TWO ENGINES START UP with a guttural purr, the sound muffled by knee-deep California powder. A hundred yards apart, separated by a mogul field, a pair of men mount their fidgety Polaris snowmobiles. Behind them, the Minaret peaks claw at a hyper-blue sky.

warren miller

“It’s Been Fun So Far”: Warren Miller at his home on Orcas Island, Washington

warren miller

The Original Ski Bum: Miller in 1947, checking his wax in Sun Valley, Idaho

“Warren and Dave. Take one!”


The production assistant snaps a slate and ducks behind the cameraman. As an Arriflex 16-millimeter starts rolling, the riders lurch forward, gaining speed as they pitch off huge snow mounds. Suddenly their faces are visible, their ruddy cheeks stretched flat in demonic grins. The character flying in from stage right is Dave McCoy, legendary founder and owner of Mammoth Mountain ski resort and a former trainer of Olympic skiers. Growling in from left is Warren Miller, the puckish godfather of extreme-ski cinema and our nation’s original ski bum.


Miller turns 80 on October 15. McCoy is 88. But no one here believes it. Ski buddies since the 1940s, they’re being filmed in Mammoth’s backcountry for the 2004 Warren Miller film Impact, which opens October 21 in Portland, Oregon, before rolling out to 180 U.S. cities and seven other countries. Shots of Miller romping with his merry-prankster pals are a cherished part of these movies. It’s one slightly indulgent ingredient in a successful formula that, year after year, pulls in more than half a million raucous fans, who pay up to $18.50 a ticket. Impact will be Miller’s 55th feature film—and possibly his last.


Miller is an imposing six foot one, with a giant bald head and a strapping chest stuffed inside his signature Dale of Norway sweater. He’s blocking out this scene himself, using pine boughs to indicate where he and McCoy will make their final vaults so that, from the camera’s perspective, their snowmobiles will appear to intersect in midair, like crossed swords. As McCoy and Miller bound over the last few moguls in near-flawless rhythm, there’s a goofy synchronicity to the moment, as if Esther Williams were choreographing a scene from Mad Max.


Finally, the men launch off their respective jumps and sail past each other, a feat that should look great in slo-mo. Unfortunately, the cameraman didn’t get the shot he wanted.


“Gotta do it over, Dave!” Miller yells, feigning dismay.


“OK!” shouts McCoy.


With that, they spin their machines around, rev ’em up, and do it all again—two raging geriatrics, trying to form a perfect X.

WITH UPWARDS 570 FILMS bearing his name for the big screen, television, private companies, and ski resorts, Warren Miller is the most prolific sports cinematographer of all time, and an instigator of our culture’s endless fascination with extreme. He’s championed the stoked life in nine books, in countless newspaper and magazine columns, on the speaking circuit, and from his favorite pulpit—the chairlift. If you’re ever lucky enough to spend ten minutes riding with him up a high-speed quad, you’ll hop off and head directly for the steepest chute or most bodacious jump you can find.


“Go get your freak on!” Miller will likely say. “Whatever it is you want to do, you have to do it now!”


Miller has lived by his own mantra—he’s tried just about every thrill sport there is. In his (slightly) younger days, he won amateur ski races all over the American West, became a crack sailor, and surfed many a righteous California break on a 100-pound redwood board. In 1968, he out-skied an erupting volcano while filming Jean-Claude Killy in New Zealand. Just a few years ago, he windsurfed from Maui to Molokai, having taken up that sport at the ripe young age of 60.


“I’ve been a little out of the box my whole life,” Miller quips.


He was born in 1924 on the kitchen table in the middle of a party at his parents’ house in Hollywood, California. His father, an architect, lost everything during the Depression and slowly drank himself to death. Miller’s mother sewed quilts for the Work Projects Administration. As a child, Miller was hungry for part of every day, and he slept in a closet until he was 13.


In third grade, he sold stink bombs to his classmates so that he could buy his first still camera, a Bakelite Univex, for 39 cents. He took it along on Boy Scout expeditions to Mount San Jacinto, where he learned to turn $2 army surplus skis. After graduating from high school in 1942, Miller entered the Naval Officers Training Program at the University of Southern California, where he studied astrophysics, played basketball, and drew cartoons. In 1945, Ensign Miller served in the Pacific on a subchaser that sank in 60-foot waves near Guadalcanal. After his 1946 discharge, Miller spent his bonus on an eight-millimeter movie camera. He launched his film career that winter from the ski-resort parking lot at Sun Valley, Idaho, where he and his surfing-and-skiing buddy Ward Baker lived out of a four-by-eight-foot camping trailer.


Miller and Baker made ski-bum history that season—managing to eat, sleep, and ski on a total of $18 apiece. By day they poached crackers and ketchup from the cafeteria to make a lame imitation of tomato soup; by night they scarfed jackrabbits they’d shot with a rifle. They became ski instructors, and to earn a few extra bucks, Miller took photos and drew cartoons of wealthy skiers he met on the slopes. “If it was a picture of the guy with his wife and family, I’d sell it for a dollar,” Miller commonly jokes. “If I had a shot of a fella with his mistress, it was $10, negatives included.”


Through two ski seasons, Miller and Baker photographed each other and the pantheon of celebrities drawn to Sun Valley—people like Groucho Marx, Ernest Hemingway, the Shah of Iran, and Gary Cooper. In 1949, free talent was indispensable in producing Miller’s first ski film, Deep and Light, shot in Squaw Valley, California, on a $427 budget, using a 16-millimeter camera on loan from two Bell & Howell executives Miller had instructed.


Extreme skiing was born on the reel in 1954, when Miller filmed Olympian Stein Eriksen doing a front flip. Audiences were stunned, and sponsors like Head Skis, Ford Motor Company, and Old Crow Whiskey signed on, enabling Miller to shoot in exotic locations all over the world.


Three decades later, in 1983, a young skier named Scot Schmidt changed everything when he hucked off a 75-foot cliff into neck-high powder at Squaw Valley. Ever since, Miller’s movies have steadily ratcheted up the adrenalized snowmanship, inspiring generations of skiers and sparking the rapid growth of the ski industry. Today, in the snow-sports category alone, dozens of companies are making movies, and films like Touching the Void and Riding Giants wouldn’t be playing in your neighborhood theater if not for Miller’s persistent trailblazing.


“Warren Miller is the man who made the snowball that created the whole industry,” says Dirk Collins, 34, cofounder of Wyoming-based Teton Gravity Research, a production company known for films like High Life and The Prophecy. Collins sees a direct lineage from Warren Miller Entertainment to TGR and the flock of young companies that followed Miller’s lead.


Like Miller, he says, “we’re all just living out our dreams—and figuring out how to get paid for it.”

ALTHOUGH MILLER HAS SKIED the world, Mammoth remains one of his favorite places. “It’s 72 degrees and there’s still 17 feet of snow—let’s go skiing!” he pleads, looking covetously up at his mountain arcadia. It’s a sunny afternoon the last week of March, and we’re trolling the slopes for more scenes.


Most of the aerial action at Mammoth takes place at Unbound, an über–terrain park with 30 acres of rails, jumps, and the headline feature, the superpipe, where everyone is either pointing a video camera or vamping for one. Miller and McCoy are here to interact on film with some of the crazier denizens of the park.


Traffic is dense in the stunt ditch. There’s a constant swirl of kids throwing corked 360’s and dinner-roll sevens. Emily Thomas, 26, an Australian snowboarder, pops off the lip of the quarterpipe, rotates, and drops back down the wall. Her husband is filming her for an Australian TV show. As McCoy whistles appreciatively, Thomas carves a sweeping arc and pulls up beside me.


“Is that Warren Miller?” she asks incredulously. “He’s the guru of ski films! I work eight months a year in Sydney so I can travel to the places in his films. My parents say, ‘Get a real job.’ And I’m like, ‘People make a living out of this. Look at Warren Miller!’ “


Miller loves being the jolly ski Svengali. “I feel like I’ve been selling an illegal substance,” he says. “People tell me how I’ve messed up their lives, because their kids are jumping higher, farther, faster. But if you don’t scare yourself at least a few times every time you ski, you’re doing something wrong.”


Suddenly, a pair of young snowboarders on the lift recognize him. “Warren Miller rocks!” they yell in unison. Miller raises his hand in laconic acknowledgment, then turns back to McCoy, a smile crinkling his pale blue eyes. Matty Smith, a member of the film crew, interrupts the moment with a little razzing.


“What’s that, Warren?” he asks, pointing at a lift ticket clipped to Miller’s pants.


“They wouldn’t let me on the lift, ’cause I didn’t have a ticket!” Miller says in mock outrage. “I said I’d left it on my other pants. That worked for about three runs, then I had to go buy one.”


“I want that ticket,” Smith says, turning to me. “That may be the only one Warren’s ever paid for.”


Despite being a millionaire, Miller is a strict practitioner of the ski-bum ethos, which dictates that all good truants must at least try to scam a lift ticket. “Wherever you go skiing,” he’s fond of saying, “spare no expense to make your trip as cheap as possible.”


As we’re about to get on the lift, a skier named Dennis Agee slips into the instructors-only chute and sits beside me. A former racer and U.S. Ski Team coach who starred in Warren Miller films in the 1960s, Agee knows a bit about Miller’s legendary frugality.


“Warren paid really well in those days,” he says facetiously. “You worked your tail off for three days—hiked cornices over and over so the cameraman could get his shot, skied terrain you had no business going down when you were that tired. And at the end, you got a Warren Miller pin!”


Agee laughs. “But it was an honor just to be asked,” he says. “That pin was the most prestigious thing you could wear. It was like an Oscar or an Olympic medal. You were a member of the most exclusive ski club in the world.”

MILLER LIKES TO BOAST that he’s pulled off “a lifetime of never having to work for a living” and has charmed people into coming along for the ride. But while his life has been long on adventure, it’s been short on family stability. He lost his first wife, Jean, to cancer when their son, Scott, was only 18 months old. Miller went on to have two more children—a daughter, Chris, and a son, Kurt—with his second wife, Dottie. But he was gone most of the time, filming or touring, and his second marriage crumbled, as did the next. His children have each found their way into the film business: Scott, 52, is a documentary filmmaker in Malibu, California; Chris, 47, is a photojournalist in Los Angeles; and Boulder, Colorado–based Kurt, 45, runs Synergy Group, which acquires and co-produces sports films for Regal Entertainment.


In the late eighties, having recently married his fourth wife, Laurie, a ski retailer, Miller was ready to step back from the frenetic demands of running a film company. By that time, Kurt, a world-class sailor who’d been making sailing movies that mimicked Warren’s formula, had carved out a niche within Warren Miller Entertainment. Kurt saw an opportunity to expand the brand by filming other sports his dad had taught him to love—surfing, skateboarding, BMX biking, and every possible mode of snow sliding—and marketing those films with gusto. In 1989, Warren sold his company—and his name—to Kurt and his partner, Peter Speek, for roughly $1.5 million. Although Warren continued to write and narrate the films, he was no longer calling the shots in the editing room or with corporate sponsors.


Warren and Kurt’s relationship was often stormy. According to a colleague who worked with both men, they clashed over almost everything. Warren accused Kurt of corrupting his magic formula with conspicuous product placement and long, uninterrupted music tracks by Dave Matthews and Counting Crows that drowned out Warren’s folksy narration. “It was not easy to work for my son,” Warren says. “I don’t know many fathers who could.”


Kurt had his own complaints—one being that the Warren Miller vibe was getting stale. Edgier ski-movie outfits like Greg Stump Films and, later, Matchstick Productions and TGR were luring 18- to 25-year-old audiences by rejecting Warren’s humor-travelogue schtick in favor of rowdier action, pumping soundtracks, and more focus on the Dionysian energy of the athletes.


“My dad should be telling himself, ‘I created the greatest thing in the world,’ ” Kurt says. ” ‘Yes, it’s being changed, but it’s my vision being sustained in a new way.’ I wish he could just enjoy it.”


Kurt expanded the company by kick-starting dozens of “downstream business acquisitions” in publishing, advertising, and corporate sponsorship. He produced shows in places like Antarctica for the Outdoor Life Network, ESPN, and the Discovery Channel.


Four years ago, in June 2000, Kurt sold Warren Miller Entertainment to Time Warner for somewhere in the neighborhood of $7.5 million. The company Miller had spent a lifetime building—along with his archives, his voice, and his name—all passed into the hands of the largest media conglomerate in the world. Warren and Kurt have barely spoken since. They will see each other this fall at a surprise party for Warren’s 80th birthday. Kurt, for one, genuinely hopes their relationship will mend and that Miller’s movies will carry on in the spirit Warren made them.


“People have grown up on my father’s films for 54 years,” says Kurt. “Whether I’m involved or my father is, I hope it continues.”

MILLER’S QUEST TO LIVE THE DREAM has paid off in other ways. It’s an overcast, snowy day in March, and we’re flying into Bozeman, Montana, at 600 miles per hour on a Gulfstream 100 on loan from a friend of Miller’s. Our destination is the most exclusive ski resort in the world—the Yellowstone Club, in nearby Big Sky. Since its creation in 2000, Miller has been the director of skiing at this members-only resort tucked away in the Madison Range.


Hank Kashiwa, the Yellowstone Club’s vice president of marketing, greets us at the Buffalo Bar and Grill, where fur-collared women and men in starched jeans are wandering in for an early-afternoon cocktail. Kashiwa is a former Olympic skier and TV commentator. As I sit talking to him, I’m watching empty chair after empty chair circling the main lift just outside the window.


“We have nine lifts, with a capacity of 5,500 people per hour,” Kashiwa says, “but we usually have about 35 people skiing a day.”


Kashiwa waits for my face to register seismic disbelief, then gives me the membership lowdown. Fee to join? $250,000. Yearly dues? $16,000. Building requirements? One lot will set you back $1 million to $8 million, a spec house $3 million to $12 million. For that, you get a cap that reads private powder, your choice of 50 trails, service from a staff of 278, and lift rides with Warren Miller.


Miller seems completely at home at this gated mountain, rubbing parkas with people like Jack Kemp, Dan Quayle, and 148 of their wealthiest friends. “The second time I skied here,” he says, “there were only six other people: Jack Kemp, Benjamin Netanyahu, the club’s owner, and three bodyguards.”


He scoots me out the door and onto the vacant high-speed quad. From inside the windless pod, he points out his nearly finished 6,000-square-foot house, which will have an unimpeded view of the immense stone-and-timber Warren Miller Lodge being built. Just over the ridge is a run called Miller Point. Miller’s old films run on TVs in every lounge, lobby, game room, and bar. His name is everywhere—it’s the Temple of Warren Miller.


“Isn’t this just incredible?” he asks. “There’s not a single track on this hill. Go on—make your turns really wide!”


We take a few runs down the lonely slopes, and I needle Miller about what a grueling job he’s taken on. Director of skiing? As far as I can tell, the job requires only his occasional presence. I ask a lift operator—who’s deep into a nice, fat novel—the longest he’s waited for a skier to show up and ride his lift.


“Three hours,” he says.


There’s an awkward friction between Miller, rollicking ski bum of the people, and the exclusivity of a place like the Yellowstone Club. But given the abject poverty Miller grew up in, it’s hard to fault him for his extravagances.

BESIDES, HE’S GIVEN plenty back. Miller has devoted his formidable drive to making the world better by sharing his passion: the pursuit of freedom through sports. His do-it-now instincts never flag, even when he’s at home on Orcas Island, north of Seattle in the San Juans.


The spartan public ferry taking me there is less glamorous than the private jet we flew to Montana, but it’s a gorgeous July day, and Orcas is bucolic and unassuming—an undeveloped Pacific Nantucket. The road to Miller’s place meanders past fruit orchards and grazing horses.


“Living here has added 15 years to my life,” Miller says, greeting me at his handsome Arts and Crafts house, with its Asian rooflines and cedar shingles. The backyard slopes down to a cold blue finger of Puget Sound, where Miller keeps his favorite toys—a skipjack, two kayaks, and a 47-foot yacht. “Sometimes I think it’s pretentious,” Miller confesses, “but I’ve grown to love it. I often think, What have I done to deserve all this?”


Miller’s next book is a humorous look at how not to age. He would love to become our national spokesman for habitual youth, and he’s hoping this book will start a new tack in his career, particularly since his future in film looks uncertain. Miller’s current contract to write and narrate movies expires in December. He feels he’s been steadily marginalized since he sold the company, and under Time Warner’s management the process is only accelerating. “What bothers me,” he says, “is that they’re showing too much extreme stuff and not enough giggling. Without my voice, it’s just guys turning their skis right and left.”


When I ask Perkins Miller (no relation), vice president of Mountain Sports Media—the Time Warner subsidiary that now runs Warren Miller Entertainment—whether Impact will be the last film Miller will narrate, he answers, “That hasn’t been determined. We’re looking forward to having a conversation with him this fall…” Then his voice trails off. “Unless he’s told you this is his last film.”


Whatever his next role, Warren Miller will always have his finger on the young pulse of action sports. He feels, as he likes to put it, “like a 14-year-old trapped in a senior citizen’s body.” He drives me to the new state-of-the-art $225,000 skate park he started building on Orcas after raising just $65,000. “I said, ‘If we dig the hole, the money will come,’ ” Miller says in mock-Confucian tones. “And it did.”


The park is thrumming with kids going huge and pumping up and down smooth concrete walls. Miller waves to a 12-year-old on the far side.


“Hey, Warren!” the kid shouts.


“Where’s the camera, Tyler?” Miller asks.


“Forgot to bring it today,” the boy says sheepishly. “But I’ve been filming every day this summer.”


Miller was watching Tyler skate one day and thought he had potential. He met Tyler’s mom, a housekeeper on the island, and learned she was raising him on her own. So he gave Tyler a video camera and said, “See what you can do with this.” It was a pay-it-forward gesture from a man whose early circumstances mirrored Tyler’s and whose own life was changed every time someone believed in him. “Put the right tools in kids’ hands, and good things happen,” Miller says.


He drives home the long way, showing me a few other pet projects: a BMX park and a YMCA summer camp, which he recently outfitted with a fleet of secondhand sailboats. Later, we’re getting ready to take Miller’s yacht to his favorite seafood joint, over on San Juan Island. As we grab our coats, we stand in his den, gazing at a ten-foot wall covered with photographs of family and friends, politicians and ski heroes. There’s Warren filming from atop a greasy gondola a thousand feet above Chamonix, and cooking rabbit stew with Ward Baker. I get the feeling there are many more pictures to come.


“It’s been fun so far!” he says, jingling the keys to his yacht. “Let’s get going!”

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WARNING: If you are pregnant, or have kids of any age, read on. This report contains information guaranteed to provide you with the premier places to rest you head. Then rip it in the great outdoors with your wee ones.

Cheating on Vacation: Cheat Mountain Club’s lodge

CHEAT MOUNTAIN CLUB
Durbin, West Virginia
Thomas Edison visited the Cheat Mountain Club in the summer of 1918. Old Tom strung up lights on the lawn and slept beneath the stars—he couldn’t get enough of the fresh air and mountain scenery. Your kids probably will want to do the same, and snooze in the shadows of 4,800-foot peaks and the tall hardwoods of Monongahela National Forest—until, that is, they hear the midnight howl of a coyote.

Built as a private hunting and fishing lodge for Pittsburgh steel barons in 1887, the three-story, hand-hewn log building feels as it might have 100 years ago. The great hall, with oversize maple furniture and a stone fireplace, is perfect for curling up with a book or singing songs by the piano. Hearty meals of fish and game, homemade soups and bread, as well as kids’ fare, are served in the family-style dining room. Children can raid the cookie jar—full of chocolate-chip and oatmeal-raisin goodies—at will.
Out the back door, you can fly-fish Upper Shavers Fork River, known for rainbow, brown, and brook trout. When the lines get tangled, take the afternoon to explore the ten miles of trails that wind through Cheat Mountain’s 180 wooded acres. My kids like the nearby Gaudineer Scenic Area, where a surveyor’s error spared a tract of red spruces, some 100 feet tall and 300 years old.
Afterward, it’s fun to goof off on the three-acre lawn, playing horseshoes or flying kites. As the sun sets, sit on the terrace overlooking the river. You, too, might be tempted to sleep outside. Then again, you’ll want to be well-rested for tomorrow’s adventures.

Enchantment Resort

Sedona, Arizona

Sedona at sunset

After two days exploring the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, my husband, two-year-old son, and I were careening around the hairpin turns of Arizona 89A toward Enchantment Resort, wondering if we’d planned our trip in the wrong order. What could top the Grand? But once we headed into thumb-shaped, pinon-and-juniper-filled Boynton Canyon, with its red walls rising 1,400 feet up on three sides, we felt like we had found our own private park. No crowds! No loud buses!
Set on 70 acres about five miles from New Age Central (Sedona), Enchantment is a modern adobe village, its 71 casitas and main clubhouse painted the same ruddy pink as the canyon’s sandstone walls. The indoor wonders rival the spectacular setting: Top on the list is Mii amo, the new, 24,000-square-foot spa, where haunting flute music greets you as you enter the museumlike space (children under 16 aren’t allowed). From a big menu of body wraps and Ayurvedic treatments, I chose Watsu and a custom facial.

Enchantment makes it easy for parents to indulge: Camp Coyote keeps four- to 12-year-olds busy making dreamcatchers and sand paintings and taking nature walks (our son was too young for the camp, but a grandmotherly babysitter was arranged by the concierge).
Despite my spa retreat and one romantic dinner at the excellent Yavapai restaurant, there was still plenty of family time. One afternoon we hiked the five-mile round-trip to the end of Boynton Canyon, but our favorite activity was simply hanging by the pool. One morning, I sat with a mother of three boys from Boston, watching our kids bat around a giant beach ball and soaking in the astounding view of red pinnacles and buttes. “We thought about taking a day-trip to the Grand Canyon,” she said. “But what could be more beautiful than this?”

Point Reyes Seashore Lodge

Olema, California

Olema, California

Ordinarily a downpour on vacation dampens my spirits, but when we awakened to rain at Northern California’s Point Reyes Seashore Lodge, it only made me want to heap more blankets on the already cozy double beds, laze in front of the crackling fire, and let the rain have its way with the bucolic pasture outside the bay window.
Our sons, Will, 6, and Griffin, 4, however, had food on the brain. So we threw sweatshirts on over our pajamas and trooped through the airy lobby with its 30-foot-long Douglas-fir chandelier and down the stairs to sit next to another fireplace, where we gorged on the continental buffet included in the room rate. Being first in line ensured dibs on the bear claws in the pastry basket. By the time we finished eating, the sky had cleared, changing the morning’s equation.

We know our options well—this 21-room inn is a favored family escape for both active and relaxing weekends. For instance, a two-minute walk out the door puts you on the Rift Zone Trail, which wanders through patches of redwoods along the base of the Coast Range, eventually joining more than 140 miles of trails in the area. My husband, Gordon, wanted to go kayaking in Tomales Bay or horseback riding, but I lobbied for something simpler—a visit to Olema Creek in the backyard. Surrounding the inn’s Douglas-fir-planked lodge are two acres of grass and gardens for play. And three and a half miles west is the surf, which crashes onto beaches with 100-foot-high cliffs along Point Reyes National Seashore.
We poked around Olema Creek and then headed for the Bear Valley Visitor Center, the hub of the National Seashore, via a half-mile trail. My children absorbed wildlife and habitat displays but reached saturation at the replica of a Miwok Indian village. So we turned back to the inn just as a gentle rain began falling.
We could have driven to the nearby lighthouse, or gone to see the local herds of tule elk, or tooled down Highway 1 past a couple of miles of cow pasture to the artsy town of Point Reyes Station. Instead, we returned to the inn’s indoor pleasures. We had everything we needed inside.

The Birches Resort

Moosehead, Maine

The moose of Maine

After 20 minutes cruising in a pontoon boat across Moosehead Lake in central Maine, my three-year-old daughter, Cady, spied the payoff: “I see him! I see him!” she yelled, knocking my husband’s Wisconsin Badgers cap into the chilly water. Sure enough, the lake’s namesake mammal emerged from the woods on spindly legs and nosed along the water’s edge, oblivious to the hum of video cameras.
But the loss of a favorite hat was the sole disappointment at The Birches Resort, a 1930 wilderness sports camp that’s morphed from a hunting outpost into an 11,000-acre family retreat. Situated in the Moosehead Lake region on the west side of the water, The Birches consists of a lakeside lodge with an indoor waterfall and trout tank, 15 hand-built one- to four-bedroom lakeside cabins equipped with hot water, kitchen and bath, and a wood stove or fireplace. That cozy heat source is welcome after a day of hiking or cycling the property’s 40 miles of trails, boating on the 35-mile-long lake, or exploring 1,806-foot Mount Kineo, the largest hunk of flint in the country, with an 800-foot cliff that drops into North Bay.
The Birches is home base for Wilderness Expeditions, which will outfit your crew for its Family ���ϳԹ���s Camp (rafting, kayaking, hiking, and wildlife-watching for ages 12 and up) or a float trip on the lower Kennebec River (ages 5 and up). Though the cabins are equipped with cookware, we opted for the meal plan so we could feast on pancakes and steak in the atmospheric lakeside dining room with its 35-ton fieldstone fireplace. Cady spent the last night of our getaway dancing to folk tunes while the moonbeams skipped across the lake.

Across the Bay Tent and Breakfast

Kachemak Bay, Alaska

Cutting across the glass-smooth surface of Kasitsna Bay

Rare is the Alaska lodge where a whole family can afford to stay long enough to let a day unfold without a hyperactive do-it-all plan. While other places on Kachemak Bay, near Homer in south-central Alaska, can cost three times as much, Across the Bay is more like a deluxe camping community where families sleep in platform tents and join together for shared meals harvested from the backyard garden—a modern commune.
The lodge sits among giant Sitka spruces before a steep mountain on the edge of Kasitsna Bay, and it’s most easily accessible via a 30-minute boat ride or a float plane from Homer. Accommodations are straightforward: five canvas-wall tents with cots, plus a main wooden lodge, a dining room, two outhouses, and a bathhouse. Those aren’t without comforts or elegance, though—a piano, board games, books, and hot chocolate in the lodge, and framed art hanging near stained glass in the, um, outhouse. There’s also a wood-fired sauna with stained glass by a creek.
On a typical afternoon, my three oldest kids played in the tide pools, collecting mussels and arranging sand dollars into castles. Later, guests gathered at the shore for grilled salmon and vegetables. A more adventuresome day could include renting the lodge’s mountain bikes to explore an abandoned road up to Red Mountain, eight miles south, or going on a guided kayak tour along the shoreline, visiting the Herring Islands to watch sea otters and whales.

The Wildflower Inn

Vermont

In full bloom: former dairy far, the Wildflower Inn

Turning your home into a family resort is not a stretch when you have eight children age four to 21. It certainly helps if that home is a former dairy farm ringed with plush green meadows and mountains in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Owners Jim and Mary O’Reilly converted their Federal farmhouse and three red barns atop Darling Hill into the 21-room Wildflower Inn, preserving the agrarian feel without tilling the 570 acres. Now in its 17th season, the Wildflower has become the classic outdoor getaway for Boston families who yearn for forests and fields.
A typical day starts with my three-year-old, Melanie, sucking down the chocolate-chip eyes of a teddy-bear pancake, while five-year-old Jake plays air hockey in the adjoining playroom. Then it’s off to the petting barn to frolic with sheep, goats, calves, and a shaggy donkey named Poppy. On summer mornings, a kids’ nature program runs for two hours, with activities like watching beavers on the Passumpsic River. Parents and older children can check out 12 miles of mountain-bike routes that link with the Kingdom Trails, arguably the finest fat-tire riding in the Northeast. Cruise past the barns on smooth singletrack and you’ll soon be lost in the woods, sweeping up and down a serpentine route.

Back on the farm, play a game of horse (what else?) on the basketball courts and then a set of tennis. Kids’ dinner and a movie are waiting at Daisy’s Diner, a converted barn. But after a full day, my little ones are content to lie on the grass and look for Orion—Vermont’s version of nightlife.

Bluefin Bay on Lake Superior

Tofte, Minnesota

I took my family to Minnesota’s Bluefin Bay, ironically, to escape the Midwest. For a group of displaced East Coasters like us, life in the middle can be hard at times. Along with decent bagels and attitude, we miss being on the edge of a continent and looking out. From the deck of our townhouse at the Bluefin Bay, though, we could gaze across the 31,800-square-mile expanse of Lake Superior and leave the prairie far, far behind.
A collection of 70 blue clapboard split-level buildings stacked around a rocky cove, Bluefin Bay recalls the Norse fishing villages that lined Superior’s northern coast a century ago. The airy suites and full-kitchened condominiums have vaulted ceilings and natural wood beams, fireplaces (to take the edge off breezy summer evenings), and stunning lake views that practically pour in through huge picture windows.
Guests are welcome to use the resort’s boats free of charge, and we spent days on the water, paddling over century-old shipwrecks with a certified sea-kayak guide and canoeing the coast on our own. Those willing to tear themselves away from the lake can explore Bluefin’s other backyard: Superior National Forest, a pristine 2.1-million-acre wilderness crisscrossed by more than 400 miles of birch-lined hiking and mountain-biking trails. Your kids will undoubtedly beg for a trip to the luge-course-like Alpine Slide, just up the road at Lutsen Mountains ski area.
At night, should you choose not to use the barbecues outside, take the crew out for mesquite chicken sandwiches at Breakers Bar and Grill, a walk along the lake from the condos. Or take advantage of the on-site kid programs and enjoy a candlelit dinner for two at the Bluefin Restaurant. The ambience and sound of crashing waves will get you in the mood to fire up the double Jacuzzi in your room. But first, stroll under the moon in the chilly night air, which will firmly remind you, lest you forget, that you’re in northern Minnesota.

Ross Lake Lodge

Ross Lake, Washington

Ross Lake Lodge

The Park Service advises visitors to use caution in the glacial meltwaters of northern Washington’s Ross Lake, a 21-mile-long alpine lake hard by the Canadian border, but the three kids cannonballing off the dock where I was sweating in the sun didn’t care. I looked hesitantly at the glaciers attached to nearby 9,066-foot Jack Mountain and then slipped, ungracefully, into the frigid azure water. Cheers erupted. I managed five gasping backstrokes. And then it was time to fish.
My dockmates piled into a wooden skiff with their dad and their fly rods and trolled away from Ross Lake Resort, a string of 15 floating wooden cabins connected by a serpentine dock and parked on the lake’s south end. Founded in the 1950s, the resort is hemmed in by steep, dark evergreen forest and is the only structure in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area, a stretch of wilderness surrounded by North Cascades National Park. Getting to the unreachable-by-road resort is where the fun begins: After a three-hour drive from Seattle along the North Cascades Highway, we had boarded an old-fashioned Seattle City Light tugboat at Diablo Lake—bearded, pipe-smoking captain at the helm—and then chugged 30 minutes to a flatbed truck that hauled us two miles to a small dock on Ross Lake. From there, a runabout shuttled everyone and everything (bring your own food; there’s no restaurant) across the lake to the resort.

We’d settled into our rooms—accommodations at Ross Lake range from two-person cabins equipped with kitchens, wood stoves, and bedding to a modern, nine-person chalet with enormous picture windows overlooking the lake—and rented our own skiff for the weekend ($70 per day). A few easy hiking trails lead to Ross Lake Dam and 6,107-foot Sourdough Mountain, but we fixed on the view north of us and planned to climb 6,102-foot Desolation Peak. So we boated—followed by a family of four traveling in kayaks ($31 per day)—to the trailhead, casting for rainbows and cutthroat en route. At the summit, the kayaking family caught up with us, and the two youngest members of their expedition surveyed the lake for the best swimming holes to test at sunset.

The Winnetu

Martha’s Vineyard, MA

With miles of untrodden island coastline and a web of bike trails, Martha’s Vineyard is the optimal family getaway, but until recently, with area zoning laws limiting commercial construction, there wasn’t a decent family resort. That changed last summer when Mark and Gwenn Snider opened The Winnetu Inn and Resort at the south end of Edgartown. They demolished the shell of a run-down hotel-cum-condo-building and made a grand shingled New England-style hotel in which every spacious suite affords ocean or dune views.
My family first met Mark as he pulled up in his 1945 fire truck, ringing the bell. This father of three will do almost anything to entertain children. He’s organized pee-wee tennis clinics that start in summer at 8 a.m. and activities like scavenger hunts, arts and crafts, sand-castle contests, and bodysurfing on adjacent three-mile-long South Beach. In the evening, kids can go to the clubhouse for food and games while parents opt for fine dining at the resort’s seaside restaurant, Opus, or head into Edgartown, the island’s oldest settlement.
We favored getting on our rented bikes and hitting the trails. One day we pedaled to Edgartown and took the two-minute ferry across to Chappaquiddick, and then rode to the Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge, a stretch of coast that’s home to threatened piping plovers and ospreys. On our final day, we ventured ten miles to Oak Bluffs, stopping at the windswept dunes of Joseph Sylvia State Beach to swim, and ending at the Flying Horses Carousel, the country’s oldest operating carousel, built in 1876. Not surprisingly, Snider picked us up by boat to escort us back to the resort.

Steinhatchee Landing

Steinhatchee, Florida

Cottage industries: Steinhatchee lodging

As we neared the sleepy fishing town of Steinhatchee (pop. 1,100) on the southeast end of Florida’s Panhandle, my family and I half expected to see Tarzan come swinging through the tangle of moss oaks and silver palms. Far removed from Mickey and his perky pals, we’d ventured into what tourism folks call “Old Florida”—a pre-theme-park haven of lush vegetation, snoozing alligators, and wild turkeys.
Our base in this unhurried paradise was Steinhatchee Landing, a 35-acre resort on the Steinhatchee River, built to resemble a 1920s village of two-story vacation cottages, many of them Cracker-style (the term “cracker” refers to the state’s early settlers, who cracked long whips to herd cattle). Each has a tin roof, a big front porch, and all the modern conveniences—microwave, stereo system, washer and dryer, VCR, and even a refrigerator pre-stocked with soda. Though just 12 years old, the place enticed us to savor the syrupy-slow pleasures of past generations: listening to crickets, fishing for shiners off the dock, and watching the sun melt like red sherbet into the Gulf.

When my husband, daughter, and I felt like budging from the porch swing, we found much to do: We swam in the riverside pool, paddled canoes, and rode bicycles on the dirt trails through the resort into town. On a sunset pontoon cruise, our guide pointed out rare brown pelicans guarding their nests. One afternoon we drove 50 miles and soaked, under a canopy of cypress, gum, ash, and maple trees, in the clear, 72-degree waters at Manatee Springs State Park, where an industrious spring churns out 81,250 gallons every minute. Entrance fees at some 30 natural springs and state parks, all within an hour of the resort, are waived for Steinhatchee guests.

Park Places

National parks often get the drive-by treatment: Vacationing families cruise in for the day, climb out of the minivan at a few major vistas, and then high-tail it out for the night. These lodges, in five of America’s most revered parks, will guarentee you linger.

Yosemite National Park

LeConte Lodge
Rugged folks once farmed much of the rocky ground that Great Smoky Mountains National Park occupies, and their abandoned homesteads remain the park’s most popular attractions. But only at LeConte Lodge can you live as the pioneers did. Getting to the lodge requires a 5.5-mile hike to the top of 6,593-foot Mount LeConte, on the Tennessee side of the park. Once you;re there, you’ll find rough log cabins, lantern light, and family-style Southern cooking. The lodge sits at a crossroads of trails, making it an ideal launchpad for day hikes. ($82 per adult, $66 per child, including breakfast and dinner; 865-429-5704; ; open late March to mid-November)
Montecito-Sequoia Lodge
At Montecito-Sequoia Lodge, near California’s Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, children head off for supervised riding, boating, swimming, hiking, or tennis, while parents are free to enjoy the park on their own—perhaps hiking among the giant sequoias or granite domes. Families rejoin for meals and to sleep in basic rooms in a 24-room pine lodge or one of four cabins, with sweeping mountain views, arrayed between a small lake and a swimming pool. ($760-$855 per week per adult, $690-$800 per child; 800-227-9900; ; open year-round; reserve a year in advance)

Bear Track Inn
At the doorstep of Glacier Bay National Park is the Bear Track Inn. With its huge-log facade and vast fireplace warming the common room, it’s got Alaskan ambiance down pat. It’s also the area’s most luxurious accommodations, offering elaborate meals and 14 high-ceilinged guest rooms with down comforters. Bear Track Inn looks out on a field of wildflowers; beyond lies the ocean and the community of Gustavus—a springboard for sea kayaking among whales, fishing for salmon and halibut, and taking a boat ride into the park to see the glaciers. ($432 per person per night, including ferry from Juneau and all meals; 888-697-2284; ; open May through September)
Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort
Pure bliss is found in the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort’s marquee attraction after a day of exploring Washington’s Olympic National Park. The three geo-thermal pools are a mineral-water delight following a hike along the Sol Duc River—where salmon jump the crashing falls—and up through mossy forest to tree line and the tiny alpine lakes above. Kids may prefer the freshwater swimming pool to the hot springs. When everyone has reached prune state, retreat to your cabin in the rainforest. ($130 for two people in a deluxe cabin with kitchen, $110 for two without kitchen, $15 per night for each additional person; 360-327-3583; ; open March-October)
Tenaya Lodge
At the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park, Tenaya Lodge offers a national-park experience that’s more like a California resort vacation. The lodge sits like a mansion on land surrounded by forest and park, and its rooms have niceties like plush chairs and Gold RushÐ heirlooms. TenayaÕs kid-only activities include a twilight flashlight hike&3151;or take the whole family to ride horses into Mariposa Grove, swim in two pools with underwater sound systems, and cruise on a nearby steam railway. ($209-$299 per night, double occupancy; 800-635-5807; ; open year-round)

Slope Sides

Ski resorts have realized how perfect their alpine playgrounds are for summertime family getaways. They’re opening their slopes to mountain bikers and hikers, ratcheting up adrenaline levels at kids’ adventure camps, expanding day care, and offering lodging deals in the off-season. Here, four of the summer’s best.

Utah’s Wasatch Range

Westin Resort & Spa, Whistler
In summer, Whistler’s still-snow-covered Blackcomb glacier attracts planeloads of serious skiers and boarders, and an equal share of vacationing families who love the novelty of British Columbia skiing in the morning and rafting the Class II Green River׫or hiking in Garibaldi National Park, or soaring in a tandem paragliderÑin the afternoon. The Westin Resort & Spa (888-634-5577; ) offers posh suites with kitchens that start at about $118 (American) a night. Splurge on a body wrap at the hotel’s Avello Spa and Health Club while your children play in the Whistler Kids program (18 months to 12 years, about $43 per day or $25 per half-day, including lunch; 800-766-0449; ).
The Mountain Suites at Sundance Resort
A sanctuary of handsome, weathered buildings in a quiet canyon outside Provo, Utah, Sundance Resort has a mission: to foster creative expression, communion with nature, and environmental stewardship. In that spirit, youngsters at Sundance Kids camp (ages three to 12, $50 per day) begin the day with yoga, followed by photography, jewelry, and pottery sessions. Mom and Dad can take similar classes at the resort’s Art Shack studios. Stay in a Mountain Suite and you’ll be steps away from horseback riding, lift-served mountain biking, and hiking trails in the Wasatch Range. Decorated with Native American textiles, each one-bedroom suite ($450 per night) sleeps four and has a kitchen (800-892-1600; ).

Condos at Sun Valley Resort
Idaho’s Sun Valley, escape of the rich and famous since 1936, becomes a laid-back, family-friendly hiker’s paradise when the snow melts. Eighty miles of trails zigzag through Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and lifts allow even the youngest children to reach the incredible vistas on 9,000-foot Bald Mountain. Parents can go cast on the holy waters of the Salmon River while kids rock climb and ride horses at Sun Valley Day Camp (ages six months to 14 years, $59-$90 per day and $49-$64 per half-day; 208-622-2288; www.sunvalley.com). You’ll have room to spread out when you rent a condo through Sun Valley Resort (800-786-8259; ) or Premier Property Management (800-635-4444; ). One- and two-bedroom units cost $180-$300 per night.
Steamboat Grand Resort Hotel
With 50 miles of steep, boulder-strewn singletrack, Steamboat Springs, Colorado, vies with Mammoth as one of the country’s primo downhill-mountain-biking hot spots. And Steamboat Kids ���ϳԹ��� Club’s mountain-bike clinic lets nine- to 12-year-olds get in on the fun. Younger kids are also welcome at the ���ϳԹ��� Club (ages three to 12, $48 per day; 970-871-5390; ). For easy trail access, stay at the 328-room Steamboat Grand Resort Hotel. Each luxurious one-bedroom suite sleeps six and costs $225 per night (877-269-2628; ).

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Utterly unlike a dip into a chlorinated cement pond, that first plunge in a swimming hole is an initiation into the soul of summer. There’s the thrilling sensation of a river’s current, the electrifying possibility of brushing up against something green and furry or of drifting smack into a school of fish.

The perfect swimming hole, whether it’s fed by river or hot spring, should present something of a challenge—getting there should involve amphibious hiking, some light bouldering, a bit of bushwhacking—to work up the necessary preswim sweat. A worthy sink is also secluded, with a few key physical attributes: cliffs for cannonballs, a waterfall for background music, scum-free water, maybe a wedge of sandy beach. Here I’ve solicited personal favorites from friends of the magazine. Add them to your own list. Pack the kids in the car. Leave the mountain bikes, the ropes and carabiners, the kayaks and mega-packs in the garage, and savor the simple joy of a swim in the woods.
ARKANSAS

Unlike rapid-choked rivers in the West, the Buffalo National River is very much a lollygagging, langourous river—perfect for family canoeing—that flows for 150 miles beneath natural arches and towering limestone bluffs, past caves and box canyons, and over a 175-foot waterfall. There are hundreds of swimming holes along the way—clear, deep pools fed by underground springs, some accessible only by canoe or inner tube. But there’s a particularly stunning little bend at the Steel Creek primitive campground. Shallow and warm enough for little kids, Steel Creek sports a sloping gravel beach facing a glorious fern fall where maidenhairs cascade down a hundred-foot bluff—the centerpiece of the longest canyon in the Ozarks.


Getting there: From Arkansas 7 take Arkansas 74 west for 11 miles. Turn right at the Steel Creek Campground sign. Hike down and splash in.


CALIFORNIA

Along Yosemite’s Chilnualna Falls Trail (near Wawona) lie a series of smooth, granite-walled swimming bowls that look as if they were shaped by a potter’s hands. The first features thoughtfully placed underwater ledges but requires some scrambling to get to. The second is a primo spot even for preschoolers. You’ll likely have this transcendent hole to yourselves, since it’s not visible from the trail. Here, enormous sculpted boulders resembling water-filled dinosaur bones offer diving ledges and graduated basins. Bring insect repellent—stagnant pools just above the second bowl grow ferocious mosquitoes. And be careful: the granite can be slick, making the tubs hard to get in and out of, and spring runoff makes for swift-moving water.


Getting there: Hike a mile in from the Chilnualna Falls trailhead. Where the switchbacks take a wide turn to the left, peel off right toward Chilnualna Creek, and follow it a quarter-mile upstream.


FLORIDA

You have to take a boat or canoe to get to Rock Bluff Spring, since the land around it is privately owned. Once you get there, you’ll discover a shallow sink—only about three feet deep and perfect for little ones—except for a four-foot-wide fissure that leads to an underwater cave. And towering above the pool is a huge cypress with broad wooden steps nailed in. People are rumored to have dived from the rafters of that cypress—60 feet up—down into the pinched mouth of the crack, but don’t give your kids any ideas.


Minus the daredevils, Rock Bluff Spring is a sultry Southern hole where you can wade in the clear shallow water, swim down that crack into the aquifer, or nap the afternoon away.


Getting there: It’s about a half-mile paddle north of the Gilchris County Highway 340 bridge that crosses over the Suwannee River just outside Gainesville.

IDAHO

The hike in to Jerry Johnson Hot Springs is short and zoological. An entire herd of elk may lumber across the trail. Rubbernecking moose often stand saucer-eyed, dumbstruck by a troop of humans charging past. Got to love what the humans have done with the place, though, arranging boulders into cozy tubs positioned just so, to produce a warm blend of Jerry Johnson-hot and mountain creek-cold water. Better go during the day, as, like many hot springs, it may get R-rated after dark. If you’re headed toward Missoula on scenic U.S. 12, one JJ zealot insists that Guy’s Lolo Creek Steakhouse, where they serve fat T-bones and huckleberry daiquiris (virgins for the kiddos), is the perfect end to a supremely OK day.


Getting there: Look for Warm Springs Park, 20 miles west of the Montana border on U.S. 12. There’s a bridge with a trailhead beside it on the left. The first set of pools is a mile’s hike down the trail. Continue another 30 yards to find still more hot-springs pools.


UTAH

The less-than-inspired Mormon-given name (ever read a street map of Salt Lake City?) Fifth Water Hot Springs belies the magic of this warm-water playground. Cool waterfalls spill into family-size pools fed by hot springs. At the moment, the only easy way to reach the springs is from the north, along Fifth Water Creek. (In 2003, when road construction is finished, the preferred route will once again be the scenic and uncharacteristically lush approach from the south, along the higher-volume Sixth Water Creek.) Either way you go, the springs are well worth the trek. Bring an extra pair of sneakers for the kids to wade in, since the rocks can be sharp and slippery.


Getting there: About 23 miles southeast of Spanish Fork on U.S. 6, take a left onto Sheep Creek Road. Drive another 15 miles to the Fifth Water Trailhead (pick up a map from the U.S. Forest Service office in Spanish Fork, as the sign is hard to see). It’s a four- to five-mile hike, round-trip.


VIRGINIA

Panther Falls, my own family’s all-time favorite swimmin’ hole, is an easy quarter-mile walk in along a shady creek. Heading downstream, you hit the falls at their spill-point, atop one side of a pair of 30-foot cliffs that guard the first of three fine potholes. The pièce de résistance on this Virginia masterpiece is the set of mossy granite slides that connect the three pools—gentle enough for a five-year-old to take on. Sloping slabs provide a generous berth for warming up in the sun and front-row seats for watching the trout climb the falls.


Getting there: Get off the Blue Ridge Parkway at U.S. 60, heading east (away from Buena Vista). Turn right at Panther Falls Road (Forest Service Road 315), where there’s a small sign for Panther Falls. The dirt road winds steeply downhill for about three miles. The first trailhead, leading to the top of the falls, is at a small parking area on the left. Another, larger parking lot, leading to the bottom of the falls, is also on the left, a little farther down the road.


WYOMING

One of Yellowstone’s secrets is a stretch of the Gardner River about a half-mile from the main road. Hot water from the Boiling River spills over the banks of the Gardner into several sheltered pools offering varying degrees of heat, right up to hot-as-you-can-stand-it. Once you’re quite parboiled, wade toward the far side of the river—the bracing snowmelt is a quick cool-down. Small cascades of hot (130 degree) water heat these shallow pools, making them a favorite of families with young children.


Because the river is in the northern section of the park, the high-desert landscape allows unobstructed views of the Gallatin Range to the west and the Absaroka peaks to the north and east. One caveat: The pools only become accessible in mid-June, when the water levels drop enough to reveal them.


Getting there: Head north for two miles from Mammoth. Pull off on the service road on the right (where there is a sign marking the 45th parallel of latitude), just before the bridge, and hike in about a half-mile.

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On my family’s first visit to the islands, we impulsively opted for the sampler tour: three days each on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii. Okay, the manic itinerary was my idea—my husband thinks I need a 12-step program for my gonzo, must-see-it-all travel jones. But it was a great way to lap up the islands’ strikingly diverse landscapes, particularly great from the plush vantage point of Hawaii’s royal-treatment resorts. At these highly evolved hostelries, the in-house spa might serve up morning yoga by the lagoon, and the hang-gliding-instructor-cum-concierge will point you toward a flotilla of kayaks. But the sine qua nons are the kids’ adventure camps, which keep topping themselves with boogie-boarding lessons, caving expeditions, hikes to ancient petroglyphs, and rides on outrigger canoes. Getting our three boys (ages seven, five, and two) to let go of the camp counselors at the end of the day was like negotiating the Florida ballot count. We all found it hard not to be lulled into a resort-fog (that state of advanced this-is-the-life bliss), but there are fantastic places on each island to explore with your kids (see our “Must-See” sections). We even managed without any help from the concierge, really.

HAWAII



Best Bet: ORCHID AT MAUNA LANI

Retracing Thor Heyerdahl’s incredible journey, navigating by the stars all the way to Tahiti: priceless. But for $95, chargable to probably any old credit card if you’re staying at The Orchid at Mauna Lani, you can bring the kids and recreate a few hours aboard the Flying Manta Ray, a traditional Hawaiian sailing canoe. Little campers at the Orchid at Mauna Lani get to swim in a secret pond where kings and queens once swam. Also way cool is hiking through ancient shelter caves to find petroglyphs carved into the lava by Polynesian explorers (the guys Heyerdahl was so crazy about) centuries ago. Admirably eco-sensitive, the camp makes a point of teaching kids how they can help preserve Hawaii’s coral reefs.


Nuts and bolts: room-and-car package from $350 per night; second room for the kids only, $10 a night; full day at the Orchid’s Keiki program for kids ages 5-12, $50, including lunch; half-day, $35. Contact 800-845-9905, www.orchid-maunalani.com.


Runner-Up: ASTON KEAUHOU BEACH RESORT

Though this condo complex doesn’t have a formal children’s program, it does sponsor activities relating to the Big Island’s rich cultural and geological granddaddy-of-the-Hawaiian-chain history. There’s the usual snorkeling and scouting for sea turtles. But kids also get to pretend they’re real Hawaiian kings, playing make-believe in the actual summer cottage of King Kalakaua on the resort’s grounds, and fishing in his ancient fishing ponds. Activities are free for kids and adults (children who are old enough can participate on their own). Nuts and bolts: doubles from $185. Contact 800-922-7866, www.aston-hotels.com.


Must-See HAWAII

Meet Kilauea, in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the most active volcano on the planet. Hawaii Forest and Trail’s Volcanoes ���ϳԹ��� (adults $145, children 5-12 $99, kids 4 and under are free; 800-464-1993, www.hawaii-forest.com) will make the introductions. Clamp on headlamps and venture into the dank recesses of the Thurston Lava Tube. Peer into the Halema’uma’u fire pit, a lake of molten lava in the volcano’s caldera (whose rocky crust belies the churning lava beneath). Then hike down Kilauea’s flanks, along the rift zones that periodically spew giant boulders, tons of cinders, and rivers of lava that can flow as fast as 35 mph en route to the sea. There—get your cameras out—the explosive result is an inferno of sulfurous steam, smoke, and fiery lava.

OAHU

Best Bet: SHERATON MOANA SURFRIDER

A daily dozen wedding parties and throngs of Waikiki pedestrians shuttle through the doors of the Sheraton Moana Surfrider, but grit your teeth and check in anyway. The old part of this hotel, the original Moana, beautifully restored and renamed the Banyan Wing, was the home of the classic radio show Hawaii Calls. From 1935 to 1975, songs of tropical moonlit nights, the swish of ball gowns, and the rhythmic crash of the surf lured mainlanders to the islands. (My own mom remembers it dreamily.) This is the classic Waikiki resort, with an Ivy League children’s program to match: field trips to the Honolulu Zoo and that mother lode of Polynesian anthropology, the Bishop Museum; kite building and flying; catamaran sailing; boogie boarding and snorkeling; and a children’s high tea. (All activities are based at the Sheraton Waikiki, Moana’s sister resort).


Nuts and bolts: doubles from $260; Keiki Aloha program $31 all day, $21 half-day, lunch $6.50, and dinner $12. Contact 800-325-3535, www.sheraton.com.
Runner-Up: OUTRIGGER REEF ON THE BEACH

Is your kid a budding Steven Spielberg? The Outrigger Reef on the Beach, also surfside in frenetic Waikiki, has a children’s program that takes kids to Kualoa Ranch, where they can explore the sets where Jurassic Park and George of the Jungle were filmed. There’s a giant catfish pond (that I don’t recall from either film) where they can practice catch-and-release fishing. Another genuine high point for 5- to 13-year-olds in the Cowabunga Kids Club is the hike up Diamond Head crater to the cinematic view that the early Hawaiians must have enjoyed while they performed a little human sacrifice (yup, true).


Nuts and bolts: doubles from $220; a full day of the Cowabunga Kids Club with lunch, $50. Contact 800-688-7444.


Must-See

Watch Endless Summer before you go, and your family will dream of emerging from the perfect curl with lace-white foam showering the tail of a well-patched longboard. Even beginners can learn to walk on water on the legendary North Shore. Head to Haleiwa, where North Shore Eco-Surf Tours (808-638-9503, www.ecosurf-hawaii.com) offers two-hour surfing lessons for $65 per person (kids must be six or older) and guided walking/surfing tours of famous surf sites. After class, take your sore muscles to Sunset Beach to watch the world’s best try to conquer the monster sets.

KAUIA

Best Bet: HYATT REGENCY KAUAI

At the Hyatt Regency Kauai Resort and Spa, built in an open-air plantation style, the varnished-wood buildings are separated from the beach by a massive, three-tiered, watery never-never land. There are grottoes tucked behind waterfalls, saltwater lagoons with wading areas for toddlers, and a 150-foot water slide that looks like it’s carved from black lava. When your kids get restless just slippin’ and slidin’, they can be Indiana Jones for a day, learning the fundamentals of archaeological excavation at two sites on the resort grounds. Camp Hyatt, for ages 3–12, has its own latter-day Marlin Perkins, a staff wildlife expert who introduces campers to native Hawaiian species, plus the Hyatt’s own coterie of colorful parrots. Then there’s tidepool exploring plus trekking along the dunes where they might spot rare monk seals and green sea turtles. After camp lets out, you can all hit the beach—the waves here on Poipu are perfect for boogie boarding and bodysurfing. Nuts and bolts: doubles from $355; Camp Hyatt costs $45 including lunch and T-shirt. Contact 800-742-2353, www.kauai-hyatt.com.


Runner-Up: KIAHUNA PLANTATION

In the low-key children’s program at the Kiahuna Plantation, kids can go native, gathering hibiscus and lilies from the botanical gardens on the grounds to make traditional Hawaiian crafts. Then they’ll learn to cast like a pro, using their own handmade bamboo fishing poles. Nuts and bolts: doubles from $199; full day at the kids’ camp costs $35, including lunch; half-day, $20. Contact 800-688-7444; www.outrigger.com.


Must-See

Take advantage of Kauai’s fluted Na Pali Coast—perhaps the most stunning 22 miles on earth. Walk along the high pali (cliffs), dipping into lush valleys on the Kalalau Trail. You start at Kee Beach with a strenuous climb up loose rock that can be slippery when wet. Hike at least the first half-mile for a spectacular view of fluorescent-green, crenulated bluffs. It’s another mile and a half to hidden Hanakapiai Beach—great for picnicking, but unsafe for swimming. Cool off on your return to Kee Beach, where calm seas and a shallow reef make for superb snorkeling for little tykes.

MAUI

MAUI



Best Bet: FOUR SEASONS RESORT MAUI

From the minute you set foot in your room at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, you’ll realize this is how Princess Di must have traveled with her kids. If you’ve ordered a crib, it will come occupied by a stuffed donkey (packs of wild donkeys still roam the lava flows on the Big Island). Arrayed around the edge of the tub in the sumptuous marble master bath (the size of my living room at home), you’ll find brightly colored sponge letters spelling out the names of each of your children. Then there are welcome baskets for each child, and most important, the week’s schedule at Kids for all Seasons. Your pixie pyrotechnics experts will adore erupting sand volcanoes under close staff supervision, swimming in the pool of Tarzan’s dreams, and catching lizards and watching whales breach on the daily camp hikes. Did you forget anything— diapers, stroller, car seat, children’s videos? Relax. The concierge is falling all over himself to be your personal 7-Eleven.
Nuts and bolts: doubles from $310; Kids for all Seasons camp for ages 5-12 is complimentary; kids’ lunches ordered from room service and added to your bill at checkout. Contact 808-874-8000, www.fourseasons.com.


Runner-Up: NAPILI KAI BEACH RESORT

Looking for a little less pampering and a little more laid-back attitude? Napili Kai Beach Resort, a classic beach hideaway, has great Hawaiian character on one of the best swimming and snorkeling bays on Maui. Your kids won’t be overstimulated, but they’ll have a blast going nose-to-nose with the reef wildlife and practicing to be the ball like Tiger Woods on the children’s putting course.


Nuts and bolts: doubles from $185; complimentary Keiki Club for kids ages 6-12. Contact 800-367-5030, www.napilikai.com.


Must-See

After bundling up to catch the sunrise on the rim of Haleakala’s lunarlike crater, either hike or ride horseback to the eerily still valley floor studded with towering cinder cones. Check on weather conditions (808-871-5054) before you roll out of bed at 3 a.m.; a drizzly day will rob you of the slow symphony of colors you’d otherwise see beginning half an hour before the actual sunrise. Park rangers (808-572-9306) offer two-hour guided hikes starting at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays. Pony Express (808-667-2200) leads half- and full-day horseback rides, novices welcome, for $145-$180 per person, including lunch (children must be ten or older and have some experience).

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�� �� �� Which is exactly the trouble. Some in the surfing community see tow-in surfing as the downfall of a once soulful, environmentally sound lifestyle. While companies such as Bombardier are developing cleaner and quieter jet-ski engines, the San Francisco­based environmental group Bluewater Network says that most machines still dump nearly 30 percent of their gas-oil mixture unburned into the water. “It’s sad to see one of the last sports where humans are in harmony with the ocean environment turning into just another motorized recreational activity,” says Bluewater Network director Russell Long.The Surfrider Foundation, a San Clemente, California­based environmental group that works to protect the cleanliness of coastal waters worldwide, is similarly dismayed by the trend. “We do have issues with personal watercraft,” says Chad Nelsen, Surfrider’s environmental program manager. “They are really polluting.” Then there are the safety issues. Though an unwritten code of conduct has emerged—complete with hand signals and basic rules (“Don’t cross the path of a jet ski towing a surfer”)—some fear that it’s only a matter of time before a swimmer and a jet ski meet on a surf break with tragic consequences. Most tow-in evangelists are keenly aware of the dangers jet skis pose to paddle-in surfers and swimmers, though, and want to keep the three groups well apart. “I stand wholeheartedlybehind the federal law of no personalwatercraft within 200 feet of a surfer or swimmer,” says Ken Bradshaw. (That same law makes tow-in technically illegal, though so far no one is enforcing it.) Tow-in surfers say they are aware of the issues but see no other way to get to the big waves. Further, Bradshaw points out that the jet skis make big-wave surfing safer than its paddle-in counterpart. “If you are going to ride waves over 20 feet, tow-surfing is the safest forum. You have your designated lifeguard attached to you,” he says. Even some of the most guarded paddle-in surfers are finding it hard to resist the call of the two-stroke engine. “It’s all the guys who swore that they would never tow-in that you see out there now,” says Moore. “When the surf gets that big you really don’t have a choice—you either tow or don’t go.” Indeed, the number of recognized tow-in surf breaks has increased quickly, particularly in Hawaii, where there are now more than two dozen such spots. It’s the same situation in California, where the first tow-in crews began buzzing the big waves in the early 1990s. “Last year I went out to Mavericks three times and I tow-surfed it with only a few friends each time I went. Now, one year later, there are five tow-in surf teams there,” says Bradshaw. “By next year, there are going to be tow-in competitions everywhere.” That’s not necessarily a good thing. Because tow-in surfing is relatively easy to learn, the pioneers of big-wave chasing may unwittingly end up unleashing a herd of novices on the high seas. In 1998 a group of Hawaii lifeguards and surfers, including Bradshaw, urged the state to mandate a certification program to ensure that tow-in surfers got some chops before they hit the big stuff. That bill died last year, but the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources has since taken up the cause and is now putting together a set of rules. Educational coursework and certification may be required, according to Oahu lifeguard operations chief James Howe, as might some kind of on-water exam, the equivalent of a big-wave road test. To Bradshaw, this is only the beginning. Someday, he speculates, there could actually be reservation times for tow-in surf spots. “It could be like a tennis court where someone has only 45 minutes to use the space.” As always, Mother Nature remains the ultimate enforcer. “People lose their jet skis and have bad wipeouts, and they figure out that they don’t belong out there,” says Troy Alotis, a 35-year-old entrepreneur who tow-in surfs the North Shore. In fact, the success of Project Neptune—tow-in’s prime-time debut—is an open question. This is, after all, a La Niña year, and as this issue went to press only a handful of big-wave swells had hit Mavericks.”No one has seen it with a huge 310-degree swell,” admits Marckx—though on October 29, the 16 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoys off the West Coast recorded the passing of a swell large enough to launch a 60-footer at Cortés. Whether Project Neptune turns out to be a ripple or a record-breaker, tow-in is clearly taking surfing past its poetic roots toward points unknown—at breakneck speed. “Now that I have done tow-in surfing, it would be hard to go back in time and paddle in on the outer reefs,” says Cortés Bank hopeful Alotis. “Tow-in surfing is pretty much here to stay.” ��

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Venom is a subject Bill Haast knows like the back of his hands—hands that are gnarled and mangled from having been bitten 163 times by some of the world’s deadliest snakes. At 86, Haast still works year-round at his Miami Serpentarium Laboratories, an indoor-outdoor facility in the chiggery flatlands of rural Florida near Punta Gorda. Home to more than 400 snakes, the 80-acre Serpentarium also boasts a one-of-a-kind serpent “propagation enclosure”—a grassy, palmetto-filled space designed expressly to get its languorous inhabitants in the mood.

A typical day at the Serpentarium finds Haast heading to his “venom library” and choosing one of many large metal cages. He lifts the cover. The snake du jour—a cobra, say—springs up, hisses, and weaves side to side. Waving his left hand to distract it, Haast seizes the serpent with his right, presses its fangs against a polyester membrane stretched over a test tube, and voil€: A “yield” of amber liquid spews forth. Each day Haast extracts venom from as many as 100 snakes. Ounce for ounce, this poison can be worth more than gold. Antivenin manufacturers and research labs pay up to $6,000 for a gram of freeze-dried venom from an African tree snake, and business is steady enough that Haast parks a cherry-red Rolls-Royce convertible in his garage. Obtaining a gram of venom, however, may require 100 or more extracting sessions. Which explains Haast’s scars—and why he has no obvious successor. Each of his three children has politely declined offers to inherit the family business.

So with Haast entering his second half-century at the Serpentarium and with the annual man-meets-snake season about to peak—the American Association of Poison Control Centers estimates that as many as 5,000 Americans will be bitten this summer—we checked in with him for some advice about snaky behavior and coolness in the face of fangs. There can be an upside to serpent poison, after all: Haast, who’s been injecting himself with a “vaccine” of diluted venom for 50 years, has blood so rich with antibodies that it’s been transfused into numerous bite victims. His venom shots also have saved him, he swears—not just from death by snakebite, but from aging, infirmity, and even colds. “I’ve never been sick a day in my life,” he says. “Never have to go to the doctor.” Which turns out to be, well, a slight exaggeration.

So what was the worst bite ever?

If you mean the closest I came to death, that would have been in 1956, when I was bitten by a Siamese cobra on national television. It was during a live broadcast of Marlin Perkins’s Zoo Parade. The snake struck at my arm, my wife screamed, and the network cut to a commercial. I stopped breathing and was put in an iron lung. It was two days before I was breathing on my own.

Not long before, you’d been bitten by a blue krait, whose venom is even more more lethal than a cobra’s. What happened that time?

Krait venom usually makes you stop breathing—it paralyzes your diaphragm. In fact, I’ve never heard of another krait bite victim surviving. But it also stimulates the nervous system. My sensitivity—touch and sight—was exaggerated by maybe a hundred times. There was nothing horrible about it. It was all just beautiful texture and tapestry and colors. This was before LSD, but that’s probably similar to what I was feeling.

What’s bitten you most recently?

A western diamondback. I must have blinked at the wrong second. He got me on the back of the left hand.

Do you even flinch at such bites anymore?

Oh, I guess so. I was on the floor with spasms and convulsions this time. I spent the night in intensive care. And my hand was swollen for maybe two or three weeks, which always happens with a viper bite.

About those hands—they’re something of a roadmap to your career, aren’t they?

They have taken a beating. A bite from an eastern diamondback rattlesnake left one hand curled like a claw. The venom of a Malayan pit viper made my index finger kind of hooked. And two years ago, a cottonmouth bit the tip of my right pinkie. Cottonmouth venom dissolves tissue. So most of the finger turned black and lost feeling. All that was left was a blackened bit of bone sticking out. My wife, Nancy, took a pair of garden clippers and cut that off.

Would those be the same kind of clippers people use on, say, roses?

Similar to that. Yep.

And then you went right back to work. Admit it: You must love handling those snakes.

It can be exciting. There was one time when I was struck by the most dangerous snake in the world, the saw-scaled viper. This was 1989. The bite didn’t seem serious at first. But the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding; my blood just wouldn’t clot. I was starting to worry, especially since, at the time, there was no antivenin for this snake in the United States. But there was in Iran. So Nancy called a person we know there who smuggled some vials past customs by telling them it was for a dying German. By the time they got it to me, I was stabilizing. But it was exciting for a while there.

Life and death and international intrigue just seem to be part of the workaday serpent-handling world, at least for you. True?

When I was younger, maybe. I used to travel overseas a lot then to give bite victims blood. The most dramatic was this time a little boy was bitten by a coral snake down in Venezuela. Congressman Claude Pepper’s office sent a jet that flew me deep into the jungle, to this little village hospital. They gave the boy about a pint of my blood, and pretty soon he regained consciousness and asked for his mother. The next day they made me an honorary citizen of Venezuela.

You couldn’t have anticipated such perks when you started. How did you ever get involved in the snake business in the first place?

When I was 20, I started working as a snake handler for a roadside carnival. During the Depression, I got into the moonshine business in the Everglades, and I caught all kinds of snakes there. And during the war, I was a flight engineer in Africa, Asia, and South America and got to collect puff adders and cobras and such. That was when I got the idea for the Serpentarium.

I’m sure the neighbors were thrilled. Have you found that snakes make good pets?

Snakes do not make good pets. You could have a snake for 30 years and the second you leave his cage door cracked, he’s gone. And they’ll never come to you unless you’re holding a mouse in your teeth.

But if they don’t feel affection, what about aggression? In the new movie Anaconda, the snake’s out for blood. Do snakes stalk people in real life?

That’s ignorance. Snakes aren’t monsters. They’re defensive—you know, ‘Don’t tread on me.’ Except king cobras. They’ll come after you, striking repeatedly, to protect their eggs. In Burma, they have to close foot trails during nesting season.

Is there anywhere else, besides Burma, you’d advise the snake-phobic to avoid?

India, for one. About half of the deaths from snakes happen there. That’s because Indian farmers walk around barefoot near some of the world’s deadliest snakes, including the saw-scaled viper. Australia has more toxic snakes, but people wear shoes there.

Ever eaten a snake?

Sure. Back when I was in Boy Scouts, they had something called the Snake Club. To get your Snake Club patch you had to catch a rattlesnake and roast him over the fire.

And did it taste like chicken?

Oh, I thought it was a lot moister and better than chicken, but hardly worth the effort. Rattlesnakes are pretty slim critters.

Photograph by Andrew Kaufman

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