In Alaska, such intimate encounters with wild things are quite common, and children can learn firsthand about animals and places they otherwise might see only on television or in zoos.

Now I travel the state with my children, Robin, five, and Julia, two. They point out with wonder many things I overlook. We once sat on a dock for hours, watching a mother sea otter play with her pups, thanks to RobinØs persistent fascination. And who would have guessed there could be so many ways to have fun in a Forest Service campsite?.

Following are four Alaska itineraries recommended for active families with children of various ages. Each includes unspoiled wilderness and wildlife viewing that you can get to without the expense of chartering a bush plane or a boat.

• Go North and Prosper
• Alaska for Less
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The relatively undiscovered village of Gustavus, at the north end of southeast Alaska's Inside Passage and accessible only by ferry or aircraft, makes a good base for exploring one of the richest wild areas in Alaska. Gustavus is so quiet you often feel as if you're the only visitor, but the headquarters of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, one of Alaska's most visited attractions, lies just ten miles down the road.

In Glacier Bay, a 65-mile-long set of fjords, you'll find a few short hiking trails and a campground at the park headquarters. The outfitter Alaska Discovery offers sea-kayaking day trips ($119 per person; ten percent discount under age 18; minimum age 12; 800-586-1911). Its eight-day paddle into the park proper ($1,890 per person; ten percent off under age 18) is only for fit older teens and adults. To get to the many immense glaciers and the whales and other wildlife deep in the bay, take the park concessionaire's tour boat ($150, half price for kids 12 and under; 800-451-5952).

There's at least as much to do in and around Gustavus itself. Icy Strait, just south of Gustavus off Point Adolphus, is one of the most reliable places in Alaska to see humpback whales and to catch halibut ranging into the hundreds of pounds. You can charter a small boat with any of several local skippers (around $200 per person, slightly less without the fishing). Or, take the daily excursion boat, the Auk Nu, run by the park concessionaire (three-hour cruise, $78 per person), which also functions as the passenger ferry linking Gustavus to Juneau ($85 round-trip). Kayakers obviously can get closest of all to the whales; Alaska Discovery leads a three-day kayaking trip off Point Adolphus from a base camp for $550 per person (there's a ten-percent discount for kids under 18).

There are four country inns in Gustavus, and a number of cabin rentals and B&Bs. The Gustavus Inn ( $135 per adult, half price under age 12, all meals included; 800-649-5220), an old farmhouse, has bicycles for guests to use, and makes arrangements for sea kayaking, whale-watching, and fishing. Puffin's Bed and Breakfast offers simply furnished one-room cabins with baths ($85 per night for two; $20 each additional person; $10 kids 2 to 11; 907-697-2260).

Hiking the Kenai Peninsula

There are several excellent multi-day hikes suitable for families in the spectacular virgin country of the Chugach National Forest. The most famous of these hikes is the Resurrection Pass Trail, a 39-mile National Recreation Trail linking the villages of Hope and Cooper Landing that takes three to five days for good hikers. It's also suitable for mountain biking and horseback riding after July 1.

The starting point is four miles south of Hope, a tiny seaside town of white clapboard Gold Rush buildings and so few people that Polaroids of all the residents are posted on the wall of the bar. The trail climbs from here through coastal forest into the Chugach Mountains.

At about the halfway mark along the hike you reach the pass, well above treeline in a valley of alpine tundra and wildflowers. On the downhill stretch to Cooper Landing, a series of three lovely fish-filled lakes nestle in the mountains' shoulders, and there are four Forest Service cabins available to rent ($25 per night plus a $8.25 reservation fee; call 800-280-2267). Along the way you have an excellent chance of seeing plenty of wildlife–moose, bear, wolves, Dall sheep, and mountain goats.

The riverside sportfishing town of Cooper Landing has many good places to stay, ranging from rustic cabins to motel rooms to a luxury hotel operated by Princess Cruise Lines. Take a float trip down the Kenai River with a company such as Alaska Wildland ���ϳԹ���s (day trips, $95; ages 7 to 11, $55; 800-334-8730). This is among some of the best places in Alaska for king and red salmon fishing.

A Trip through the Klondike

The Klondike Gold Rush of 1896-97 was the ultimate adventure travel tour. You can visit the towns the stampeders left behind and the wilderness they crossed, all essentially unchanged; along the way stop to hike, canoe, bike, and sea kayak. But don't go unless your kids can handle long hauls; the trip can take as long as 12 days and cover 1,200 miles, with drives covering up to 240 miles in a single day.

The route goes from the port of Skagway over White Pass into the Yukon Territory to Dawson City, the site of the Klondike strike in 1896. Then the loop continues west, back into Alaska and back to the ocean in Haines.

Fly by way of Juneau or take the Alaska Marine Highway ferry to Skagway, where the National Park Service has preserved the historic Gold Rush district. Here you can ride the spectacular narrow-gauge railway built over White Pass around 1900 (adults, $75; 12 and under, half price; call 800-343-7373).

The Wind Valley Lodge (983-2236) is a good standard motel; the Golden North Hotel is a wonderfully funky old place little changed in a hundred years (983-2294); both places charge about $75 for a double room.

From Skagway, drive along the Klondike Highway to Dawson City, 426 miles north. (Avis in Skagway charges about $50 per day/$349 per week for a midsize car; call 800-331-1212.) There are a number of Yukon Territory campgrounds all along the route; a good stop is Tatchun Creek, about halfway, just north of the town of Carmacks, for a day hike down to Five Fingers Rapids on the Yukon River. Plan to spend two full days seeing the historic sights in Dawson City. During the Gold Rush, this was the second-largest city on the West Coast, after San Francisco. Dawson City also is a good place to start a float trip on the Yukon, Klondike, or Stewart rivers. A provincial campground is located just across the Yukon from town (you can take the free ferry). The Triple J Hotel has rooms (doubles, $85-$115; 403-993-5323) and cabins ($107) right in town.

The gravel Top of the World Highway leads west from Dawson City back to the U.S., traversing treeless mountain peaks. Back on the U.S. side, 79 miles from Dawson City, the road meets the gravel Taylor Highway in the Fortymile country, which to this day remains a wild haven for small-time gold miners. There also are two BLM campgrounds (883-5121) near two of the put-ins for the Fortymile River.

A detour north on the Taylor leads 65 miles to the village of Eagle, a Gold Rush town with five museums but fewer than 200 residents. Getting there takes several hours over dirt roads, 144 miles from Dawson City, but it's worth it to see the wonderful historic buildings. There's a comfortable motel, a cafe, a campground, and a visitor center (547-2233).

From Eagle, you've got about 600 miles to cover to get back to Haines. It's best to do it in three stages: Stop at one of the inexpensive motels or camp out in Tok (173 miles), then stop again at Canada's awe-inspiring Kluane Lake, another 242 miles.

The final stop, Haines (207 miles), is a charming and offbeat seaside town with some of Alaska's best wilderness guides and territory for sea kayaking, rafting, mountain biking, hiking, and climbing. Call the visitor center at 800-458-3579 for referrals. Haines also is the center of Tlingit Native culture. The Halsingland Hotel (doubles, $49-$89; 766-2000), part of an Army fort built at the turn of the century, is a fun, creaky old place to stay.

In Haines, you're back on the ferry system, just 12 miles from Skagway by water. If you rented a car in Skagway, you can drop it off here for a $100 charge or take it back to Skagway yourself on the ferry for $25.

Kachemak Journey

You can get away from the road system in a marine wilderness rich with wildlife across from Homer in Kachemak Bay, which is south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula. Any of the several tiny communities makes a good base, or you can link them together in a backcountry journey, as follows.

Passenger ferries, excursion boats, and water taxis crisscross the bay daily in the summer. Rainbow Tours (235-7272) will take you to Seldovia for $40 round-trip, $25 for ages 12 and under. On the way you'll see otters, eagles, puffins, probably seals, and maybe even whales. Seldovia is a good place to bike on miles of deserted roads, fish for salmon or halibut, hike, or just wander around.

You can get breakfast at The Buzz coffee shop and take the daily van to Jakolof Bay, the only place connected to Seldovia by road. Jakolof Bay makes Seldovia look like a metropolis, but there are a couple of places to stay here. Call Marcia or Tom at the Jakolof Ferry Service for information about cabin rentals ($50-$70; 235-2376).

The Buzz (234-7479) also rents mountain bikes ($20 a day) to ride the old logging roads into the countryside. A good route is the Rocky River Road, which threads 20 miles through the mountains across the tip of the Kenai Peninsula to the remote fjords.

Three outfits guide sea-kayaking trips through Kachemak Bay. True North Kayak ���ϳԹ���s (235-0708) offers all-day guided paddles for $125 per person as well as multiday trips (ask about discounts for parties of four or more). Trips, at the same phone number, is a custom adventure-travel booking service in Homer that can take care of all the details of a Kachemak Bay journey.

The Jakolof Ferry Service can take you back to Homer or to Halibut Cove, a town Dr. Seuss could have invented, with no roads, and docks and boardwalks serving as sidewalks. The town's biggest business is fine art. With fewer than a hundred year-round residents, there are 14 professional artists and three galleries.

Most people come to Halibut Cove on a day trip from Homer aboard the Danny J passenger ferry (235-7847) to eat at the Saltry, an exceptional seafood restaurant. But you could stay overnight at the lovely Quiet Place Lodge, whose five one-room cabins sit on pilings above the floating post office ($150 per person, half price for kids 6 to 12; under six free, all meals included; 296-2212). The lodge also can help you arrange for kayak and boat rentals, or you can go hiking on the 25-mile network of trails in Kachemak Bay State Park. It would be easy to spend an entire summer here, but, eventually you'll have to catch a boat back to reality.

Hired Hands

Alaska Wildland ���ϳԹ���s (800-334-8730) offers eight trips this summer (most for kids 12 and older), including a Ten-day Explorer Safari for $3,295 per person. But one trip caters to families with children ages 6 through 11: The Family Safari includes a float trip on the Kenai River and a look at an Iditarod champion's racing kennel, and finishes with two nights at Denali Backcountry Lodge near Mount McKinley. The seven-day trip costs $3,795 for adults and $3,495 for kids, not including airfare to Anchorage.

Nature Expeditions International (800-869-0639) leads a 9- to 15-day trip that covers more of Alaska; you'll go to Glacier Bay, Barlett Cove, and Kenai and Denali national parks, among other places. Recommended for ages ten and up, the trips costs $2,690 for nine days, $3,790 for 15 days, not including airfare.

Alaska Discovery (800-586-1911) takes children as young as 12 on some of its three- to 12-day Southeast Alaska sea kayaking trips ($495-$2,600; ten percent off for kids under 18 and groups of four or more).

More Hooked on Alaska

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• Where The Wild Things Are

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Humpback Whales
Number in the wild in Alaska: 750, summer only.
Best places to find them: Resurrection Bay outside Seward, Frederick Sound outside Petersburg, Point Adolphus near Gustavus.
How close can you get? Federal law prohibits vessels from forcing the humpbacks to change course, but sometimes the whales will surface right nearby.
Chances a child can see one: Fair to Good. Patience and quick reactions are needed to catch a glimpse of one when it briefly surfaces.

Sea Otters
Number in the wild in Alaska: 100,000-150,000.
Best places to find them: Small boat harbors all over Southeast and South central Alaska, Kenai Fjords National Park, Prince William Sound.
How close can you get? It's illegal to harass or handle otters, but in a small boat you can sometimes get within a few feet.
Chances a child can see one: Excellent. Sea otters are ubiquitous in coastal Alaska and seem almost to enjoy the presence of humans.

Bald Eagles
Number in the wild in Alaska: 50,000.
Best places to find them: Almost any coastal area in South central or Southeast Alaska; Homer and Haines are especially good.
How close can you get? Bald eagles are generally seen at a distance, and are protected by federal law from being disturbed.
Chances a child can see one: Good. Eagles are easy to see in flight, but can be hard to pick out when sitting in a tree.

Caribou
Number in the wild in Alaska: 960,000.
Best places to find them: Denali National Park, Dalton Highway north of the Brooks Range, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
How close can you get? Caribou tend to flee from people. They may wander closer if you stay in a vehicle.
Chances a child can see one: Fair to poor. Caribou often are seen at a distance and patience is required to wait for them to come to you.

More Hooked on Alaska

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Getting there
Take the Alaska Marine Highway ferry (800-642-0066) to Haines, 780 miles by road from Anchorage. The ride is spectacular for adults and fun for kids, and the ferry is the best way to get to Southeast Alaska's small towns. The foot-passenger fare from Bellingham, Washington, is $240 for adults, $120 for kids under 11, free under two; $568 extra for a vehicle under 15 feet (from Prince Rupert, B.C., it's $118 for adults, $60 for under 11; $273 extra for a vehicle). Cabins run an extra $227-$392; you can save the extra cost by camping on deck. (Remember to bring duct tape to hold down your tent.)

Lodging
High hotel prices have produced a bumper crop of bed and breakfasts in every Alaska town. If you don't mind sharing a bathroom, you can get a good room for $75 a night even in expensive areas. Most towns have agencies that can tell you which places welcome children. In Southeast Alaska, call the Alaska Bed and Breakfast Association (907-586-2959). In Anchorage, try Alaska Private Lodgings (907-258-1717), which books G Street Bed and Breakfast, an old house near downtown that caters to families. In Juneau, Blueberry Lodge B&B (907-463-5886) sits in a wonderful natural setting near the water. The cheapest lodging is, of course, a tent; there are places to camp virtually everywhere.

Meals
Pack picnics, cook on a camp stove, or find rooms with kitchenettes–anything to avoid eating three meals a day in restaurants. Hotels of converted apartments, such as the Parkwood Inn in Anchorage (studios with kitchens, $90-$100; 907-563-3590) are convenient and can save you some money.

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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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THE FOLKS WHO RUN THE BEST WILDERNESS LODGES are something like the best masseuses: They know exactly what you want and where you want it, and when they’re done…oh, my. Breakfast is too good and too abundant, but it doesn’t matter, because you’ll just burn it off. The kayaks and canoes are ready. The mountain bikes are tuned. The guides know exactly where to go, but you’ll feel like no one’s been there before.

Life on the edge: cabins bordering Lake O’Hara, BC, Canada

The lodges that get it really get it. Once, at one in the far north, I stole off alone (and, I thought, unnoticed) after an evening of stories and red wine, grabbed a fly rod from the shed, and cast for grayling till after midnight. When I returned, there was a chocolate cookie on my pillow and a note inviting me to tap on the kitchen door if I had any fish to be cleaned.


The ten places we’ve featured below, from a Utah desert oasis to a Quebec salmon-fishing outpost, know the formula without being formulaic. Plus, by definition, they’re in or on the edge of wilderness. Which leads us to an inspired suggestion that each of our top ten can facilitate: After a tenure in their graces, step right off the porch or push off the dock and launch your own foray into the wilds, by foot, kayak, canoe, or llama. Revel deep in the setting you’ve been nibbling at. When you return a few or many days later, leave your boots on the stoop and enjoy full-on ambience, where you’ll find strong coffee wafting (and stronger beverages chilling) and leather armchairs pulled up close to a crackling fire, inviting unclocked repose. Great day. Great life. What’s for dinner?
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Elk Lake Lodge

Nightly loon concertos included: the view from Elk Lake Lodge

NOW MORE THAN EVER, New Yorkers, or anyone else needing space and distance from a city, will appreciate Elk Lake Lodge. This 1903 Adirondack hideaway commands a stunning view, indeed the only view from a manmade structure, of a private wilderness comprising a 12,000-acre boreal forest and 600-acre emerald lake. The isolated retreat, 240 miles north of New York City (100 miles south of Montreal), anchors a 40-mile network of half a dozen mountain trails that visitors share with patrolling deer and black bears. With all this pristine privacy, you’ll be longing for the claustrophobia of New York City’s No. 6 subway line by week’s end.
AT THE LODGE Eight wood-framed cottages are scattered along the lake’s eastern shore, their knotty-pine interiors filled with comfortably rustic furnishings—sorry, no Jacuzzis or wet bars. If it’s available, reserve Windfall, a cabin whose terrace faces the sunrise, or ask for Little Tom, the cottage closest to the lake and thus the best from which to hear a nocturnal loon concerto. Just a couple hundred yards away, in the lodge’s timbered dining room, guests warm their hands by the fieldstone fireplace and their bellies by dining on pork chops, shrimp scampi, and other great American comfort foods, while overlooking the ramparts of New York’s other dramatic skyline, the Adirondacks.
THE SPORTS In mid-May, the islands on Elk Lake are covered with witch hobble and star flowers, making them picnic-perfect. Thanks to a lakewide ban on speedboats, the noontime stillness can be deafening. Grab a pack lunch and one of the lodge’s canoes, and try to catch dinner en route. Fishermen, like the squadrons of native ospreys, don’t need much patience to catch lake trout and landlocked salmon. Miles of easy lowland trails, edged by mushrooms, fiddleheads, and carpets of lady slippers, weave along the shore and across little bridges: Try the Sunrise Trail, a six-mile out-and-back hike.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY Aim for 4,857-foot Dix Summit, a dramatically poised peakaccessible from a lodgeside trail. Backtrack down the five-mile-long driveway, and at the top of the hill on Elk Lake Road follow the Dix Trail 3.5 miles to the Lillian Brook Lean-to, an opportune place to overnight. The next morning, pass Dix Pond and climb 1.9 miles and 2,000 feet toward Hunters Pass. Approaching the windswept ridgeline, the trail crosses a narrow arETe and tackles a series of cirques where stunted trees sprout improbably from nearly vertical faces. At the summit, a kingdom of peaks lies before you and 5,344-foot Mount Marcy frames tiny, sparkling Elk Lake.

Brooks Lake Lodge

Over the hills and far away: trail riding on mountain-bred horses

A STAY AT THIS 13,500-square-foot post-and-beam ranch in the northwestern part of the Wind River Range will make it evident why Wyomingites escape to the Winds. Relaxing on the flagstone porch, you’re dwarfed by the Pinnacles, a jagged mile-long cliff band towering nearly half a vertical mile above. There’s a nearby stable with real horsepower, a stocked lake (just 400 feet away), and a guide waiting to show you a sliver of the 5,000 square miles of surrounding wilderness.
AT THE LODGE Enjoying high tea in their Western-style sitting room, it’s not difficult to see why Brooks Lake Lodge is 95 percent full throughout the summer. Wild game, fish, and fruit are trucked in daily from as far away as California to ensure fresh meals. The lodge’s six cabins, six rooms, and presidential suite are all themed. Lamps carved to resemble trophy animals flank beds piled high with down comforters. In 2003, the lodge will open a 4,000-square-foot spa with a Jacuzzi, steam room, and exercise room—as if the spectacular terrain weren’t enough.

THE SPORTS Unbelievable but true: You can tickle fish. Follow a local to a stream where unthinned throngs of rainbow, brook, and cutthroat trout feast, and grab one…with your bare hands. Or just amble to Lower Brooks Lake, where you can cast from your canoe. For more exercise, pick up a hearty bag lunch and hike or mountain bike the five-mile Kisinger Lakes Trail. Ascend switchbacks to a 10,100-foot-high open ridge before descending to the four Kisinger Lakes, glowing green and blue from sediment and algae.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY Take a one- or two-night guided horsepacking trip, perhaps to Cub Creek in the Teton Wilderness. Two hundred feet from the water, lodge staff will set up a plush camp, with deluxe cots, washrooms, and down pillows. The lodge discourages overnight backpacking because of the resident grizzlies; about 400 make their homes within a 100-mile radius.

King Pacific Lodge

586,000 acres and not a soul in sight: at the footsteps of the Great Bear Rainforest

YOU’RE IN A LUXURY floating lodge moored to uninhabited, 568,000-acre Princess Royal Island in the heart of northern British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest: a realm of deep fjords, islands thick with old-growth red cedars, and astounding vertical relief. Stand at the edge of the craggy, exposed rock of the ridgelines and you feel like you’re on top of the world—at sea level. The channels below teem with salmon, halibut, and killer and humpback whales, and the forest behind you is home to the rare white kermode (“spirit”) bear.
AT THE LODGE It doesn’t seem possible, but this 17-room, 20,000-square-foot structure, with its soaring atrium, is built on a barge that gets hauled 90 miles back to Prince Rupert in the fall. Despite the lodge’s portability, which has kept development off the island, no detail has been spared—from the edge-grain fir tables and forged-iron chandeliers to the slate floors, red cedar walls, massive pine columns, and quarter-sawn fir beams. Rooms are big enough for a king-size bed plus a couple of cushy chairs positioned for gazing out over Barnard Harbor. Alex Rolland, a young chef from Quebec, astounds with his fresh fish and shellfish creations—yet uses a light touch, going easy on the beurre.
THE SPORTS Most guests—typically cost-is-no-object fly-fishing gentry and splurging honeymooners—come for the summerlong parade of salmon or for catch-and-release fly-casting (rainbow, cutthroat, and steelhead) in streams on Princess Royal and neighboring islands. Or you can join Norm or Chris, the resident naturalists, and head off on a different hike or sea-kayak paddle every day, or just motor out to watch the spectacle of 45-foot humpbacks breaching and feeding.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY The lodge can set you up for, say, a three-day paddle out the door and up through the tide-induced reversing rapids of Princess Royal’s Cornwall Inlet and past a Gitga’at longhouse. Set up beach camps and hike up the Cornwall Creek for the off chance of a kermode sighting. Or have a guide motor you to the east side of Campania Island, which you can traverse the easy way (through meadows and stunted forests) or the hard way (up 2,398-foot Mount Pender, along the ridges) and end up camping on the west side of Wolf Track Beach. A lodge boat will meet you there a few days later.

Kachemak Bay Winderness Lodge

Children at play: bears frollicking in McNeil River Brown Bear Sanctuary

THE SINUOUS CHANNEL in front of Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge, just southwest of Kenai Fjords National Park, evolves with the tide into broad, salmon-rich China Poot Bay, reflecting the southern light and the colors of the forest and unnamed peaks beyond. And it all seems to belong to you. A guide grabs you after breakfast like your best pal on the first morning of a long school vacation. “What do you want to do today?” he asks. “Kayak, hike, fish?” For five days, you’ve got Eden to explore together.
AT THE LODGE Weathered docks, decks, and fanciful little buildings blend with big Sitka spruces, gray churt, and beach grass, giving it the feel of an old fishing camp. But inside a cabin where you’d expect to find a rusted cot and a coffee can of nails there appears instead fine art, antiques, and a tile-and-cedar bathroom. Each cabin is only a short jaunt down a forest walk paved with rounded beach stones to the sauna or hot tub. The ceilings of the main lodge are low-slung, the dark wood walls worn smooth by years of polishing. Instead of a grand entryway, there’s a rubber-boot collection. After sushi on the deck, guests gather inside to feast on seafood, garden produce, and carefully selected wines.

THE SPORTS Paddle sports are supreme; on one day’s journey you can kayak up China Poot Bay, hike an hour to China Poot Lake, and then paddle a cached lodge canoe, feeling Lilliputian amid the high peaks surrounding the placid waters. But the lodge’s specialty is natural history: You can go tidepooling or birding, take a forest walk, or explore ruins left by predecessors of the Tanaina Indians. The staff recently included two biologists, an archaeologist, and a forest ecologist. Guest-to-guide ratios are four-to-one or lower.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY Mako’s Water Taxi (907-235-9055, ) rents and delivers kayaks. The first day, paddle up China Poot Bay to a natural waterway that connects China Poot to Peterson Bay; then go east through the roadless artists’ colony of Halibut Cove (stop for a bite at the Saltry Restaurant) to Halibut Cove Lagoon, which you can enter only at slack tide. Camp there, or stay in a Kachemak Bay State Park rental cabin. Next day, climb 2,600-foot Poot Peak. Start early the following morning to miss the day breeze, paddling out of the lagoon and along the shore to the state park campsite at Humpy Creek, a base for hikes to Grewingk Glacier or fishing in the creek. Arrange for Mako to pick you there.

Telemark Inn

Northeast of Eden: a horse-drawn sleigh ride through the Caribou Speckled Wilderness Area

THE AREA AROUND the Telemark Inn, ten miles southwest of Bethel, Maine, is proof that “East Coast wilderness” is not an oxymoron. The pastoral New England lodge is surrounded by 780,000-acre White Mountain National Forest—prime habitat for moose and black bear. Add to that owner Steve Crone’s domesticated llamas, sled dogs, and horses, and you’ll be surprised at how wild it gets just four hours north of Boston.
AT THE LODGE The cedar-shake inn, built as a hunting lodge in the late 1800s, can sleep up to 17 people in five rustic pine-paneled bedrooms. Just off a living room with creaky hardwood floors, a capacious front porch overlooks the birch forest. The inn is so far off the grid that it runs on battery power, making kerosene lamps the primary light source at the dining-room table, where guests eat family-style meals, such as grilled salmon accompanied by veggies plucked from the garden out back.
THE SPORTS Heat up on a thousand-foot scramble over massive boulders for a mile and a half to the top of Table Rock in Grafton Notch State Park. Then work your way down to several creeks feeding Bear River, where you can cool off exploring the smooth granite channels that link a chain of six-foot-deep emerald pools. Launch one of the lodge’s canoes on Umbagog Lake, a 15,000-acre national wildlife refuge surrounded by forest, to spot bald eagles, ospreys, and loons. Or rent a mountain bike and spin seven miles up a dirt road to Crocker Pond or grind out a 20-mile round-trip loop to Round Pond.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY Crone pioneered the llama-trekking business in Maine, and often loads up the woolly beasts with tents, food, and clothes for three-day trips into White Mountain National Forest. You’ll trek four miles on Haystack Notch Trail to the west branch of the Pleasant River, where you’ll camp under balsam firs and red spruces. The next day, hike about 3.5 miles to the top of 2,100-foot Red Rock Mountain for views of the Presidential Range to the west. Return to the lodge the next morning via trails along the Pleasant River.

Camelot ���ϳԹ��� Lodge

King of the desert: Camelot ���ϳԹ��� Lodge

YOU’RE ONLY SIX MILES from Moab as the crow flies, but traveling to Camelot from town on a 12.5-mile dirt road through a mad jumble of slot canyons, mesas, and buttes is excruciatingly slow and difficult, making you feel like a character out of a Paul Bowles novel. This suits owners Terry and Marcee Moore just fine. Formerly managers of a lodge in Alaska, they wanted a Lower 48 spot that replicated Alaska’s feeling of utter remoteness, except with warmer weather. Bare but for sunlight, shadows, and Anazasi petroglyphs, the sculpted stone surrounding the lodge inspires guests with a variety of visions: “It’s a vulture pulling a covered wagon.” “No, it’s three hillbillies in a bathtub.”
AT THE LODGE The solar-powered, 3,000-square-foot lodge, which opened in 1999, sits on 49 private acres just 200 yards from the Colorado River. The post-and-beam, pitch-roofed building has five guest rooms, each with a private bathroom, shower, and entrance from the deck. The views are modest, but there’s a reason: The small windows are meant to minimize solar exposure in the blistering summer. One big space encompasses the living and dining rooms, with welcoming couches and recliners. Through an archway, Marcee rules the kitchen, serving up salt-crusted prime rib and pasta with homemade pesto. For the morning frittatas, she collects fresh eggs.

THE SPORTS Leave the river’s thin ribbon of willows, grass, and tamarisk, and hike formiles in any direction up washes, over sandstone shelves, and down slot canyons. Or survey the desert like a sheik from a camel’s back. Terry, a former Hollywood trainer, has tamed five dromedaries for guests to ride. If you’D rather carry your own weight, mountain bike the Amasa Back Loop, 23 miles of road and singletrack starting from the lodge. Bring your own bike or rent one in Moab. The lodge can also arrange single- or multiday raft trips on Class III-IV+ sections of the Colorado.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY Step off the porch, shoulder a backpack, and head for Dripping Springs Canyon, about four miles from the lodge. Set up a base camp in this parabolic canyon and explore the caves that radiate into Catacomb Rock, hike the myriad unnamed drainages, and taste fresh water from a spring on the canyon’s eastern slope. The lodge also arranges three-day camel treks out to Chicken Corners, a skinny, vertigo-inducing ledge nine miles south of the lodge along a trail leading up to the mesa.

Triple Creek Ranch

Two hands deep: off-ranch horseback riding through the Bitterroot Valley

FIRST, THERE’S THE WELCOME basket full of warm oatmeal-raisin cookies. Then, you look out the window of your log cabin at the surrounding millions of acres of national forest in the foothills of Montana’s Bitterroot Range, and you realize that you’ve just passed on to sublime mountain paradise. General managers Wayne and Judy Kilpatrick and their staff of 50 (who serve 46 guests, max) will spare no effort to make your stay worthwhile: They’ll arrange a day on the Big Hole River with legendary fly-fisherman John Foust, send a masseuse to your cabin, or take a run into Darby, the nearest town, to satisfy your craving for a pint of B&J’s Wavy Gravy.
AT THE LODGE Nineteen pine-log cabins surround a main lodge with three-story-high windows. All boast special accoutrements, some coming with stocked wet bars, others with double-headed steam showers. Sit on your private deck for a morning with your favorite book or spend an afternoon by the lodge pool with a drop-dead-gorgeous view of the Bitterroots. Then slothfully move to the firelit dining room for filet mignon.

THE SPORTS Tease the browns into rising for the spring squala hatch on the Bitterroot River. Later in the summer, get in a little “rowing and throwing” during the salmon-fly hatch on the river’s west fork. Both stretches are only a few miles from the lodge. Be sure to set aside at least one afternoon for a horseback ride over brooks and through alpine meadows with Lady, one of the ranch’s 40 immaculately trained quarter horses. Or, from the Sam Billings Memorial Campground trailhead, five miles west of the lodge, hike a mellow four miles to a waterfall for a dip in a deep pool.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY With more than 19 million acres of national forest in the area, almost any trail can become a backpacking adventure. A local favorite: Drive about 23 miles east on the Skalkaho Highway, and park at the Skalkaho Pass turnoff. Hike five miles north on the Easthouse National Recreation Trail and then set up a camp with your tent flap facing 8,656-foot Dome Shaped Mountain. The next day, head four miles up to the 8,463-foot summit of Palisade Mountain, take in the views, and then continue down Trail 86 about 1.5 miles toward Skalkaho Mountain. Camp at an unnamed lake just north of the trail. On your final day, hike the two miles to Skalkaho Peak or take the south loop of Trail 86 to return to your car via the Easthouse Trail. For more details, call the Stevensville Ranger District at 406-777-5461.

Irwin Lodge

Emerson, eat your heart out: the front porch of Irwin Lodge

COMPARED WITH THE QUAINT, Victorian B&Bs in nearby Crested Butte, Irwin Lodge more closely resembles a barn. But you forgive the lack of cutesy wainscoting when sipping a gin and tonic on the 10,700-foot-high veranda, watching meadows brimming with wildflowers, and basking in the glory of the West Elk, Raggeds, and Maroon Bells-Snowmass high-alpine wilderness areas. Guests at this weathered, unpretentious lodge spend most of the day outdoors, exploring 13,058-foot Mount Owen and slightly shorter mates Ruby Peak, Purple Peak, and Afley Peak (shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss). At day’s end, they return for fine dining and the evening show: sunset and mountains alight with alpenglow.
AT THE LODGE Built in 1977 and refurbished in 1997, Irwin sports a massive fieldstone fireplace surrounded by 8,000 square feet of common area (couches, board games, pool tables, books, and two hot tubs). Kitschy paintings of rams and bears adorn the walls, as do antique skis and snowshoes. Old West memorabilia are scattered throughout, helping distinguish the eminently casual lodge from a high-altitude frat house. (The 22 guest rooms, however, part ways with the Old West, offering up their own themes: Sunflower, Birch, Snowflake, and African, to name a few.) Irwin wisely pours its upscale energies into the kitchen, whose dinner specialties include elk medallions in shiitake-mushroom sauce.

THE SPORTS Mountain biking is spectacular here, for Irwin sits just 12 unpaved miles from Crested Butte and its world-famous trails. But you don’t need to go that far: The Dyke Trail starts right out Irwin’s front door, with 16 glorious miles of serpentine turns. Anglers fish for trout in Lake Irwin, just a few hundred yards below the lodge. Horseback riders hoof up to clear, glacier-fed Green Lake on lodge-supplied mounts. Hikers either stroll among the columbines and Indian paintbrushes or bag an alpine peak via the dramatic granitic rock of nearby Scarp Ridge.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY With trails spidering off in every direction, Irwin can launch any number of backpacking trips, including the historic three-day favorite: hiking through the Maroon Bells to Aspen. Less trodden is a multiday trail through the West Elk Wilderness to the Castles of Breccia—startling pinnacles of volcanic fragments about 26 miles from the lodge. Follow the Dyke Trail to Trail 840 over Beckwith Pass, and then take Trail 438 southeast over Swampy Pass to Trail 450. From the Castles, either return the same way to Irwin or do a clockwise loop around the heart of the Elk Mountains, via Storm Pass.

Pavillon du St. Jean

It can be easy bein’ green: the emerald waters of the St. Jean River

QUEBEC’S GASPE Peninsula is known primarily for its coastline, where the Appalachian Mountains drop dramatically into the sea. But a 45-minute drive from the coastal town of Gaspe reveals the peninsula’s hidden heart—its mountainous interior of old-growth spruce, cedar, and poplar that’s the Pavillon du St. Jean’s backyard. The handsome, no-frills lodge is located on perhaps the best dry-fly salmon river in the world, the St. Jean, whose pools are so brilliantly emerald you’d think the water should taste like mint. Fifteen-pound Atlantic salmon make heart-stopping rises to your fly on the 25 miles of river, on which only eight rods are allowed daily. Head guide Austin Clark, a 54-year-old with a disobedient wisp of white hair, will dance a jig when you catch your first one.
AT THE LODGE Founded in 1958, the Pavillon comprises a main lodge and four cabins; each cabin has two bedrooms, a living room with a wood stove, a private bathroom, and a porch perfect for listening to the gurgle of the river while sipping the local (9 percent) beer, Le Fin du Monde. There’s a convivial main room in the lodge, with reading chairs, a grand stone fireplace, a pool table, and a dining table for 14. Dinner is a four-course affair that might include Gaspesie favorites like ginger-and-carrot consomme, lamb, and lobster, all specialties of the lodge’s renowned Quebecois chefs.
THE SPORTS In addition to fishing, there is excellent hiking in the nearby Chic-Choc Mountains. A short drive from the town of Gaspe will take you to Forillon National Park, where you can hike six miles along the Mont Saint-Alban trail, which provides spectacular views of cliffs that drop vertiginously into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Try sea kayaking along the park’s jagged coastline in Gaspe Bay (for park information, call 800-463-6769; for kayak rentals, call Cap-Aventure at 418-892-5055), or take a whale-watching cruise to see blues, humpbacks, and minkes (Croisieres Baie de Gaspe, 418-892-5500).
BACKCOUNTRY FOREY Drive 140 miles to Le Pluvier L’Hirondelle, in the center of the Chic-Choc Mountains. There you can access the newly christened International Appalachian Trail and hike south for five days and 60 miles. Along the way, you’ll ascend 3,770-foot Mount Logan, home to the last caribou herd south of the St. Lawrence River. Then descend to the Cap-Chat River and take a prearranged shuttle back to civilization. (For shelter reservations in Parc de la GaspEsie, call 866-727-2427; for shuttle information, call IAT Quebec at 418-562-1240, ext. 2299.)

Sentry Mountain Lodge

In the back of the backcountry: ski touring near Glacier National Park

YOUR JOURNAL MIGHT READ LIKE THIS: “We flew in by helicopter, dazzled by Kinbasket Lake, Mount Bryce, the Columbia Icefields, and high points of the Canadian Rockies. The bird dropped us at a cedar hut, on a 7,128-foot col cradled by the Selkirk Mountains. Before settling in, we explored some of the lodge’s 13 square miles of alpine meadows, heather-swathed valleys, and interlaced ridges. A herd of caribou crossed our path, but otherwise we didn’t see a soul. Afterward, we sipped Big Rock Ales, basked in the alpenglow rosying up the surrounding granite peaks, and waited for Venus to pop out, which would later guide us on a midnight hike.” Of course, that would be just the first entry.
AT THE LODGE This just-built hideaway feels like a European-style mountain home, one that you share with only seven other guests: a red tin pitched roof, soaring vaulted ceilings, mural-size windows, a gray-pebble hearth, and handcrafted bookshelves overflowing with maps, fraying paperbacks, and the best local reads, like Chic Scott’s The Story of Canadian Mountaineering. The kitchen, festooned with garlic braids and lined on one side by a pine bar, is where your hosts rustle up items like cheese fondue and coq au vin from the French-inspired menu. Each of the four airy bedrooms is outfitted with a custom-made mattress, downy duvets, and fluffy bathrobes for trekking to the sauna hut.

THE SPORTS There are countless hiking and mountaineering options, and best of all, the terrain connects effortlessly, with gentle meandering accesses to most ridge tops. One morning you might walk down a half-mile to spring-fed Tetras Lake, with its east-end waterfall, and then wrap back up through stands of subalpine fir into Secret Valley, where pine marten pop up like animatronic jack-in-the-boxes. Or follow mountain-goat tracks up a 1,200-foot climb to the crest of 8,344-foot Sentry Mountain. Come winter, the snowshoe, heli-ski, telemark, and ski-touring options are bountiful.
BACKCOUNTRY FORAY SML’s guides can help fashion multiday backpacking excursions, set up heli-hiking jaunts to the celebrated glaciers of the Selkirks, or arrange a hut-to-hut itinerary. The “Esplanade Haute Route,” an eight-mile south-to-north traverse over the Esplanade Range, leads to Vista Lodge, the first in Golden Alpine Holiday’s chain of three rustic huts. From here carry on to Meadow and Sunrise, each an alpine scramble and a day’s hike away.

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Sitting on the granite shore of a tiny island in Maine, my son, Robin, bright-eyed and attentive throughout the day’s ranger-led tour, started asking a series of perceptive questions about what we had learned. I could almost feel his world deepening. Certain uncrowded natural places inspire the best in children. I’ve found many of those places while researching my book, Family Vacations in the National Parks, over years of trips with our own brood, now ages nine, six, one, and three months. Here are my top picks for how to spend your time in the following national parks.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska

Paddle a double kayak below the steep, rocky shores of Resurrection Bay fjord, just outside the park. While gliding through the water, you’ll likely see bald eagles, sea otters, sea lions, and possibly orcas and humpback whales. On an all-day trip you’ll make it several miles down to Tonsina Point, where you can paddle above spawning salmon. Sunny Cove Sea Kayaking charges $125 per person including lunch and kayak rental for the all-day trip, $59 for a half-day:907-224-8810; www.sunny cove.com.
Olympic National Park, Washington

Strap on your packs at the Rialto Beach parking lot and hike north along the cobbles, watching the North Pacific pound sea stacks just offshore. Camp anywhere you choose along the beach (above the tidemark!) or in designated campsites in the woods just above the beach. At low tide, venture out onto a rocky shelf of tide pools inhabited by hermit crabs, anemones, sea stars, and sea urchins. Get a backcountry camping permit from the park’s Wilderness Information Center: 360-452-0300; www.nps.gov/olym.


Yosemite National Park, California

Flee crowded Yosemite Valley and camp on the bank of the South Fork of the Merced River in Wawona, toward the park’s south end near Mariposa Grove. You’ll have the river to yourself to float the three miles from Swinging Bridge down to the campground on a raft, canoe, kayak, inner tube, or even your air mattress. (You’ll have to bring your own gear and transport yourself up Forest Drive to the bridge; note that the water is too low after mid-July). Contact the Yosemite Wilderness Permit office: 209-372-0740; www.nps.gov/yose.


Kings Canyon National Park, California

No sign marks the narrow dirt road off Generals Highway that heads through immense trees into Redwood Canyon, the world’s largest surviving grove of giant sequoias. Get directions and a backcountry permit at the Grant Grove Visitor Center, and then hike off to camp alone in this dim cathedral. The first backcountry campsite is three miles into a six-mile loop. Contact the Wilderness Office: 559-565-3766; www.nps.gov/seki/bcinfo.htm.


Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

At the foot of rocky, 8,000-foot peaks, Yellowstone’s grassy northern valley is the star of its own western movie. Daily rides from Roosevelt Lodge let families put themselves in the scene, possibly spotting bison and elk or joining a cowboy cookout and sing-along (those under age eight can take horse-drawn wagon rides at the lodge). A two-hour ride costs $36. Contact Yellowstone National Park Lodges: 307-344-7311; www.travelyellowstone.com

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Load your gear in a canoe and launch in String Lake, at the foot of the sheer faces of the Tetons. Paddle the narrow channel northward, taking dips in the clear, shallow water. After less than a mile, you can portage the 250 yards to Leigh Lake, where the nearest of eight waterside backcountry campsites is less than a mile farther. The closest canoe rental is a 15-minute drive from the put-in, at Dornan’s: 307-733-3307; www.dornans.com. Get a backcountry camping permit from the park: 307-739-3309; www.nps.gov/grte.


Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Nowhere else will you ever see the stars as sharply as you do in the dry air of your campsite high above the desert on this nine- to 22-mile trek. The Under-the-Rim Trail descends gradually from its start at 8,500 feet, overlooking the cliffs of the Grand Staircase (you can see all the way to the Grand Canyon, 100 miles away). You’ll be able to view the park’s bizarre hoodoo rock formations on this hike but will miss the crush of crowds. Get a permit for one of the designated campsites at the visitor center when you arrive: 435-834-5322; www.nps.gov/brca.
Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Board a shuttle bus half an hour before sunrise, ride 45 minutes west to Hermit Rest, and be among the first to arrive at the trailhead. Hike the six-mile round-trip to Dripping Springs, away from the mobs at the village, but with great views of the canyon framed by Hermit Gorge. This is a cakewalk by Grand Canyon standards but is still steep, with a 1,500-foot elevation change. You’ll make it back for lunch at the Hermit Rest snack bar before the worst of the heat. Contact the park: 520-638-7875; www.nps.gov/grca.


Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee

A secret kingdom in the mountains, the Cataloochee Valley has a remote location and a rough dirt road that keep most people away even in this, the busiest of all national parks. Camp by the creek in the small Cataloochee Campground (no reservations required) and wander through pastures to see cabins, farmhouses, barns, a school, and a church—all built by mountain settlers in the 1880s. The Little Cataloochee Trail snakes for six miles through the hardwood forest, passing through another ghost community. Contact the park: 865-436-1200; www.nps.gov/grsm.


Acadia National Park, Maine

The half-day ranger-led expedition to Baker Island leaves the yachting town of Northeast Harbor by boat and passes through the Cranberry Islands, where you might see seals and ospreys. You land by launch on Baker, a small, uninhabited island with a lighthouse, a few old buildings, and a tiny graveyard. While walking the granite shores it’s easy to imagine the family who lived here all alone almost 200 years ago. Call 207-276-3717 to reserve a spot on Bill Barter’s Islesford Furry; the fare is $19 for adults, $12 for children under 12. Park info rmation: 207-288-3338; www.nps.gov/acad.

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