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Vermont Week, Climbing Mount Hunger

Judging from the three cars parked at the trailhead, all with Vermont license plates, the climb up Mount Hunger is a trail treasured by locals. Once you make it to the 3,538-foot summit (allow 4 hours round-trip), you’ll understand why. The backbone of the Green Mountains stand before you, including those famous ski areas, Killington and Stowe. Like most of Vermont’s trails, the climb starts from the first step, a steady uphill walk that became steep at some stretches. Eventually the beeches, yellow birches, and maples give way to spruces and balsam firs. The bare rocks atop Hunger offer commanding views of the entire state. Mount Mansfield’s chin, nose, and other facial features are visible to the east. Waterbury Reservoir sits in the valley below, fringed by White Rock, Hunger’s next door neighbor. Unlike Camel’s Hump, Mount Mansfield, and the other popular peaks in the Green Mountains, here atop Hunger, one can savor this view all by your lonesome.
 
From Waterbury, follow State Route 100 North to Waterbury Center. Turn right on Barnes Hill Road, left onto Maple Street, and right onto Loomis Hill Road. Bear left atop the hill as the road turns to dirt. Park 3.7 miles from the junction of Maple Street on the right-hand side of the road.
 

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Stargazing in Northern California

A 3-hour drive north of San Francisco past Santa Rosa and Healdsburg, you reach the Mendocino Coast, home to the fifth-generation owned Little River Inn. The oceanfront property perched on the hillside overlooking the Pacific, feels nestled in its own world, far away from the lights of a city. Indeed, it’s the perfect locale to see the stars on a crystal-clear night. Even better now that the property is offering the Stargazing Family Fun package. Spend 2 nights in an ocean view room with two queen beds and you’ll receive a Little River Inn travel blanket, loan of their custom stargazing kit with special binoculars, star map, star guide and flashlight, hot chocolate to enjoy while stargazing one night, and detailed information on stargazing in the area. Cost of the package for a family of 4 begins at $430 a night. 

 
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5 Favorite Travel Days in 2013, A Night at AMC’s Lakes of the Clouds Hut, New Hampshire

The conditions weren’t ideal when my wife, Lisa, and I decided to backpack hut-to-hut in the White Mountains in late June. The black flies were still biting and a daily dose of rain had slickened the trails, making that unforgiving White Mountain granite that much more treacherous. By the time we reached the third of the AMC huts, Mizpah Springs, after an incredibly humid day where I really felt my age, I was spent. I had more than enough material to write my story on hut-to-hut hiking in the Whites for The Washington Post and I just wanted to head back to civilization. Conditions needed to be ideal the next morning to walk the historic Crawford Path through the Presidential Range. Once you venture beyond Mizpah Springs Hut to Mount Pierce, you’re above treeline on a ridge walk, entirely exposed to the weather since there’s really nowhere to hide. 

 
Socked in to a large cloud with the threat of lightening the next morning, it was time to head down. Or was it? At a juncture just below the peak of Pierce, we had to make a decision—up or down. That’s when we ran into a couple we befriended the night before, on vacation from Beijing, happy to breathe in the fresh alpine air. “C’mon, I have sardines,” Micah said. The next thing you know we’re atop the ridge, the layers of mist disrobing, and we were treated to views of the bald knob atop Mount Eisenhower. It was like walking on a lunar landscape, bordered by velvety green sedge and moss, often staring in awe at alpine wildflowers in bloom like bog laurel, white bunchberry, and purple fireweed. 
 
Then we spotted the Lakes of the Clouds hut, our lodging for the night, and its lofty perch atop a 5200-foot ridge with stunning vistas of Mount Washington Hotel below and the Cog Railroad ambling slowly up to the Mount Washington summit. We spent the twilight hours looking at the glorious view and then peering at the twinkling stars above (no light pollution here). The next morning, after a filling breakfast, we climbed on hardscrabble rock the last 1.4 miles to the summit of Mount Washington, New England’s tallest peak. The winds subsided, the sun peeked through the clouds, and we were rewarded with wondrous views of Mounts Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. Lisa and I were elated that we made the decision to continue onward. 
 
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Hotel Explora, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

Torres del Paine National Park in southern Chile is a twisted mass of monoliths and hoodoos that rise sharply from the dry Patagonian steppe, a stunning glacial landscape where guanacos (orange and white-colored members of the llama family), rheas (ostriches), and flamingos congregate near watering holes. This is where Town & Country Magazine sent me to check out the luxurious, yet intimate Hotel Explora. Its superior location is apparent upon entering the lobby. The resort has vistas of the park’s most dramatic formation, The Horns, a block of sweeping granite that pierces the clouds.  Almost all of the hotel’s thirty rooms, even the whirlpool-adorned bathrooms, afford the same mind-blowing view.
 

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Driving from Clarksdale to Natchez, Mississippi

Since I already wrote about Asheville and Charleston this week, let’s continue south to Mississippi and a memorable drive my brother Jim and I once took. In the small Delta town of Clarksdale, learn about the birthplace of the Blues at the Delta Blues Museum, and then spend the night at one of the most intriguing properties in America, the Shack Up Inn. Set on the Hopson Plantation, where the mechanical cotton picker made its debut in 1941, owner Bill Talbot has converted six former sharecropper shacks into his own version of a B&B (bed and beer). The next morning head south on Highway 61 through the rolling green farmland that makes up the heart of the Delta. Eventually you’ll reach the trenches Union and Confederate troops dug during the Civil War’s bloody Siege of Vicksburg, now a National Military Park. Another hour of driving and you’ll find that gem of a town on the Mississippi River, Natchez. During its heyday prior to the Civil War, when cotton was king, Natchez had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the country. They built palatial estates, like Monmouth Plantation, your final stop. Monmouth’s meticulously landscaped grounds, shaded by centuries-old oaks and their thick dress of Spanish moss, is bursting with colorful azaleas come spring. 

 
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Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Thoreau’s “The Maine Woods”

As an outdoor writer based in New England, I’ve spent a good deal of time following in Henry David Thoreau’s footsteps, from climbing Monadnock and Katahdin to walking the shoreline of the upper Cape to swimming in Walden Pond. In 1864, the great naturalist and philosopher published his book “The Maine Woods” that chronicles his exploration of the remote Maine waterways. In October 2009, I had the good fortune to paddle down the West Branch of the Penobscot River following his route. Our guide was Kevin Slater, a legendary Maine paddler who learned these rivers and the skill to carve his own canoes and paddles from his mentor who he simply called, “the Old Timer.” We spent four glorious days on the water, with few other paddlers, spotting moose, bear, loons, and osprey. In the backdrop was mighty Katahdin, the end point of the Appalachian Trail. The story appeared in an issue of Sierra Magazine, the publication of the Sierra Club. If you want to paddle with Slater on the Penobscot, contact him at Mahoosuc Guide Service. 

 
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Favorite American Drives, Oregon Coast

In 2005, I was hired to pen a story about whale watching along the Oregon coast during spring, when the gray whales migrate north. I brought along my brother Jim, who worked as photographer, starting our trip in Portland. That first night, we had an exceptional meal at Paley’s Place and had our first taste of the beverage we’d happily be drinking the rest of the weeklong trip, Oregon pinot noir.

From Portland, it’s only 75 miles on Route 26 West to the shores of Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast. First stop was towering Haystack Rock, which stands tall in the shallow waters, inspiring awe from all who stroll on the hard-packed sand. After dropping our bags off at the upscale Stephanie Inn, we drove over to nearby Ecola State Park and took a hike in this emerald forest, where massive 300 year-old Sitka spruce trees have trunks as wide as a redwood. The woods soon recede, replaced by sandstone bluffs, pink colored beaches and the great expanse of the Pacific. 

We headed south on Route 101, stopping in the fishing community of Bay City for small, tender Kumamoto oysters on the half shell at Pacific Oyster. Dessert was creamy blackberry ice cream at Tillamook Cheese Factory. As we grew closer to Depoe Bay, the traffic and commercialism increased. Yet, south of Newport, the coastline is its wild self once again.

In the small arts community of Yachats, houses cling to the high cliffs, nestled in a forest of spruce and leafless alder trees. The hills reach their highest point, 900 feet above the beach, at Cape Perpetua. We drove to the top and jumped out of the car to take in the exquisite vistas. At the start of the Giant Spruce Trail, a man yelled joyously, “A whale.  I just saw a whale.” My brother and I ran over, but didn’t see diddlysquat. 

Our final night was spent at arguably the most perfect spot on the entire Oregon coast, a former assistant lightkeeper’s quarters set on a grassy patch below the Heceta Head Lighthouse. Below, breakers explode against the burgundy red cliffs that hem in a narrow beach filled with driftwood. In the darkness, we grabbed a flashlight from the inn and hiked up to the lighthouse to watch it flash beacon after beacon across the rugged land and then out to sea.

The next morning, we tried again to find one whale, any whale, but saw no fluke or spout the entire trip. Didn’t matter. We still had an awesome time. We topped it off with a visit to Willamette Valley, the heart of Oregon wine country. From Yachats, it was about a 2 ½-hour drive to the outskirts of Salem, home to our favorite wine of the week, Cristom. Vines cling to the slopes of their 60-acre lot and are named after the owner’s four daughters.  We also stopped at the Tasting Room in Carlton to try his selection of little-known gems that never make it out of the state. Then it was an hour drive back to Portland and our flight home. An exceptional drive that I can’t wait to do again!
 

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