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Rafting the Rogue River, Oregon

A four-hour drive south of Portland or a 6-hour jaunt north of San Francisco is the remote Rogue River in southern Oregon. Cutting through dense forests of pine and scrub oak, the Rogue is definitely off-the-beaten-track, a place where writer Zane Grey could think in peace and put his pen to the paper. So it’s no surprise that the Rogue become one of the first rivers to come under federal protection when 84 miles were designated a Wild and Scenic River in 1968. On a weekend trip this summer with Rogue Wilderness Adventures, you’ll raft a 34-mile chunk of the Rogue, camping one night and spending the next night at a historic lodge. An added bonus is that the gourmet dinners are paired with some of Oregon’s best pinot noirs. Price of the 3-day guided jaunt is $899 per person.
 

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My Favorite Small Outfitters, Mahoosuc Guide Service, Newry, Maine

I’m very excited this week to divulge my favorite regional outfitters, the small guys who have no budget to advertise and create a catalog, but know their locale like the back of their hand. In fact, many of the larger outfitters hire these guys to take their groups out. First up, Mahoosuc Guide Service, based in Newry, Maine. The best introduction to Mahoosuc is to simply share the intro of the article I wrote about paddling the Maine Woods for Sierra Magazine. 
 
Wearing a felt hat, plaid shirt, and a graying beard, Kevin Slater sits in the back of his canoe, looking as comfortable as most men his age are reclining in a Lazy-Boy. His stroke is short, fluid, with a short inward snap at the end to steer him exactly where he needs to be in a river dotted with boulders. In front of him sits his faithful companion, a peach-colored husky named Kara. Several months from now, when the maples grow barren and the pines are heavy with snow, Kara will be in a raucous team of her fellow Yukon brethren pulling a dogsled through the melt. But now, at the peak of fall foliage in northern Maine, with the maples and poplars on the hillside radiant with splashes of yellow, plum, and purple, Kara can rest and she does just that with her head jutting out over the edge. 
Like the paddles we hold in our hands, the 17 ½ and 20-foot long wood and canvas canoes we sit in were all created by Slater. It takes more than 120 hours of work to carve one of these delicately ribbed beauties out of northern white cedar and cherry wood, using only native varieties. 
“I was taught that you can find anything you need to make in these woods,” says Slater.
His skilled craftsmanship was passed down from his mentor, who Slater refers to simply as the “Old Timer.” As in, “after paddling the entire Allagash, the Old Timer told me to go to the local store and get ten days of supplies. I was going to go back upstream on my own. That’s how I learned how to canoe these rivers.”
Slater is the latest in a long line of teachers and students who learned to live in the Maine woods and to navigate the maze of blue waterways, a seemingly countless number of lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds that branch off in every direction to form this capillary system deep in the forest. The baton, (or in this case, a paddle) has been passed over the generations from the Wabanaki Indians to European fur traders to a growing legion of naturalists with familiar names like Emerson and Thoreau to the timbermen of the 20th century, and lastly the recreational paddlers like you and me who yearn to get lost in a timeless bubble far away from the hyperkinetic mindset of modernity. 
 
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Choice Music Cuts of 2010

Most people think the life of a travel writer is glamorous. Realistically, I’m only on the road a quarter of the year. The rest of my time is spent chained to a desk cranking out stories on my third-floor home office in solitude. To overcome my hermetic existence, I crank up the tunes. In fact, I savor music far more than literature, with most of my day listening to iTunes and Pandora. One of my favorite times of the year is when the Boston Globe music critics put out their list of top CDs. In the past, I found favorites like Passion Pit and Jamie Lidell on this list. This year, there are some strong Jazz songs like young trumpeter Erik Telford and his smoking groove, “Kinetic.” Also good is the live sax playing of the Sherman Irby Quarter. Check out the tune “Bohemia After Dark.” R&B and Electronica were pretty weak this year, though I did like “Locked Inside” from Janelle Monae’s first CD and “Low Shoulders” from the chillhouse sounds of Toro y Moi.

The strongest genre by far was hip-hop. Forgot about all the airplay Eminem, Kanye, and Drake receive. Listen to “Famous” by Curren$y, “Leaders” by Nas and Damian Marley, “Angels” from Diddy’s surprisingly good “Last Train to Paris” release, and Big Boi’s “Night Night.” However, my choice for album of the year goes to Rick Ross and his “Teflon Don.” Listen to the symphonic “Maybach Music III,” featuring my girl Erykah Badu, and just wait for Ross to come in at the end with that take-no-prisoners voice. Oh yeah, I’m ready to kick some ass.

As always, thanks for checking in. I’ll be back with my “Top 5 Adventures in 2010” on January 3rd.  Wishing You a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2011!

 

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Family-Friendly Rafting Trips on the Salmon River

Western River Expeditions will celebrate its 50th year in 2011. Founded by Colorado River rafting pioneer, Jack Currey, the outfitter quickly expanded beyond the Grand Canyon to the other great rivers in the West, heading north into Utah and Idaho. Next summer, the company will unveil a new adventure for families with children as young as five. Called the Salmon River Canyons Family Magic Trip, the five-day, four-night jaunt will include a River Jester, whose sole duty is to keep the kids happy, leading nature-oriented games and activities for the kids, cooking a separate kids dinner at night, and telling stories and singing songs around the campfire. The Class II-IV rapids are mostly on the mild side, well-suited for the youngins. Trips meet and end in Lewiston, Idaho, and cost $1,435 for adults, $1,245 for children ages 5 to 15.
 

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Sandy Pines Campground to Debut This Summer in Kennebunkport

Kennebunkport hoteliers, Tim Harrington and Debra Lennon, the duo behind Hidden Pond, The Tides Beach Club, and The Grand Hotel, now have their sights set on a new campground. Sandy Pines will open this summer in a forest approximately ½-mile inland from Goose Rocks Beach. Each of the 320 sites will feature a picnic table, fire pit, electricity, cable, water and sewage. They’ll be offering different site options, ranging from basic tent sites to pull through sites with full utilities for larger RVs. All sites are a short walk to the spanking new bathhouses with restrooms, showers, and oversized sinks for dish washing. Yet, this being Maine, the best part could very well be a lobster pound and a snack bar serving lobster rolls. Also on premises will be a rustic general store, farm stand, ice cream cart, saltwater pool, kid’s craft tent, playground, laundry facilities, and WiFi. 

 
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ActiveTravels March Newsletter Now Available

Tuscany is a destination often found on people’s bucket lists. Dreams of the unspoiled, authentic Italy where medieval hill towns, vineyards, olive oil and truffles abound. We’ve paired up with a wonderful Italian tour operator who can offer accommodations in farm houses, villas, apartments, or B&Bs in the region with activities that range from taking cooking classes to guided bike rides on the rolling hills past vineyards, Medieval homesteads, and Etruscan tombs. Also in this month’s newsletter, we disclose our 5 favorite off-the-beaten-path National Parks, lodging clients have enjoyed in Jackson Hole, why you should download the app, Yonder, and a gem of a renovated inn that we came across on a recent trip to Stowe. Enjoy!

 
I’m off to Tanzania tonight for an epic trip with Epic Private Journeys to check out Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater. We’ll also be visiting more remote parts of the country like the Grumeti Reserves, home to two lavish lodges, a tented camp, and a mobile camp under the design and management of South Africa’s pioneering Singita tourism group. Another private wildlife reserve, Mwiba, is where you’ll find the latest upscale lodging in the country, the Mwiba Lodge, which opened last June and is already gaining acclaim for its 8 canvas-sided suites. I’ll be checking it all out and sending photos on my Twitter account @ActiveTravels. When I’ll return on March 23rd, you’ll be hearing all about it on this page. So stay tuned and stay active! 
 
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Sailing Aboard the Charles W. Morgan

This past May, the historic whaling ship, Charles W. Morgan, left Mystic Seaport for the first time in more than 70 years and sailed to several New England ports of call, giving folks from New London to Provincetown an unprecedented opportunity to explore the ship. Built in New Bedford in 1841, the Morgan is the last remaining wooden whaling ship in the world and the oldest merchant ship in America. In its heyday, the Morgan traveled across the globe in search of whales, the source of oil for illumination and lubrication in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

 
To commemorate the latest sailing, my longtime colleague, Rob Burbank, had the good fortune to spend 24 hours aboard the ship. Rob’s great-uncle served as a crewmember on the 35th voyage of the Morgan in 1918, and this summer’s sail gave him the opportunity to imagine what life was like on the Morgan nearly a century ago. You can read about that once-in-a-lifetime experience in his recent Boston Globe story. The Morgan is now back at Mystic Seaport and open to the public to tour. For more about visiting Mystic in autumn, see my article in the Boston Globe and definitely make a pitstop at B.F. Clyde’s to visit the oldest steam-powered cider mill in America. 
 

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