into a giant terrarium, but you can now open a door and walk out into the atrium for a breath of fresh air. At night, the trees and rock landscape are lit up by digital light projections鈥攆aux waves crashing over the rocks, for example鈥攁nd a corresponding soundscape. The whole experience is designed to showcase the sights and sounds of B.C., and it does just that and more. It may be the most successful attempt of any airport in the world to bring a little bit of the region鈥檚 natural landscape into the airport itself.

Incheon International Airport, South Korea (ICN)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Indoor Gardens

Among the many attractions for passengers flying into or through South Korea鈥檚 鈥攖he country鈥檚 main international gateway and one of the busiest airports in the world鈥攊s a sprawling, in Terminal 2.

The green features are spread throughout much of the large space, with a mix of flowers, trees, ferns, and bamboo growing from planters situated throughout鈥攊n the floors, dividing walls, large garden spaces, and above kiosks鈥� ceilings, with strands hanging down. Smaller water, rock, cactus, and pine gardens are strategically located across the airport campus, too. Technically, none of these areas are outdoors, but the enormous roof above the main area, with translucent panels in the center, makes it feels as such, which is why we鈥檙e including it on this list.

We鈥檙e also including Incheon because of the airport鈥檚 ongoing plans to add even more green spaces that utilize a variety of plants to create a living, breathing indoor space with healthier air for all visitors. As part of its , the airport also plans to add a terrace with an outdoor garden, so passengers can decompress before their (likely long) overseas flight.

Long Beach Airport, California (LGB)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Palm Treed Courtyard

, bills itself as 鈥淎merica鈥檚 coolest airport,鈥� and while that moniker is a bit of a stretch, it does have an impressive courtyard with a series of tall palm trees and a drought-tolerant garden. The airport, one of the five major commercial airfields serving the greater Los Angeles metroplex, is the second smallest, with just 11 gates. In such a tiny airport, the 4,200-square-foot courtyard is definitely a unique amenity, one that punches well above its weight.

The courtyard is also ringed by dining options from local establishments, so it鈥檚 an excellent place to grab a bite to eat while you wait for your flight out. For those heading to this side of L.A. or points south along the coastline, LGB is definitely a good choice over LAX (see below).

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Private Lounges

For anyone who has traveled through recently, you know it鈥檚 a mess, thanks to a $30 billion overhaul one of the world鈥檚 busiest airports is getting ahead of the , in L.A. By the time construction is done, it will almost be a brand new airport, with new terminals, an elevated train, and an on-site rental-car facility to help eliminate the shuttles current clogging up the passenger pickup/drop-off areas. Already some of the upgrades are beginning to appear, including a series of new lounges with outdoor terraces.

The in Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B) has a large outdoor deck with fire pits, trees, running water, and great views of the Hollywood Hills in the distance ($75 for standard access). The United Club in Terminal 7 is much smaller鈥攎ore a balcony than a lounge鈥攂ut it鈥檚 spacious enough to get some fresh air and does have good views of the tarmac ($59 for a single-entry pass).

The new , which is open to Delta customers traveling with a Delta One ticket, is the company鈥檚 premium lounge, with table service at every seat, a sushi bar, and eight relaxation pods. It also has a large private Sky Deck on the roof, with a landscaped terrace full of chairs, sofas, and enough plants to keep it feeling like a lounge, rather than an extension of the tarmac.

LAX will remain a very urban airport, but with a few spots to sneak in some last-minute SoCal sun, these lounges are worth it, if you can afford them.

Hamad International Airport, Qatar (DOH)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Indoor Tropical Garden

Yes, this is another entry highlighting a space that is not, technically, outdoors, and yet we promise that visiting 鈥檚 鈥淭he Orchard鈥� will feel more like being in nature than just about any of the other places on this list.

It鈥檚 a massive, 64,000-square-foot set beneath a soaring, translucent roof shaped like the inside of a shell. More than were sourced from around the world to create the indoor garden, and at its center is a 鈥渨ater feature鈥� that is best described as a spiraling waterfall emerging from a slanted halo. At points the faux forest is so lush that you almost forget that you鈥檙e surrounded by roughly five dozen shops, lounges, and restaurants, with hundreds of rushing bodies scrambling to catch their flights. It鈥檚 almost worth a trip to Doha just to see it鈥攐r at least a long layover.

Munich International Airport, Germany (MUC)

Don鈥檛 Miss: The Next-Door Surf Park

This wouldn鈥檛 be Bavaria without beer, so it鈥檚 fitting that not only does have a beer garden onsite, it鈥檚 also an open-air one, with a covered glass roof. Called the, it鈥檚 the first brewery in an airport on earth. It has an indoor tavern for drinking, but the patio offers both fresh air, protection from the occasional rain shower, and food and beers, like the Fliegerquell Lager and the Kumulous Wheat.

Munich Airport also has a 900-square-meter , with seating and binoculars to take in the alpine views on clear days. Across from Terminal 1 is , an extensive outdoor area with grass lawns and trails, a playground area, interactive exhibits, benches for sitting, and a 90-foot-high hill overlooking the area. It鈥檚 an excellent place to stretch the legs before a long flight or burn off some of the kids鈥� energy before boarding.

Oh, and just in case you have half a day to kill, there鈥檚 a brand-new surf park, , just around the corner from the airport. It鈥檚 Germany鈥檚 first wave pool and the largest in Europe, at over 215,000 square feet, capable of churning out waves .听 Getting there is a cinch: it鈥檚 just a five-mute car ride away, literally in the shadow of landing flights.

Bonus Picks: Other Noteworthy Outdoor Areas in North American Airports听

While these airports do have notable outdoor areas, they really can’t compare with our picks for the best airports in the world featured above. That said, they’re still worth calling out on honorable mentions鈥攅specially for domestic travelers鈥攆or these specific reasons.

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Texas (AUS)

The accessible to Sapphire Reserve cardmembers, has a large outdoor terrace with seating overlooking the tarmac and Hill Country beyond. The Delta Sky Club, directly adjacent to the Sapphire Lounge, also has outdoor seating, and more outdoor areas are in the works as part of the airport鈥檚 multi-billion-dollar expansion.

San Francisco International Airport, California (SFO)

For ticketed passengers, there鈥檚 a free in the international terminal with seating and excellent views of the airfield and beyond. Three bronze sculptures by local artist Woody Othello decorate the space, at the end of Boarding Area G. For plane-watching, there鈥檚 also the , located atop Terminal 2. It鈥檚 a good, free place for the public to come (no ticket necessary) to see some of the largest aircraft serving SFO. The SkyTerrace is open Friday through Monday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Georgia (ATL)

The in Concourse F has an outdoor deck for its club members, with seating for roughly 40 guests and a free bar. As with all of Delta鈥檚 clubs, there鈥檚 free food and drinks, as well as WiFi.

John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York (JFK)

For travels heading through JetBlue鈥檚 Terminal, there鈥檚 a roughly 4,000-square-foot post-security rooftop lounge with green spaces, seating, a children鈥檚 play area, and even a dog-walk area. The rooftop lounge also offers passengers views of the Manhattan skyline and of the iconic TWA terminal, which is now the . The , as it鈥檚 called, is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and the entrance is across from Gate 28.

Ryan Krogh is a freelance writer and editor based in Austin, Texas. He mostly covers the subjects of travel and the outdoors, and is always looking for a way to get some fresh air in airports worldwide.听听

The post The 13 Best Airports in the World with Outdoor Lounges, Parks, and Pools鈥擸es, Pools appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Billowing smoke and falling ash blotted out the sun in Wrightwood, California on Tuesday, September 10. It was so dark that crickets began chirping in the early afternoon and drivers had to flick on their headlights. What had started as a small brush fire in the Angeles National Forest three days beforehand, the Bridge Fire exploded鈥攂y Wednesday, September 11, it would consume 47,904 acres.

The blaze crept up the hills of Wrightwood and began burning grassy hillsides within the beloved Mountain High ski area, a local resort famous for its easily accessible after-work night skiing for Los Angelinos. Luckily for Mountain High, the resort鈥檚 tenacious snow cannon operators jumped into action and began spraying trees and buildings with water. According to an update on Wednesday afternoon, the employees and firefighters prevented the loss of any resort buildings.

BRIDGE FIRE UPDATE
Fire raced through the area yesterday but GREAT NEWS! All the main lifts & buildings survived with little to no damage. THANK YOU to the fire fighters & employees for their hard work! Our hearts go out to the Wrightwood community, WE ARE WITH YOU.

鈥� Mountain High (@mthigh)

鈥淲hen the fire got close, they fired up all the guns and were able to get the trees wet and keep the fire off the buildings,鈥� Dennis Nadalin, who runs video production for Mountain High, told me.

Mountain High has invested millions of dollars in snowmaking equipment, Nadalin said, and its new taller towers were instrumental in protecting the resort鈥檚 buildings.

鈥淥ur snowmaking crew is top-notch, probably one of the best in the world,鈥� Nadalin said.听 鈥淭hey have been making snow up here since the sixties.鈥�

Videos posted on X on Tuesday night showed flames billowing near the ski area’s chairlifts and structures.

This is some of the most intense fire video I鈥檝e ever seen. A California ski resort burned to the ground on a livestream. resort in Wrightwood, CA has been consumed by the .

鈥� Gage Goulding – KPRC 2 (@GageGoulding)

Approximately out of the Wrightwood area on Tuesday after the fire destroyed 40 homes, according to ABC. Nadalin said he had to relocate several times due to approaching flames. He was evacuated from his home in Highland after a different fire, called the Line Fire, ignited. He relocated to Wrightwood, but then he had to move back to Highland due to encroaching flames from the Bridge Fire.

The entire city of Wrightwood, California, is under an evacuation order as webcam footage from Mountain High Ski Resort shows the burning through the resort.

Multiple fast-moving wildfires are beginning to impact communities across Southern California.

鈥� Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch)

Nadalin told me he was relieved to learn that Mountain High鈥檚 structures were saved鈥攊t鈥檚 a place he鈥檚 skied since the early seventies. 鈥淭he fact that the ski area exists in a place where you could actually see Los Angeles, Catalina Island, and the High Sierra all at once is really pretty incredible,鈥� Nadalin told me.

Located two hours north of Los Angeles, the resort is something of a melting pot. Its night skiing draws a commuter crowd that can ski and ride after work. Its mix of gentle terrain and steep slopes draws skiers and snowboarders of diverse abilities. And it鈥檚 a great place to learn. When I lived in Oceanside, California, I would ski at Mountain High after work, and I loved to see the mountain’s diverse clientele: beginners getting on snow for the first time, semi-professional park riders hitting rails and jumps, and seemingly everyone in-between. I even wrote a feature on the Southern California ski scene for .

Nadalin credits the mountain鈥檚 quick response to firefighting to its innovative infrastructure. 鈥淢ountain High has always been an early adopter kind of place,鈥� he said. 鈥淕rowing up in Wrightwood and having a season pass since the early seventies, I’ve seen a lot of changes, a lot of improvements. Over the years, the snowmaking system has evolved into these big pipes and these big fan guns that are permanently mounted on the hill, where all they have to do is just turn a switch to get them going. That’s one of the reasons that the resort got saved鈥攖he snowmaking system is so good and so thorough.鈥�

The mountain operations employees will soon begin running safety checks to assess any damage to individual lifts, but it seems that a majority of its infrastructure was left unharmed. The Bridge Fire is currently zero percent contained.

These conflagrations sparked after an immense heat wave brought record-breaking 110-degree temperatures to the Los Angeles Basin. High winds and dry vegetation sat waiting for a spark. In the case of the 35,000-acre Line Fire, outside of Big Bear, California, an arsonist provided the ignition source. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department arrested 34-year-old Norco man Justin Wayne Halstenberg on Tuesday on suspicion of arson.

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Discover the running potential of Los Angeles alongside as she leaves her comfort zone behind for her first running trip on the West Coast. Fortunately, she has good guidance from LA Running Connoisseur Kate Olson. The two connect over their shared love of the sport, then take to the iconic trails of Griffith Park. After assessing the city鈥檚 sheer volume and variety of both running options and running clubs, the duo meets up with a vibrant, local club that provides an instant sense of the greater community.

Independent since 1906,听听empowers people through sport and craftsmanship to create positive change in communities around the world.

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You know the tired clich茅: nobody walks in Los Angeles. Why not? Because it鈥檚 way more fun to run. L.A. occupies a vast 466-square-mile swath that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the San Gabriel Mountains, which rise thousands of feet above the cityscape. In between are countless urban routes, trails, parks, and paths that weave together L.A.鈥檚 unique neighborhoods and form a sun-soaked playground for runners.

鈥淲e have so many different vibes,鈥� says Kate Olson, founder of , an online guide to the city鈥檚 running scene.

Olson has lived and run in Los Angeles for more than 12 years, and she has experienced firsthand how the city鈥檚 varied terrain, diverse population, and enthusiastic running community create a truly epic place to run. We recently talked with her to get her recs for must-do routes, notable running events, and key resources. Consider this your invite: step into the sunshine and get ready to discover why everyone runs in L.A.

Routes

: Perhaps the most famous trail in Los Angeles, Runyon Canyon is a killer workout and an excellent place for people-watching. Road runners can ascend the paved fire road for an out-and-back adventure of 2.8 miles, and trail runners can follow a rugged three-mile loop that circles the park. It鈥檚 also a great place for dogs, with an off-leash area on a section of the paved road.

: 鈥淓veryone wants to run behind the Hollywood sign,鈥� says Olson, and getting to the iconic landmark comes with a bonus experience: exploring the 4,200-acre Griffith Park, one of the largest municipal parks in North America. Olson suggests a three-mile out-and-back along the Aileen Getty Ridge Trail. This route features sweeping views and a stop at the Wisdom Tree (a lone pine growing atop a prominent peak) before topping out just above the Hollywood Sign.

: Not into climbing? Head to the Hollywood Reservoir for a paved 3.3-mile loop around a large body of water. In addition to panoramic views of the city and the Hollywood Sign, you might spot some local wildlife鈥擮lson recently encountered deer while running here.

: This state park is an island of wilderness in the middle of West L.A. Start at the trailhead on Jefferson Boulevard and make a one-mile switchbacking ascent to the overlook鈥檚 500-foot peak. Once there, you can enjoy 360-degree views of the city, including downtown skyscrapers and the Pacific Ocean. For more mileage, continue on trails to explore the adjacent .

: This is L.A., so a trip to the beach is required. Get your fix while jogging on this 22-mile paved trail鈥攕pecifically the Santa Monica to Venice Beach segment. You鈥檒l pass under the Santa Monica Pier (mid-run Ferris wheel ride?) and run through the famed Muscle Beach bodybuilder hangout. Pro tip: Make a pit stop at the Venice Beach Skatepark to watch skaters pull off all kinds of aerial stunts.

Events

: This recurring series of events closes L.A. streets to car traffic and opens them to pedestrians and cyclists鈥攁n ideal way to explore new neighborhoods and see the city from a different perspective. Recent editions showcased South L.A. and Venice Boulevard, and each route has sitting areas with food and drink vendors, so you can stop for a mid-run snack.

: You don鈥檛 have to be a baseball fan to appreciate this event. Dodger Stadium, set amid the hills of Elysian Park, is one of L.A.鈥檚 most notable landmarks, and this race series (there鈥檚 a 5K, 10K, and kids鈥� run) is a great way to experience it. The event is held at sunset for incredible views of the stadium, city skyline, and surrounding parkland.

: For more than 30 years, Homeboy Industries has helped formerly gang-affiliated and incarcerated people get back on their feet. This fun race, held in Chinatown, near downtown L.A., is an excellent way to support the group鈥檚 work and explore a unique corner of the city.

Local Resources

Clubs

: Olson loves Keep It Run Hundred for its welcoming, beginner-friendly atmosphere. The group hosts weekly runs in Inglewood and Culver City and places a special emphasis on supporting underserved communities in South Central L.A.

: Running with New Basin Blues is a must for anyone who鈥檚 trail curious. This club explores the best dirt routes in the L.A. region. All levels are welcome at their weekly runs on Thursdays and Sundays.

Stores

: Olson is a big fan of this independent running store in Pasadena thanks to its weekly group runs and top-tier apparel. 鈥淚 am obsessed with their sock collection,鈥� she says.

New Balance Stores: Browse the latest apparel, get your feet scanned and fitted for a pair of shoes, or meet up for a guided run at one of New Balance鈥檚 two L.A. retail locations. (There are storefronts in and .) They鈥檙e the perfect launching points for diving into the city鈥檚 running scene.

Independent since 1906,听听empowers people through sport and craftsmanship to create positive change in communities around the world.

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In my early 20s, I zigzagged across Europe by train. Fresh out of college and pinching pennies on a month-long backpacking trip in Italy and Switzerland, I went by overnight rail, combining the cost of a room with travel to wake up in a new country each morning. It was amazing.

Traveling long distance by train is on the rise again, as adventurers look for an eco-friendly and engaging alternative to flying. In Western Europe, night trains are seeing a post-Covid resurgence, with the new Nightjet network connecting major cities. Here in the United States, Amtrak has purchased 125 new diesel-electric locomotives, most for long-distance use. In the past several years, the company spent $580 million in station upgrades and put $28 million toward upgrading its overnight railcars鈥� seating, lighting, tables, and bedding, as well as reintroducing dining cars after a pandemic-forced hiatus.

Going by train isn鈥檛 about getting somewhere fast, or cheaply either: Amtrak and other operators in the U.S. and Canada can鈥檛 compete with the budget airlines. But train travel is more eco-friendly than flying, especially with the new diesel-electric locomotives. Trains, writes Andres Eskenazi of the , 鈥減ollute much less than airplanes, sometimes by as much as 73 percent, and they are more easily electrified than planes.鈥�

You can customize a train trip with layover days in any stop along the route, to explore an interim park or town. (Arrange the stops upfront when you book.)

Traveling by train听is fun and relaxing; you can read a book, stare out the window, walk around, play cards, or see a film. Just ask Hartwell Carson, who has ridden the rails with his daughter, 13-year-old Evan, multiple times since she was eight.

鈥淚t鈥檚 everything that is great about traveling,鈥� Carson says. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e forced to slow down and spend quality time with your companions. My daughter and I read books, drew pictures, and went to the dining car. There is nowhere to go, so you slowly watch the landscape change. It takes you back to a time when the journey was as important as the destination.鈥�

We鈥檙e all about that. So here are six of the most scenic rail journeys in North America, and great things to do along the way, including in our national parks. (Note that costs given are for one-way trips.)

1. The Vermonter

The Route: Washington, D.C., to St. Albans, Vermont
Duration: 611 miles, 13 hours

Want variety? How about a train that travels through nine states, some of the largest cities in the country, lush farming valleys, and rugged mountains? The connects Washington, D.C., with the villages of Vermont right up to the Canadian border, and stops in Philadelphia and New York City along the way. The trip begins among towering skyscrapers, but once you pass New York City, you hit the estuary of Long Island Sound, with its islands and tall seagrass and the occasional lighthouse. Next come the hills and vineyards of the Hudson River Valley. As you reach New England proper, the scenery cedes to a mix of quaint villages (all those steeples), dense hardwood forests, and the lush Green Mountains of Vermont. The final stop is St. Albans, near Lake Champlain and the Canadian border, but you can end your journey anywhere.

The 国产吃瓜黑料: Stop at the Waterbury-Stowe station, which is within walking distance of historic downtown Waterbury, a lovely place to stay the night. Stowe, home of the massive ski resort of the same name, is 10 miles away and reachable by bus or bike. Bring your skis in winter or your bike in summer (if a bike is under 50 pounds, with tires under 2鈥�, you can carry it on, but check bigger bikes at $20 per rig). The Stowe Recreation Path is five miles long, connecting various trail systems and more than 50 miles of singletrack from town. Check out the nearby , and opt for the super flowy .

The Fares: This isn鈥檛 an overnight route, so there are no sleeper cars. Choose coach (from $81) or go for business class (from $253), with its increased leg room and free non-alcoholic drinks. Amtrak鈥檚 Caf茅 has breakfast sandwiches, burgers, salads, and snacks. The food is tasty but pricey. Regular travelers may want to bring your own.

2. The Coast Starlight

The Route: Los Angeles to Seattle
Duration: 1377 miles, 35 hours

If Amtrak has a superstar route, it鈥檚 the , which runs from Los Angeles to Seattle along the western edge of the United States, hitting Portland, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara. The train runs daily in both directions, with many adventure-prime stops along the way. If you begin in L.A. and travel north, the journey starts among the rocky outcroppings and farms of the San Fernando Valley before hugging the coast with its constant breakers and tall, rocky bluffs. You sleep through Northern California, and the next day gaze out on the dense evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest and views of the Cascade Mountain Range, including鈥攊f you wake up early enough鈥擟alifornia’s Mount Shasta, as seen from Oregon.

The 国产吃瓜黑料: Just north of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo is the first stop after the train leaves L.A. (or, if you鈥檙e traveling south, the last stop before L.A.), and an ideal spot for a surf break. (Again, schedule any stops ahead of time). There鈥檚 no shortage of rental shops, but you can check your own surfboard on the Coast Starlight for just $10. Pismo Beach, 13 miles west and accessible from the station by an hourly bus, has one of the most consistent breaks on California鈥檚 Central Coast. The Pismo Beach Pier attracts the most surfers, and hosts a steady clip of contests, but there are several miles of quieter stretches to explore. Pismo鈥檚 sloping beach also means a softer wave鈥攂etter for beginner surfers鈥攖han those at some other California places.

The Fares: You can get coach tickets (from $100) or private sleeper cars (from $674). It’s a one-night trip, so you could save some money by roughing it in a seat just for the night. All passengers may use the observation car, with its glass dome ceiling.

3. The Canadian

The Route: Toronto to Vancouver
Duration: 2,775 miles, four days, four nights

VIA Rail, Canada鈥檚 national rail service, operates a number of incredibly scenic train routes throughout the country (you can take a train to Churchill, the polar-bear capital of the world), but the is the crown jewel, sampling diverse landscapes from Toronto to Vancouver. The first two days of the trip pass through eastern Canada, known as 鈥渢he Great Canadian Shield,鈥� a sparsely populated area loaded with thousands of natural lakes and forests full of spruce and pine. East of Winnipeg, the terrain shifts to vast prairie for a day before hitting the jagged, ice-capped peaks of the Canadian Rockies and crossing the Athabasca River amid a dense fir forest. In Jasper National Park, you’ll see the blocky-topped 7,500-foot Roche Miette mountain on the horizon, as well as Mount Yellowhead, Mount Robinson, and Pyramid Falls. Make your way early to one of the glass-dome viewing cars to get a spot.

The train runs twice a week, hitting the towns of Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Jasper. The regularly scheduled stops are short (only a couple of hours at each town), but you can arrange for a multi-day itinerary through VIA Rail.

The 国产吃瓜黑料: The town of Kamloops sits in the Thompson River Valley, known for its sandstone canyons, rolling hills, and a vast , comprised of both the largest municipal bike park in North America (the Bike Ranch) and lift-served downhill trails at Harper Mountain, a ski and snowboard resort. The trails are fast, flowy, and technical. Start with the Bike Ranch, which has a mix of downhill trails, a massive jump park, and a few intermediate and beginner lines for good measure.

The Fares: Prices for the full trip start at $514 for economy class, but you鈥檒l be sleeping in a reclining seat and eating from a take-out counter. The Sleeper Plus fare (from $1,387) gets you a private cabin, access to the dining car, and community showers. Splurge for the Prestige class (from $6,261) and you get your own shower as well as a concierge, who changes your bedding and helps you with any requests during the trip.

4. The Denali Star

The Route: Anchorage to Fairbanks
Duration: 356 miles, 12 hours

Alaska Railroad operates a handful of train routes throughout the Last Frontier, but the is the flagship, running daily during the summer (May 9 to September 19), connecting Alaska鈥檚 two biggest cities and hitting Denali National Park along the way. The scenery couldn鈥檛 get more Alaskan: the train crosses the Knik River, which forms a broad valley full of alpine meadows that stretch to the bases of glaciers and the Chugach Mountains, then picks up views of Denali above the Susitna River before dipping into the roadless backcountry, where you look out on the Alaska Range and Healy Canyon. The route stops for 30 minutes at Denali National Park and Talkeetna, but if you really want time to explore around the tallest mountain in the U.S., turn this into a multi-day trip with overnights along the way.

The 国产吃瓜黑料: Sure, you might want to climb the 20,310-foot mountain for which Denali National Park is named, but that adventure isn鈥檛 for everyone, especially on a whim during a train trip. Instead, you can hike up 4,400-foot Sugarloaf Mountain. The Sugarloaf Mountain Trail begins behind the Grande Denali Lodge and ascends 2,700 feet in two miles to the above-tree line summit with views of Mount Fellows and Mount Dora, two peaks in the Alaska Range. You could also sign up for a , a full-day adventure led by a park ranger. The location changes daily, but a Discovery Hike day is typically eight to ten hours and includes off-trail trekking.

The Fare: Choose from 国产吃瓜黑料 class (from $215) and Goldstar class (from $432). If you opt for Goldstar, you ride in glass-dome cars and have access to an outdoor viewing platform. The price also includes meals in the dining car and two free cocktails per day.

5. Rocky Mountaineer: Rockies to the Red Rocks

The Route: Denver to Moab
Duration: 375 miles, two days with an overnight in Glenwood Springs

Amtrak isn鈥檛 the only company running trains in the U.S. The Rocky Mountaineer, a luxury train service formerly used for scenic routes through the Canadian Rockies, debuted its first U.S.-based trip in 2022. The connects Moab with Denver in a two-day journey along the Colorado River, passing remote, roadless canyons only visible from the train. You see the 25-mile-long Ruby Canyon, winding through towering sandstone cliffs on the Utah-Colorado border, and watch the lights flicker off the rock walls in the 6.2-mile Moffat Tunnel as the train cuts through the Continental Divide. The trip takes two days, but instead of offering sleeper cars, the Rockies to Red Rocks puts you in a two- to three-star hotel (the specific hotels change) within walking distance of the Glenwood Springs station. On board, you receive a three-course breakfast and lunch each day.

The 国产吃瓜黑料: You鈥檙e staying over in Glenwood Springs, so soak in one of the town鈥檚 developed hot springs; Glenwood Hot Springs Resort has a big lap- and crowd-sized pool kept at 90-93 degrees, and a smaller pool that stays at 104 degrees (day passes start at $32). Iron Mountain Hot Springs has 16 geothermal pools of varying temperatures (passes start at $40). Further, in Moab, Arches National Park is a must. Hike to Landscape Arch, at 306 feet the longest natural arch in the country, on the 7.6-mile . This trail is a gem even among great hikes in our national parks.

The Fares: Prices start at $1599 per person, and include on-board meals and your hotel room in Glenwood.

6. The Empire Builder

Route: Chicago to Seattle
Duration: 2,206 miles, 48 hours

Think two full days on a train is too much? Not when you鈥檙e traveling through eight different states, tracing the U.S./Canadian border, and hitting Glacier National Park. The begins with views of Chicago鈥檚 skyline, and then crosses the Mississippi River, which is surprisingly wide (several hundred feet) even though you鈥檙e close to the headwaters. You鈥檒l see the bright lights of Minneapolis and St. Paul, enter the Great Plains at night, and wake up in North Dakota looking out on pastures of wheat shimmering gold in the sun. Make sure to be in the glass-domed lounge car as you approach Glacier National Park, the train winding along the Flathead River with views of snowfields clinging to the steep granite peaks of the Lewis Ranges. Before the final destination of Seattle, you can detour into Spokane and head south into Oregon and the Columbia River Gorge, where you鈥檒l get views of Mount Hood.

The 国产吃瓜黑料: The climax of this trip is Glacier National Park. If you time a spring trip perfectly, you can pedal Going-to-the-Sun Road after it鈥檚 plowed but before it opens to vehicles. offers rental bikes and shuttles to the start of the ride (from $45). Your other best bet is to hike. Check out the 10.6-mile out and back , which passes waterfalls and backcountry lakes before delivering you to the glacier of that name, one of the few in the park you can actually walk across.

The Fares: This train has a number of options. Coach (from $160) will get you a doss in a reclining chair, while First Class fares with private rooms start at $979 and include all meals on board and access to the lounge and communal showers. For $3,405, the First Class Superliner Bedroom Suite includes a full bedroom with its own bathroom. Amtrak also offers a comprehensive, 10-day package deal ($3499 per person) with multiple days in Chicago, Glacier, and Seattle, and activities and lodging planned for you.

Onboard with all of that? Pick your route, plan your stops, and ride the rails to adventure.

Graham Averill is 国产吃瓜黑料 magazine鈥檚 national parks columnist. He loves the idea of being able to drink a beer, eat snacks, and play poker while traveling from point A to point B.

For more by the same author, see:

The 10 Best Backpacking Trails in Our National Parks

How to Score the Best National Park Campsites for Summer

The Best Budget Airlines鈥攁nd 国产吃瓜黑料 Locales They Go To

The post The 6 Most Adventurous Train Trips in North America appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

This is听The Offerman Files, where actor, humorist, , and Nick Offerman shares tales of听wild creatures,听gassy adventures, and hitting his brother in the face听with a fish.

CRUNNNNCH!

SKKKZZRRRR!

JJJUUUGGGGLLLLZZZZZ!

In my balls, I could feel the violent vibrations as layers of Epifanes spar varnish, quite dear in both price and labor, were mercilessly toothed from the hull of my canoe by river rocks. To be fair, I could also feel the scraping tremors in my feet, legs, and buttocks as we banged along the river bottom in yet another stretch of shallow water. But it was my familial plums that spoke with the most immediacy, because there was something existential going on that afternoon in L.A.

In the 25 years I鈥檝e called the city my home, I鈥檝e done a great many things that I would categorize as fun. I have, of course, worked as an actor. But I鈥檝e also been paid to build various decks and cabins as a carpenter, plus one exquisite post-and-beam yoga studio. I worked as a production assistant on a few music videos, trained by a tall, handsome, surfing porn actor who taught me to get up and stay up (but only in the surf). I constructed an octagon-style wrestling cage for an episode of Friends. I鈥檝e hiked hundreds of miles鈥� worth of trails in Los Angeles County, some while hallucinating, but mostly sober and high on the views from Griffith Park, the San Gabriels, and the Santa Monica Mountains. Yes, this has become a paragraph of bragging. The point is, the one thing I never dreamed I would do is launch my beloved handmade cedar-strip canoe, Huckleberry, into the concrete-clad L.A. River, just a few miles north of the location of the drag-race scene in Grease.

If you can recall that iconic moment, in which Cha Cha DiGregorio orgasmically whips her silk scarf off to begin the race between Danny Zuko in Greased Lightnin鈥� and the jerk whose jalopy was so lame it didn鈥檛 even have a cool name, then you might be thinking: Where the hell does a canoe fit into that expanse of concrete?

I put in at the outfit鈥檚 headquarters an hour ago with my bowman, Morgan, and since then Steve and Grove have nimbly paddled along with us in kayaks, flitting about alternately fore and aft, scared shitless at the idea of me dragging Huckleberry across the many shallow stretches in the several miles of river we hoped to complete.

Their concern was amplified by the fact that Morgan and I were now soaking wet. After launching, we had remained upright through a couple of wobble sessions in the river, in that way you do when first setting off in a canoe. As a team, you discover the limits of how far you both can lean while paddling, sightseeing, ass scratching, or snagging a beer (if the sun has traveled far enough into its morning鈥檚 arc, of course, depending upon the traditions of comportment in your particular barque). We were busy spotting herons (great blue and green) and egrets (great and snowy) while zipping past lush foliage, luxuriating in a smooth 50 yards of gushing creek before bumping back into the intermittent rocks and shallow water, when, some five minutes after first dipping our paddles鈥�whup! shit!鈥攚e suddenly found ourselves T-boned against a boulder by a waist-deep current.

Huckleberry neatly flipped us out, and we immediately set to righting it and dumping out the many gallons of river that had filled its rounded hull. Steve paddled over to lend a hand, as it was both arduous and somewhat dangerous work, in the way any task can be when requiring the exertion of strength on slippery rocks in the face of rushing water. When we succeeded in once again taking our seats, it became apparent that in our swift blunder and its subsequent correction, Morgan and I had established a few things for our gentle guides: (1) we were suitably tough and skilled to be trusted on the day鈥檚 outing; (2) I was enough of a dipshit to willingly bang around my pristinely refinished canoe; and (3) we were dumb enough that this might just turn out to be fun.

But now, as I sat in Huckleberry with my love marbles buzzing after maybe the 50th crunching encounter with river rocks, my three compatriots asked me once again, as they did throughout the day鈥檚 adventure, 鈥淎re you sure you want to keep going? That canoe鈥檚 taking a beating.鈥�

I learned to build canoes from the seminal 2007 instruction book , written by Ted Moores of Bear Mountain Boats up in Peterborough, Ontario. Ted and his partner, Joan, were pioneers in the development of cedar-strip canoe and kayak construction, utilizing fiberglass and epoxy finishing, though they would be quick to point out that their designs are but the current progeny of a long lineage of hulls, dating back centuries to the ingenuity of the Indigenous peoples of eastern and northern Canada. In 2008, I arrived in Manhattan with a bag of hand tools, at a time when my legendary bride, Megan Mullally, was cast by Mel Brooks in his musical version of Young Frankenstein.

The vacation from and furniture clients meant that I could fulfill my dream and build my first wooden canoe. Being all too aware of the old chestnut about the basement-built boat failing to fit out of the house, I secured a shop in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, on the third floor of a Civil War鈥揺ra stone warehouse perched on a pier and complete with a huge freight elevator. Crisis foreseen and averted.

The most important lesson in Ted鈥檚 patient lesson book comes at the beginning. He says that when you consider the whole canoe, it can seem impossible to build without years of training, but if you take it one step at a time鈥攖race a shape, cut it out with a jigsaw, glue a couple pieces together, and so on鈥攖hen before you know it the boat will emerge as though you just spun a chrysalis.

If it hadn鈥檛 been for Megan鈥檚 timely turn burning up the Broadway stage, I would likely have continued on in California, building ever more substantial homages to the table stylings of George Nakashima, Sam Maloof, and Gustav Stickley. But since the East Coast diversion had pulled me out of that potential rut, I experienced a powerful epiphany: shaping curved pieces freehand鈥攚ith spokeshave, card scraper, chisel, and rasp鈥攚as to become like a god.

You see, most woodshop operations are set up to work on rectilinear forms, creating and cutting and joining square and plumb surfaces and corners to make many variations on the box, usually featuring 45- and 90-degree angles. But a canoe has exactly zero straight lines on it, so one sculpts its gunwales (鈥済unnels鈥�) and thwarts and shapely bottom until one鈥檚 eye and caress pronounce its lines to be 鈥渇air,鈥� thus creating an affection for the final product that transcends the love one might feel toward, say, a three-legged stool. Throw in a couple of custom, hand-carved paddles and I had fully reawakened that part of my youthful fancy determined to find a way to Narnia. Imagine the faerie magic in my every dainty step as I hoisted the completed Huckleberry upside down onto my shoulders for its inaugural portage to the freight elevator. Victory was upon me鈥�shit.

As I said, the elevator was huge, but my canoe was 18 feet long. She would not come close to fitting, even on a diagonal. The small stairways were obviously not an option either, so my pal Jimmy DiResta and I rigged a block and tackle from an old freight hook on the roof and gamely hoisted it out the window and down to the pier.

Ted and Joan had traveled down from Bear Mountain Boats to see the launch, and Ted (generously) said that my work was exquisite, which made me cry, but only a medium amount. We were all on eggshells watching Huckleberry descend from a third-story window, but Ted said that he鈥檇 seen these canoes survive worse falls than that. The engineering of the form, plus the makeup of the shell, make them tough enough to survive even the dumbest of actors.

Over many creeks and rivers over many years, I have learned the hard way that Huckleberry can gamely scrape across a lot of rocks and gravel while suffering only minimal cosmetic damage. Still, do I wish that I had run the L.A. River before applying three brand-new coats of varnish to it only weeks earlier? Yes, I do wish that. I wish that so very much. But you can only strategize and try to account for every potentiality up to a point. When finally you are faced with the choice between the comfy living room and the unpredictable outdoor jaunt, there is but one clear answer: Do the goddamn thing. Drop to your knees in the mud. Get your hands dirty, wipe 鈥檈m on your shirt. Paddle your canoe down a fun expanse of weird urban river that might scratch it up. Why did I spend so much time and care building this watercraft if I don鈥檛 intend to get some thrills out of it?

Onward we went. The route through the Elysian Valley has a delightful mix of fast-moving chutes, medium twists and turns, a four-foot waterfall, a couple of brief portages (for canoeists), and two pond sections where the flow slows into a laconic, deep-water float, perfect for taking stock, bird peeping, and, well, ass scratching and beer snagging.

One true surprise was how clean the water was. Steve and Grove founded LARKS in 2013, partly as a way to support conservation efforts for the river. (Grove left the organization seven years ago but remains a close ally.) Today LARKS has a healthy relationship with a bunch of nonprofits and government agencies like , , the , and the .

But the focus on water quality dates back more than 20 years, when Steve, who is a sculptor by day, crafted a waterwheel that he placed in the river, plumbing it to an experiential artwork that collected and filtered the (then filthy) river water to make it, he says, 鈥渃lean enough to drink.鈥� This led him into a close working relationship with the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, which maintains so-called water-quality beacons that serve as stop and go lights for L.A. River recreation. Of the 108 tests done in the Elysian Valley during the 2023 paddling season, 92 percent met EPA requirements for safe swimming. The nine exceptions (measurements usually taken after a storm flushed in dirt and waste) met a slightly lower standard that is still perfectly fine for canoeing and kayaking.

All I can say is that Morgan and I were impressed (and relieved) that the river smelled 鈥� perfectly fine. The water was also visibly clean, which added to the surreal quality of paddling through an industrial corridor between the 5 Freeway and a main train artery for both freight and passengers. In the section they call the Secret Pond, the water was over ten feet deep, and things got downright otherworldly as we calmly floated, chatting in a quiet reverie about the American coots swimming near the shore and then walking up the concrete bank with their strange, big-toed feet. A minor bloop caught my ear鈥攁 pair of double-crested cormorants surfacing right next to us, then diving back down into the depths of this unlikely fishing hole.

As our venture drifted to completion, we were left wanting more, which is utterly preferable to that feeling every paddler has known: Ugh, this is too long! When are we getting there?! I鈥檓 always a little melancholy when the hull runs lightly aground for the last time and we have to climb out of the cedar escape pod and step back into the reality of life on terra firma.

We flipped Huckleberry over to reveal a cluster of battle scars: a web of bright white abrasions against the golden honey brown of the varnished cedar. My compatriots lightly gasped and made noises like those prompted by minor stomach pain, but I shook my head and said: No, boys, don鈥檛 be sad. Those gouges are just telling us that we spent the day correctly. I鈥檝e mended them before, and I鈥檒l do it again.

Nick Offerman鈥檚 column for听国产吃瓜黑料 magazine has him regularly repairing gear, washing cow butts, and getting outsmarted by raccoons. He鈥檚 fine with that. He also just won his first Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for an episode of The Last of Us.

The post Nick Offerman Paddles a Badass Canoe He Built Down the L.A. River appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

On Sunday, October 22, Touchstone鈥檚 Hollywood Boulders management were made aware that a member of the gym had suggested, in threatening text messages sent to an unnamed acquaintance, that they were 鈥渟trapped鈥� with a weapon and 鈥渨anted scalps.鈥� The member went on to write 鈥済od has spoken鈥� to him and that he 鈥渁lready has a kill order.鈥� The recipient of the messages was then directed to 鈥渁void the gym for a while.鈥�

鈥淭hese tourists and lames need to know what war really is,鈥� stated one of the member鈥檚 messages. 鈥淸I鈥檝e] been way too lenient with all the wannabes here. no mas. 鈥� [I鈥檒l] take out the Koreans first so y鈥檃ll take things more seriously.鈥�

When the recipient of the message asked, 鈥渨dym stay away from the gym? Everything okay?鈥� the member replied, 鈥渋鈥檒l know soon enough.鈥�

Hollywood Boulders appears to have been the likely target, however the member never named the gym outright, meaning that all SoCal gyms were potentially at risk.

After receiving this information on October 22, Touchstone management immediately notified the local police. A letter from Touchstone鈥檚 CEO, Mark Melvin, stated that, 鈥淎fter reviewing the threat, the police deemed the texts as not a threat to the gym. The police suggested we take no further action and advised us not to alarm our staff and community. 鈥� The entire series of events is all related to personal communication between individual members.鈥�

Touchstone did pursue a restraining order against the gym member, but, as a business, couldn鈥檛 legally obtain one. His membership was, however, cancelled and he was informed that he was banned from all Touchstone gyms. Management also hired security guards for all SoCal gym locations. Adhering to local police recommendations, Touchstone staff were not notified of the threats until October 25.

Alarmed, a few anonymous Touchstone staff members have since published an open letter to Touchstone management, writing that, 鈥淚n withholding this information, we feel that the company violated our rights to informed consent.鈥�

According to the letter, the member who made the threatening statements visited the gym between the 22nd and the 25th before his membership was canceled. The letter states: 鈥淭he company assured us that the situation was somehow under control; the fact that the member easily entered several gyms while shooting threat investigations were active speaks to the contrary.鈥�

After being informed of the threatening messages on the 25th, staffers demanded to read the texts. Management refused, so the staff walked out of the gym, and Hollywood Boulders closed early. The next day, with an armed security guard present, the gym re-opened.听

Gym members were also apparently un-informed. A reddit user posted: referring to the changed hours and presences of the security guard. Another user replied: 鈥淚 asked an employee why there was an armed guard stationed at the desk. I was apparently lied to when I was told 鈥榖ecause of the shoplifters鈥� in the area鈥︹��

Staff members refused to return, and several quit outright. Although Touchstone gave employees 鈥渉azard pay鈥� for the 25th, staffers have not been paid since. Authors of the open letter wrote: 鈥淭hey have essentially told us in one breath 鈥榳e care about you, and really value your safety and health,鈥� and in the next breath: 鈥榓s long as you are away from work, you will financially suffer the consequences on your own.鈥欌��

Before returning to work, gym staff are demanding four things. They would like to be assured the member has been reached via emergency mental health professionals and to know that legal action has been taken against the member. They would like full-term security locks to be installed in the doors, allowing entry only via key cards or a buzzer. They demand transparency to future threats. And finally, the staffers would like back-pay or hazard pay for the days in which they worked or missed in which their safety was at risk.

Melvin, in his statement to members, wrote: 鈥�Countless hours were spent at all levels of Touchstone to understand the facts, work with the police, and use the best legal options to ensure the safety of our staff and customers. Given the tragic state of gun violence in our nation, we understand why some members of our community were alarmed to learn about some details of these events through various online channels.

鈥�We are working with staff to ensure they feel safe to return to work so that Hollywood Boulders can resume its regular hours. We love and value our community. You鈥檙e the reason we exist.鈥�

Climbing has reached out to Touchstone management and staff as well as the LAPD for more information.听

The post After a Shooter Threat, Southern California Climbing Gym Employees Walk Out appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Envision a well-known band and the slosh-fest that typically ensues on tour. The traveling circus would include flowing booze, folding tables lined with greasy grub, and a revolving door of trippy characters getting lit backstage all night.

Well, that鈥檚 not how rolls. Formed in Sydney in 2010 and composed of the singer-guitarist Tyrone Lindqvist, keyboardist Jon George, and drummer James Hunt, the alternative electronic music trio has a touring regimen that is about as disciplined and health-centric as it gets. It wasn鈥檛 always that way, but things changed three years ago.

Today the group is at a career peak. In 2021, R眉f眉s du Sol鈥檚 latest album, Surrender, topped charts globally, and in 2022, its anthemic jam 鈥淎live鈥� took home the Grammy Award for best dance recording. As of late April, the guys have again, playing in Colombia and sites including Monterrey and Mexico City, Mexico; then major festivals in Europe; and, starting August 1, seven stops in the United States at locations ranging from Boston to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The heart of the tour, the group鈥檚 curated festival , scheduled to run May 4-7 and 11-14 outside San Jos茅 del Cabo, Mexico, will bring artists like DJ Tennis, Carlita, WhoMadeWho, and Dixon for two weekends of jams and health-minded options like yoga, meditation, and breath work.

R眉f眉s Du Sol has a vibe that can span two worlds. Its indie-electro beats with deep house undertones are a soundtrack for a head-bobbing, feel-good night at a dark club鈥攂ut also, as I recently experienced during a multi-day trek in the Great Smoky Mountains, a cloudless hike in a pine-clad national park. The music is that adaptable and infectious.

In April just before the tour commenced, I sat down with the three band members, who Zoomed in from Austin, Texas, to talk travel and wellness, including their favorite spots, highlights from the road, and Frisbee golf.

国产吃瓜黑料: You鈥檝e been touring for more than a decade. How has your regimen evolved?

James: We’ve made some really good changes, just to make things more healthy, more sustainable, and we want to come out of a tour feeling fitter than when we go into it. It used to be the other way around. We’ve brought in a lot of structure, wellness practices, and breath work. We do ice baths when we can after each show, we take ginger shots before we go onstage, we’re working out, and we have a trainer touring with us. So we have a really good sense of routine built into touring now.

What sparked it?

Tyrone: We’d been touring pretty hard. We鈥檝e been a band for 13 years now, and we made a bit of a switch three or four years ago. Things got busier the more successful we got. We had success in Australia, then the U.S. Things were getting more exciting and the tour schedule more intensive, and we were writing at the same time. The balance of health and wellness with working was definitely not where we wanted it to be.

COVID, in some ways, was kind of a big gift for our mindset. It forced us to stop touring and gave us the opportunity to reconnect. We were actually in Joshua Tree [in Southern California], starting the writing process for Surrender, and we got to process a bunch of stuff that we hadn’t really talked about. We were trying out different things like meditating, exercising as a unit, doing saunas and little cold plunges. And we were building a structured work environment, where we would work for eight hours instead of working till an idea was done. We shifted and gave ourselves a clock-in and clock-out. It brought up a lot of fear and anxiety, like, Are we going to be able to make music like before without working around the clock? But we鈥檝e made it.

Surely there have been some crazy workouts and wellness experiences over the years. Do any stick out in your mind?

James: Well, we just did one about two hours ago here in Austin. Our trainer put us through a pretty brutal leg session. There’s a sense of camaraderie of getting through that intensity together. It breeds a good sort of bonding. You鈥檙e lifting each other up.

Jon: One of those memories for me was the last Sundream Baja festival. We weren鈥檛 staying in a fancy hotel, but on-site [the venue is between the beaches and desert], which was really cool, with all the energy going on. We had a trainer there again, and we were in the back of one of the villas and just all trained really hard together, sweating it out in such a beautiful setting.

How do you recover after a long tour?

James: There’s always an adjustment period after so much overstimulation. You’re going between different environments, traveling, playing shows with tens of thousands of people, and having a pretty strict exercise routine. That adjustment always takes a few days, but it definitely helps to do some of the same wellness activities that we do on the road. And I always find that doing cold therapy, like the ice plunge, is a really good way to regulate.

For this tour, is there a particular place you鈥檙e really looking forward to exploring?

Tyrone: I’m pretty excited to go to Monterrey, in Mexico. We’ve never been there, and my wife’s father’s family is from there.

Jon: Yeah, I鈥檇 say Monterrey and Guadalajara [also in Mexico] are up there, along with Medell铆n [Colombia].

Let鈥檚 touch on tours past. What is your favorite place to play and why?

Tyrone: Recently, we went home to Australia and played a bunch of shows. I definitely have a newfound respect and appreciation for Australian crowds and being in Australia, especially having lived over in the U.S. for many years [with a home base in L.A.]. I missed the food for sure. Red Rocks [amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado] is up there. We’ve played there a lot and it has so much history. It鈥檚 just so stunning.

Jon: Red Rocks is an amazing experience from the stage. You’re looking up at the crowd rather than down, and they seem so close. It has a very special energy.

Is there a particular activity you鈥檝e really enjoyed while on the road?

James: In 2016, just after we put Bloom out, we had tour dates through the summer, and we discovered Frisbee golf鈥攖his game we鈥檇 never heard of. We鈥檇 be playing [where we had] shows in places like Michigan and Colorado in the beautiful summer weather. We became obsessed鈥攊t is a pretty sick way to see different parts of the country.听

Any specific place in the U.S. you enjoy?

Jon: Austin is pretty great. It was one of the first places we played in the U.S. Every time we come here, everyone is so nice. We鈥檝e spent some time rehearsing here at the start of a tour, did South by Southwest, and spent about a week. Everything is just so fresh here.

James: During the pandemic, me and Jon and a bunch of our friends went to Big Sky Country鈥擬ontana鈥攂ecause we couldn’t go back to Australia. We had a sort of Friends鈥� Christmas, and that was sick. The mountain ranges in the U.S. are just unparalleled.

Looking ahead, what is it you want out of a travel experience?

Tyrone: I’m really looking for family-experience travel. I’ve really gotten the experience of seeing new places, having new memories, and eating new cuisines with the guys, and I’ve cherished that. I鈥檓 looking forward to a version of that with my wife and son in the future, too.

James: I definitely love meeting people in different parts of the world, connecting with people who live there or someone who’s been there for a little while, the people who know the places to eat and the local hole-in-the-wall spots.

Jon: We鈥檝e developed a lot of friends all over the world while touring, so it’s really cool to be able to have that inside knowledge and a more local experience in different places. But I also love that there is still so much more to see.

Jesse Scott resides in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and covers the intersection of travel, food, and music. He鈥檚 interviewed Metallica, The Killers, and Steve Aoki, and written about outdoor adventures ranging from hiking in the Grand Canyon to exploring coffee farms in Colombia.

The post R眉f眉s Du Sol: How the Grammy-Winning Band Stays Healthy On the Road appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

After a decade working for Hollywood executives in Los Angeles, Emily Pennington decided to change her life and spend it outdoors as much as possible. She bought a temperamental minivan she named Gizmo to live in, and set out on a yearlong road trip to visit all sixty-three national parks, hoping to make it through the adventure in one piece. On the road, she found herself navigating a painful romantic breakup and non-stop obstacles鈥攆rom the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic to wildfires and hurricanes鈥攖hat threatened the trip, her safety, and her peace of mind.

En route, she wrote about each national park in 国产吃瓜黑料‘s 63 Parks Traveler column. And now she’s published a compelling book about the experience called . Below is an excerpt of one our favorite chapters on how she found the strength to hit the road.

I drove toward Yosemite with the shattered pieces of my life, empowered by the thought that I could now build them back into whatever shape I wanted. When I reached the valley floor, I was surrounded on all sides by enormous walls of granite. El Capitan and Half Dome stood like friendly, stone-bound greeters saying hello to all who passed through, and the warm hues of autumn were ever present. After I pulled into my campsite at Upper Pines, my legs were itching for a walk, so I took off down the nearest trail to Mirror Lake. I let my feet carry me past gray squirrels and immense pines, all the way to a sandy pit where the lake should have been, had California not been in a historic drought. The vertical wall of Half Dome鈥檚 western face blushed in the late sun.

Mosquitoes began their invisible, Doppler-like buzzing around my head, but rather than turn back to make dinner, I felt compelled to climb to the top of a nearby boulder and lie flat on my back to watch the light shift across the famous granite dome.

David was an Eagle Scout with the body of a lumberjack and the heart of a poet. It was his fault that I had grown obsessively fond of backpacking in the five years leading up to my quest to visit every park. I fell madly in love with his ability to quote Epictetus over penne arrabbiata and his infectious adventurous streak; years before we met, he and a group of friends had plotted a six-month course from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro. By bicycle. Riding past an onslaught of fish-taco stands, dodging dengue fever in the thick jungle, and surviving a police shakedown, his posse had managed to do the unthinkable鈥攑rove that ordinary people with nine-to-five day jobs can save up, set off on a professional-adventurer caliber trip, and survive relatively unscathed.

Not having come from an outdoorsy family, my first-ever backpacking trip was in Sequoia National Park at the ripe age of twenty-eight, under David鈥檚 watch. I was a complete junk show. Donning a backpack left by Airbnb guests at my former apartment, I hunched, apelike, under its weight as my lungs quickly learned (and hated) what the air feels like above nine thousand feet. Among the assorted sundries inside my pack was a bohemian leather jacket, a full-sized towel, and a child-sized sleeping bag, covered in a purple paisley print with peace signs, from the sale bin at a suburban H&M.

David wasn’t aware that this was my first backpacking excursion. And I didn鈥檛 know that he didn鈥檛 know. So when he suggested a twelve-mile journey up to the summit of 11,207-foot Alta Peak and bedding down in the high-altitude meadow that shares its name, my youthful bravado and desire to impress him lit up, and I said yes. I did yoga three times a week鈥攚hat could go wrong?

What I didn鈥檛 know was that, once you reach a certain elevation, the air becomes noticeably thinner and thinner, until walking uphill requires a tremendous amount of effort and concentration. I felt like I was sucking air through a wet paper straw as we ascended in the afternoon sun. Without a chest strap, my backpack clung to my shoulders like a limp orangutan and swung frustratingly to and fro whenever I moved. By the time we made it to camp, I was a girl crumbled.

My stomach growled ferociously from the exertion, and David carefully assembled his little aluminum backpacking stove and delicately screwed its hose onto a fuel canister. Click. Click. Click. The lighter failed to ignite the gas inside the metal burner. This left us with two options: soak our dehydrated backpacking meal in cold water, making a crunchy and unsavory soup of bland calories, or use chocolate to bribe the hikers at the next campsite into letting us borrow their stove.

Not fifteen minutes later, we had arranged our makeshift rock chairs into a circle of former strangers and were passing around a Nalgene filled with scotch whiskey that made my head spin beneath the dazzling brightness of the Milky Way. A woman pulled a ukulele out of her pack, Mary Poppins style, and the six of us howled at the moon as we belted out the lyrics to familiar pop songs.

The next morning, after a fitful night spent tossing and turning in our cramped one-person tent, I awoke to find the meadow and the High Sierra beyond it awash in pink-hued light. It was my first sunrise in the Great Western Divide, and though I had spent most of my adult life up to that point in a strictly secular mindset, something about the soft glow and the stillness of the morning hushed me into reverence.

What impractical magic had I stumbled upon? A forest-laden Burning Man for athletic hobbits? A blister-bearing mountain temple for misfits?

A lot of people have a rare and poetic transformation in the woods. They find god or something like it and emerge reborn. I suppose the experience might be akin to one鈥檚 first experience with psychedelics鈥攖he world appears one way your entire life and then, suddenly, it isn鈥檛.

What happened to me was somewhere between a god moment and a boot camp. I saw the light, sure, but I couldn鈥檛 walk straight for three days. I was blistered and bruised. I was ravaged and raw. I was hooked.

It was oddly fitting, then, that my relationship with David collapsed inside a national park. The wild likes to wring out all unnecessary claptrap and excess baggage until you鈥檙e left naked and exalted and clinging to the truth.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not me, it鈥檚 you,鈥� I found myself saying one Saturday evening in Yosemite, before my parks journey was even the seed of an idea. A full moon beamed auspiciously overhead like a spotlight as we assembled a small fire beneath the granite eye of Half Dome. 鈥淚鈥檝e done everything I can to impress you. I took up rock climbing. I鈥檓 a competent outdoorswoman now. I organized a threesome. Hell, I鈥檓 even faster on trail than you are these days. Why won鈥檛 you just call me your girlfriend?鈥�

David stammered into speech before the thought had fully formed.

鈥淏ecause .听.听. I .听.听. I don鈥檛 think we would make very good domestic partners.鈥�

鈥淥丑.鈥�

I began trembling in great sobs, fearing my organs might melt out through my skin as I wept. My chest rattled as I struggled to take in air. My worst fears were coming true. My efforts went unnoticed. My best would never be good enough. My adventurousness and impulsivity were charming for about a year, until it was time for him to get serious鈥攚ith someone else. I felt like the worst version of the manic pixie dream girl trope: the manic outdoorsy dream gremlin that everyone wanted to sleep with but no one wanted to take home to mom.

In that moment, I needed to know that someone could love me unconditionally, absent of achievement, and maybe it was a fool鈥檚 errand all along. But I鈥檇 been chasing down that elusive partner ever since. And now, in the final months of my parks journey, I was realizing that the only person that someone could be was me.

After things with David fell apart, it took a long time to build myself back into something resembling the woman I wanted to be. I lolled around at my desk job for months. I slept with dozens of strangers. I stopped eating. I started force-feeding myself meal replacement drinks.

But as my heartsick intensified, so, too, did my love of the wilderness. I took a class to learn how to use an ice axe and crampons and started setting my sights on higher peaks and bigger adventures. Rather than elevate another man to godlike status in my mind, I began going out every weekend and throwing myself against the ragged canvas of the mountains. And though my new lifestyle felt raucous and healing, I needed more.

One day, on a hiking trip through Kings Canyon with a girlfriend, the thought hit me with all the ferocity of a locomotive barreling toward my chest: What if I was less in love with David and more in love with the adventures he introduced me to? What if I struck out on my own and planned a yearlong journey across America, solo? Across the one thing that had stirred me awake, ripped me wide open, and stitched me back together again鈥攖he national parks.

I didn鈥檛 need a partner in crime to set off on a grand adventure. I had two perfectly good feet, a dirt-caked backpack, and a fire inside my heart.

Now, back in Yosemite four years after that fateful trip with David, I felt it all come back to me. I was staring up at the exact spot where we had ended things. Past melded with present, and I found myself experiencing a wallop of d茅j脿 vu, simultaneously feeling the weight of two shockingly similar realities鈥揑鈥檇 severed ties with my most recent partner, Adam, on a hiking trip too, in听 Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. What is it with me and breakups in the fucking national parks? I wondered. Maybe it was something about how truth reigned supreme in the wilderness. It was all trees and rocks and elements of the ancient. The ultimate stress test for any relationship. The wild could be counted on to rip out anything that wasn鈥檛 real or worthy from my life.

As the sunset turned fire red on its slow descent, I realized something else: that my moment of deep loss with David under those smooth stone slabs cradled this one. It was that singular night that catapulted me into exploring the parks and becoming so proficient in the outdoors that I would never again need a man to guide me. It stood to reason that this moment of sorrow might also be cradling some incredible, unforeseen future that I couldn鈥檛 yet fathom. I had come so far in four years. Where would I be in four more?

To escape the heat and the wildfire haze, I spent much of the next morning driving up to the park鈥檚 high-altitude Tuolumne Meadows area, making a pilgrimage to Elizabeth Lake before the afternoon crowds arrived. A perfect reflection of Unicorn Peak lay suspended in the glassy water while insects occasionally skittered across its slick surface. I wandered around the lake, the only person on the trail, and clambered onto a large boulder facing the humpbacked mountain. It was the same spot where, almost two years earlier to the day, Adam had suggested that we perform a relationship commitment ceremony, writing vows and declaring our love.

From my backpack, I removed a small Ganesha statue, a stick of palo santo, a lighter, and a list of vows I had written. I fingered the late-season grass, crisp and nearly golden, and snapped off two identical strands from the ground below. After carefully tying them into a circular shape on my left ring finger, I lit up the fragrant wood and started reading my script. If I couldn鈥檛 find a partner, I would marry myself.

I promise to be gentle with myself and let whatever emotions arise come and go calmly and with great care.

I promise to love myself unconditionally. I promise to love my thoughts, even the less charming ones.

I promise to stand by myself in sickness and in health.

I choose patience, trusting that the work I am doing is true and meaningful and that I don鈥檛 need to beat myself up to have amazing things happen.

With tears streaming down my face, I kissed the feet of my little bronze Ganesha, remover of obstacles, patron saint of new beginnings. A woodpecker began her percussive search for breakfast. I gazed up and laughed. The morning sun warmed my face.

With my heartache distilled into a few blades of grass wrapped tightly around my finger, there was nothing to do but move forward. Flinging myself across the country toward Cuyahoga National Park in the wake of so much emotion seemed a prime situation for drama, but I mostly spent my days listlessly flipping through Johnny Cash and Rilo Kiley playlists. I belted out the lyrics I knew as I passed high, pine-scented mountains near Flagstaff, countless Route 66 travel stops, and the painted flattop mesas of central Arizona. I pulled over to sleep at a Love鈥檚 truck stop, the incessant hissing of 18-wheeler breaks and deranged railroad horns making the scene feel more like a three-ring circus than a legal place to sleep for the night. At 6:00 a.m., I finally rose when a car alarm failed to stop screeching after twenty minutes.

The road was mostly dull, with the occasional rust-hued plateau, field of cows, or gust of hot wind. I texted a friend to see if he had any recommendations near Amarillo. Just keep driving, he replied.

I had never seen fall colors out east before. For years, I had known about their heart-stopping magic from movies and television shows, but the all-American rite of passage of actually seeing them in person had never graced my life until I reached Cuyahoga Valley, my forty-eighth national park.

Tucked between Cleveland and Akron, the park was more urban than most, its sprawling woodlands home to various historic buildings and railroad stops. With a thin ripple of clouds blanketing the horizon, I pulled into the parking lot for one of the area鈥檚 most beloved hikes鈥擝randywine Gorge鈥攁nd began meandering along its mile-and-a-half loop. Steep rock walls lined with mosses and hanging gardens soon loomed overhead as I neared the area鈥檚 main attraction鈥擝randywine Falls. A swift cascade of water trickled over terraced ledges of stone, looking more like a series of lace ruffles on a debutante鈥檚 gown than the roaring torrents of rivers pouring over the edges of cliffs in Yosemite Valley. I walked on. A canopy of canary-yellow maple rustled above me, and I lifted my gaze skyward, trying not to trip over tree roots. This is real autumn, I thought as I hiked along slowly, watching the wind turn leaves of rust and marigold into tiny paper airplanes that wafted gently onto the forest floor. It was as if the trees were throwing a giant party, exploding into one final burst of elaborate color before embarking on their cycle of hibernation and rebirth.

When the sun began its nightly descent toward the horizon, I hightailed my van over to Ledges Overlook, a series of rough sedimentary rocks that fall away steeply to a bird鈥檚-eye view of the park鈥檚 glorious foliage. From the perch I could see for miles. Lit up in late evening sunlight, the warm rainbow of fall colors looked even more magical, and as the clouds turned a brilliant shade of tangerine, two dozen other hikers sauntered out of the woods and stood stock-still, taking it all in. When the last of the sun faded, we scattered and went our separate ways, the spell broken. I felt more at peace than I had in a long while.

I awoke wrapped in my sheets as a wash of pastel morning light made its way across the farmlands outside Akron. With rain in the forecast, I needed to hustle if I wanted to explore more of the park. After a breakfast of oatmeal and instant coffee, I spun my wheels toward Century Cycles, rented a bike, and started down the Towpath Trail. It instantly found a place on my list of the best urban riding paths.

The trail was intermittently paved and gravel, paralleling the Cuyahoga River and the ruins of locks that once served as a portage for ships carrying goods from Lake Erie down to the Ohio River. Now long abandoned, historic canals sprung up here and there beneath apricot-hued leaves that seemed to burst forth from every tree. I zoomed past old wooden storefronts and miles of fiery fall colors, thinking about my future as I raced the rain.

I would like a vintage, courtyard-style apartment. I would like a medium-sized dog. I would like to go skiing with my mother and find a devilishly handsome man to press my warm body against, but preferably not at the same time.

It felt healthy鈥攅xcavating a way forward from the vantage point of a swiftly moving vehicle. Like carving a new path allowed me to enjoy the trip more. If I was chained to travel because there was no other option, travel would lose all novelty and wonder. There had to be hope. There had to be a future to look forward to.

Emily Pennington, a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, visited 60 national parks in 2020. Just before this article went to press, she explored American Samoa, her 63rd and final park.

 

How to Get Reservations at These Popular National Parks in 2023

The post In Her New Book 鈥淔eral,” The Author Recounts Visiting Every U.S. National Park in a Year appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

At least 10 people have died on Mount San Antonio (also called Mount Baldy) since 2020, including actor , and over 100 have needed rescue. Why is Baldy so dangerous?

If you live in southern California and consider yourself in the least bit outdoorsy, then you probably spend your weekends hiking. From Runyon Canyon in the middle of Hollywood to any of the 264 named peaks in Los Angeles County, trails abound, the usually mild weather suits, and the region鈥檚 obsession with fit physiques compels. And, if you鈥檝e ever lived in or traveled to the area, you鈥檙e probably familiar with Mount Baldy. Its 10,064-foot peak looms above the Los Angeles skyline, the bare, southern-facing bowl that gives it its nickname clearly visible across the city.

Missing hiker Jin Chung has been found alive. He is responsive and was taken to a hospital for evaluation. Chung went missing Sunday after heading to .

— Shelby Nelson (@KTLAShelby)

In the eight years that I called LA home, I hiked Baldy and surrounding peaks in the San Gabriel mountains numerous times. Most days, . It鈥檚 a little taller than most, sure, and the most popular 11.3-mile loop through about 4,000 feet of elevation takes a bit longer than most other day hikes. But otherwise it鈥檚 the same mix of loose sand covering loose rock spread across steep slopes that you鈥檒l find anywhere else in the area鈥攜ou’ll just be rewarded with better views once you reach the top.

But a couple of things make Baldy different. For starters, its elevation. The general rule of thumb is you lose 3.3 degrees Fahrenheit for every thousand feet of elevation you gain. So, not withstanding any other weather conditions, Baldy’s summit will be 33 degrees colder than the beach.

For most of the year, that鈥檚 actually refreshing. If it鈥檚 90 degrees in Hollywood, it鈥檒l be 57 on top of Baldy. At the height of summer, it makes sense to spend an hour or two sitting in traffic, so you can reach the trailhead at Manker Flats. But right now, near the tail end of January, it鈥檚 not 90 degrees in Hollywood, it鈥檚 reaching the low forties at night. Most Angelenos would consider that bone chilling and have never experienced anything like the negative-four-degree wind chill Mount Baldy will see early Thursday morning.

The warnings are up on the way to as teams to look for a missing actor. There鈥檚 also a search for another in the Southern California . More at 5.

— Sid Garcia (@abc7sid)

Baldy’s winds also make it unique. Speeds will reach 60 MPH on Thursday morning, according to the . Not only is Mount Baldy the tallest peak in the San Gabriels, but that east-west range represents the last barrier between the Great Basin and the southern California coast. Each winter, as high pressure systems build across Nevada, the dense, heavy air it produces flows downhill towards Los Angeles from the northeast. When it reaches the San Gabriels, it speeds up and compresses as it blows over them. Known as the Santa Anas, these winds are notorious for driving the most destructive wildfires. Crossing the , a narrow east-west ridge that you must brave to reach Baldy summit along its most popular route, hikers will be exposed to these winds at the absolute peak of their force.

That narrow ridge is not one of the things that makes Baldy unique. Many of the 2 million people who hike Runyon Canyon each year take a tumble on its steep, loose terrain at some point. I know I have dozens of times. While the underlying backbone of these mountains might be granite, it’s mixed with sandstone and shale, and the patchy chaparral that struggles to cling to it does little to hold the soil in place. Sharp rocks poke through a loose, sandy cover, crumbling as they鈥檙e exposed to the elements. It doesn鈥檛 matter if you wear knobby trail runners or lugged hiking boots, nothing grips this stuff with anything approaching sure footedness.

And that gets even worse in the winter, because there鈥檚 one last thing that makes Baldy unique: skiing. That鈥檚 right, there are actually 26 ski runs and four lifts located on the mountain鈥檚 eastern side. According to the resort鈥檚 Instagram page, they opened the fourth lift last weekend, an event that鈥檚 happened rarely in the last decade, as extreme drought conditions have plagued California.

Put all that together鈥攃old temperatures, high winds, steep, exposed, slippery terrain, and the potential for snow鈥攁nd make it proximate and easy to access to all 24 million people who live across the SoCal urban conurbation, and you can see why rescues, injuries, and deaths are inevitable. Put enough people in situations with even a minimal amount of risk, and eventually the numbers just add up.

Be prepared for extreme alpine conditions–e.g., Mt. Baldy and Icehouse Canyon areas, Mt. Islip, etc.
–

— Angeles National Forest (@Angeles_NF)

Of course, another factor is exacerbating Baldy鈥檚 danger this winter. A relentless string of atmospheric rivers dropped 32 trillion gallons of water on California in just three weeks. And Baldy got its share, too, with reports of up to two feet of snowfall in the area. That snow has variously mixed with rain, and gone through freeze-thaw cycles, producing what the San Bernardino Sheriff鈥檚 Department (one of multiple entities responsible for search and rescue missions in the area) is calling, 鈥�.鈥�

Rescuers searching for Sands鈥攁n experienced mountaineer鈥攈ave on the mountain, and have variously been prevented from traveling by foot, helicopter, or both, due to ice, avalanche risk, and high winds.

Baldy may be part of the Los Angeles skyline, but that doesn’t mean it’s a not a real mountain, complete with all the risks and draw any mountain holds. The reason Mount Baldy kills is simply that it’s popular.

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