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Winter Offerings from the Appalachian Mountain Club

If history is on our side, New England usually bounces back from a dismal ski season with an overwhelming amount of snow. The AMC is already preparing for this deluge by teaming up with local ski areas in New Hampshire. Stay at Highland Lodge in Crawford Notch or the Joe Dodge Lodge in Pinkham Notch and ski at nearby Bretton Woods, Wildcat, Attitash, and the expansive network of Nordic trails at Jackson XC. The price includes lodging, ski pass, dinner and breakfast. And if you book before December 15th, you could save up to 30 percent off the price. Also check out their long list of programs for adults and families, including weekend courses on winter photography, snowshoeing, tracking winter animals, climbing a 4,000-foot peak, and other winter adventures. Finally, don’t overlook the opportunity to cross-country ski from Maine lodge to lodge on glorious backcountry ski routes nestled alongside the 100-Mile Wilderness Trail. The AMC will shuttle luggage from one historic sporting camp to the next and the price includes lodging and all meals. 

 

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AMC’s New Medawisla Lodge and Cabins Open This Week

If you’re yearning for a genuine wilderness experience in the northeast, one where you can breathe in the pine-scented air and stare in awe at a moose while throwing out your fly for brookies and landlocked salmon, then it’s hard to top the locale of the Medawisla Lodge. Located on the shores of Second Roach Pond in Maine’s legendary 100-Mile Wilderness Region, Medawisla has been attracting outdoor lovers to this pristine spot since 1953. But never has it looked so good. The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) just reopened Medawisla Lodge and Cabins following a multi-year, multi-million dollar construction project. Medawisla offers a range of overnight options, including deluxe cabins with private bath, traditional cabins with shared bath, and bunkhouses. Dinner, breakfast, and trail lunches are included in most cabin rates, and linens and hot showers are available. The site features a waterfront pavilion, a new central lodge with water views, and nine new private cabins in waterfront and hilltop locations. Cabins feature Maine-made woodstoves, screened porches, and gas lamps. Meals are served in the central lodge. You’ll need your energy to paddle Second Roach Pond, hike and mountain bike on the trails as you peer up at mighty Mount Katahdin, and simply take time to savor the serenity.  

 
 
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Celebrate the Year of the Horse in England

With the Chinese New Year quickly approaching, England is promoting the Year of the Horse by focusing on locales where horseback riding is available. Bath’s Relais & Chateaux property, Lucknam Park, is one of the many excellent riding hotels in England. With trained horses and staff on hand to help beginners and assist experienced riders, Lucknam Park’s Equestrian Centre offers classes that cater to every level. Out of the saddle, the property also has a highly prestigious cookery school and a first class spa. Horses are also allowed on a number of beaches in the country. With permits available from The National Trust, you can gallop, trot or canter to your heart’s content across the four-mile stretch of golden sand at Dorset’s Studland Beach. Studland Stables will even bring the bubbly, so you can pop the cork over views of Old Harry Rocks and make this trip even more special. 

 
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Raft or Kayak Vermont’s West River

Vermont’s best whitewater run can be a zoo during the two days a year (the end of April and September) when the Army Corp of Engineers release the waters of the Ball Mountain Dam. The rest of the year, it can get a little dry, but it’s still a scenic run though the Green Mountain with far less congestion. The river used to host national kayaking championship races. The upper reaches are runnable only by experienced paddlers with solid Class III skills, yet the stream widens and slows down as you head towards the Connecticut River, allowing novice kayakers to do their thing. Good swimming holes and fishing are found at various points all along the West, including Jamaica State Park, about 2.5 miles down the river from the dam. Zoar Outdoor offers trips on the West River for rafters. Cost ranges from $88 to $100. 

 
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Take Time to Savor the Present

Last night, I had the privilege of speaking at a travel-themed event in downtown Boston sponsored by the Scotch company, Glenlivet. It was held at the International Poster Gallery on Newbury Street, home to a glorious collection of vintage travel posters from the 1920s and 1930s. What a treat it was to talk about my life as a travel writer, surrounded by these classic posters of ocean liners, luxury trains, and airplanes, while sipping an 18-year-old Scotch. I wish all my talks were like this, instead of being stuck in some dungeoness room in a God-forsaken hotel. Glenlivet only wanted me to speak for a short time, so I simply distilled my 22 years as a travel writer down to “10 Places I’d Happily Bring a Bottle of Glenlivet.” I wanted to introduce the crowd of 50 or so people to some of my favorite off-the-beaten-track destinations, like Torres del Paine, Chile, and the Laikipia region of Kenya. If interested in seeing the entire list, shoot me an email at steve@activetravels.com and I’ll send it your way. It was the perfect way to kick off the Holiday Season with good Holiday Cheer. Hope you enjoy this month and take the necessary time to get together with good friends and family. If, like me, you’ve worked hard all year, you deserve that sip of Scotch. 
 
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A Necessary Stop at the Corning Museum of Glass on a College Road Trip

On our drive last week from the campuses of Penn State to Syracuse, we stopped about an hour south of Ithaca in the small town of Corning, New York. Here you’ll find one of my favorite museums in western New York, the Corning Museum of Glass. Founded in 1851, Corning Glass Works was instrumental in helping Thomas Edison create the light bulb on a mass scale, designed the first television screens, invente the first assembly-line bottling plant, and now the company is thriving with the proliferation of fiber optics. You can learn about the inventors and innovation of glass at the museum. Corning also features an exceptional collection of glass art from Egyptian times to the present that will only get bigger with the new $64 million Contemporary Art and Design Wing set to make its debut on March 20th. The 26,000-square-foot art gallery will be the largest space anywhere dedicated to the presentation of contemporary art in glass. It will also house one of the world’s largest facilities for glassblowing demonstrations and live glass design sessions, with 500 seats. Another highlight of the museum is the chance to create your own art, via glassblowing or sandblasting. My wife made a wind chime while my daughter created a glass pendant. 

 
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New Beer Garden to Open on Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway

Excited to hear that the Greenway Conservancy is opening a Beer Garden this summer on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. They chose a perfect spot, right in front of the Rowes Wharf Arch at the Boston Harbor Hotel. They also chose my favorite Massachusetts-made beer, Trillium, which has breweries in Fort Point and Canton. Expect Fort Point Pale Ale, dry double-hopped Melcher Street, and six other beers on tap. Don’t just take my word that Trillium is one of the best brews in the region. Earlier this year, the website RateBeer ranked Trillium as the third best brewery in the world! The Beer Garden is slated to debut in late June. 

 

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