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Bring on the Weekend! Quick relief for city-dwellers: ten all-natural getaways close to home Boston: Carter Notch Hut, White Mountains It’s not exactly a half-pipe in the sky, but even the surliest pre-teen will have to admit that the Rampart rock field, just past the Carter Notch Appalachian Mountain Club hut, is very, very slick. A massive jumble of Humvee-size boulders at 3,288 feet, the Rampart is full of caves, some of which harbor snow well into summer, and secret passageways to explore. This is the The “hut” is actually three structures a common building with a full kitchen where families prepare their own meals from food they’ve carried in, and two bunkhouses with eight rooms, each with four to six beds. The below-timberline hut also serves as a good jumping-off point for day treks to Carter Dome (about an hour and a half away) and the summit of Wildcat Mountain San Francisco: Austin Creek State Recreation Area The first time we traversed the winding road that climbs 1,200 feet to Bullfrog Pond Campground in Guerneville’s Austin Creek State Recreation Area, my husband and I could barely make out the famous redwood trees for the rain pummeling our windshield. If we had had kids in those days, we undoubtedly would have pulled a U-turn and hightailed it to more hospitable Fast-forward five years. We’re on the same road, dry this time, but one-year-old Will is raising a ruckus in the back seat. For the umpteenth time, my husband and I revisit the merits of camping with a toddler. We decide to stay a good choice, it turns out. Even full, the campground felt secluded because most of the drive-in campsites are carved out of the redwood forest to form a series of discrete rooms. Each site has a fire grate and picnic table, and there are flush toilets and potable water in the common area. We spent the ensuing two days exploring much of the 5,000-plus acres of the Austin Creek area and the adjoining New York: Cape May Since my daughter, Jaya, now ten, was a baby, we’ve spent the waning days of each summer in Cape May, New Jersey. Cape May is nothing like its honky-tonk neighbors on the Jersey Shore: It’s home to the country’s largest collection (600 in all) of Victorian houses the town is a National Historic Landmark and it’s in the path of thousands of migrating shorebirds, This is our yearly tradition: We rent bikes in town and ride three miles west to Cape May Point State Park. First we tromp up the 199 steps of the lighthouse for a spectacular view of the coastline. Then we cross the parking lot to hike and birdwatch along the mile-long Blue Trail, which wanders through freshwater marshes. After grabbing a sandwich at the nearby Cape May Point Cape May is three hours by car from New York City. Cape May Reservation Service (609-884-3191) can match you up with a B&B, hotel, or motel. Try the Queen Victoria (609-884-8702), a B&B situated a block from the beach in the center of the historic district; it has 21 rooms and suites, among them a suite for a family of four that rents for $320 per night, including daily Chicago: Starved Rock State Park What kid wouldn’t like scrambling up a 125-foot sandstone butte to gaze over the Illinois River and imagine himself one of a band of besieged Illiniwek Indians? My six-year-old sure did. At Starved Rock State Park, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago, you can explore nine designated stream-fed canyons on 15 miles of trails, canoe along the river, and cast for white bass. Hike Denver: Rocky Mountain National Park If you had the choice of spending the day among caged beasts at the Denver Zoo or a weekend with free-ranging fauna in Rocky Mountain National Park, which would you choose? Right, that’s what our three kids said, too. Late spring to early summer in the park is lambing season, when bighorn sheep descend from the Mummy Range to Horseshoe Park, and the kids love it when the Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous paved road in North America at an ear-popping 12,183 feet, has sweeping vistas, but it’s hard to appreciate them in bumper-to-bumper traffic. A better way to reach the summit is via the less-traveled, nine-mile gravel Old Fall River Road (it usually doesn’t open until July 4), with its hairpin turns and waterfall views. Starting the Seattle: Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park The glassy waters of eight-mile-long Lake Crescent look alarmingly cold, clear, and spooky for a very good reason: They are. Which is probably why, every summer, plenty of families wind up here on the northwest shoulder of the Olympic Mountain range. The always frigid lake and its surroundings are an appetizer sampler plate of the best of the Olympics. From a base camp on the Tucson: Chiricahua National Monument Don’t mention the words “history” or “learning experience” when the kids ask where you’re going for the weekend. Just tell them they’re going to hang out in the same mountains where Cochise and Geronimo once outwitted the U.S. Cavalry. The Chiricahua Mountains, named for the Apache tribe that called them home, rise to nearly 10,000 feet in far southeastern Arizona. The Within the monument, car camping is allowed only in the campground, but the rest of the 450-square-mile range, part of Coronado National Forest, is crisscrossed with access roads and plenty of established campgrounds and primitive campsites. There are also about 240 miles of trails throughout the high country. For families with older kids, the 5.5-mile Greenhouse Trail (near Washington, D.C.: Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge You hear stories that the pirate Blackbeard once hung out on Assateague, the 37-mile-long barrier island famous for wild ponies, waterfowl, and buried treasure. Treasure-seekers still comb the salt marshes for his gold, but when my mother and I visited Assateague with my infant son in tow, we came hunting for Assateague’s natural wealth remote, windswept beaches covered The place to see it all is the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on the southern side of Assateague Island. We rented bikes (on the neighboring island of Chincoteague) to pedal the easy 3.75-mile wildlife loop, which winds through a marshy landscape that could double as the set for Jurassic Park. But instead of velociraptors, great blue herons skimmed the pine trees. A On July 29 you can watch more than 100 wild ponies swim the quarter-mile saltwater channel from Assateague to Chincoteague Island, where the new foals are sold at auction. Hikers and bicyclists have the wildlife loop to themselves from dawn until 3 p.m., when the paved road is closed to cars. The refuge has two visitor centers one near the entrance (757-336-6122) and Los Angeles: Ojai Valley Inn There’s a lingering phenomenon at dusk in Ojai that the locals call the “pink moment,” when the striated facade of the Topa Topa Mountains, looming just above town, glows a distinct rouge and the world seems to stand still. Whether you’ve spent your day boulder-hopping between swimming holes in Sespe Creek north of Ojai, bass fishing at Lake Casitas, pedaling the flat, The best game in town for families is the Ojai Valley Inn. Kids 3-12 can attend the inn’s Camp Ojai ($65 per day including lunch) for swimming, pony rides, games, and Native American storytelling. Adults have a fitness center to get sore in and the brand-new Spa Ojai in which to mend. Bikes are complimentary (it’s a two-minute ride to the town bike path), and the inn’s Dallas: Fossil Rim Wildlife Center Put the kids in the car in Dallas and tell them you’re driving to Africa for the weekend. Yeah, right, they’ll say, but an hour and a half later, when you reach Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, they just might think you figured out a way to beam the car across the ocean. There you’ll be, face-to-snout with giraffes, zebras, rhinos, gemsbok, gazelles, greater kudu, and New this year are special Family Conservation Camps (June 27-28, July 10-12, and August 1-2), which will take your clan on behind-the-scenes wildlife tours, hikes, and fossil hunts. On the property are five lodge rooms and a number of safari tents, but you’ll be roughing it this weekend in one of eight rustic bunkhouses that each sleep up to 14. Rates have not yet been set. Illustration by Philippe Weisbecker |
Bring on the Weekend!
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