My curiosity for birding began when I led backpacking trips at an outdoor-education school in Australia’s Victorian Alps. For the first time in my life, I was trekking on a new continent to the chorus��of squawking budgerigars and laughing kookaburras, witnessing enormous emus sip from billabongs in the dense eucalyptus bush.

When I returned to Colorado for college a year later, I realized just how much I’d been missing out on. In the years since, I’ve learned to incorporate the hobby as a fun aside on every adventure. Here are some simple ways to become a part-time birder.��

Start Paying Attention��

Before adding bird-watching��to your next adventure, take a little time to open your world to the species in your area. Notice them on your commute to work, your evening stroll, or just��as you gaze out��your window. In your spare time, start flipping through��regional guides, like ���ǰ��� (each $19.95), to begin familiarizing yourself with the species near you and in your favorite parks or wilderness areas. The Audubon Society’s national website also has��an for beginner birders.

I also picked up valuable tips from Jason Ward's documentary web series ,��on , where the Audubon apprentice and naturalist explores city parks and birding hot spots with notable guests like novelist and actor . Each short episode is��fun, digestible, and educational in the way it introduces��viewers to��techniques and offers information on how to apply birding��to your lifestyle.��

Local chapters of the�� and the also organize free walks in communities across the country that will give you some experience before you head out into the field alone.��

Download These��Free Apps

Now that you have a sense of what birding is all about, download the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s free app and load your local “bird pack”—a digital guide to the birds of your area. The app asks��you where you saw a bird, how big it was, its main colors, and what it was doing when you saw it. To reticent friends, I’ve described it as��the avian version of��Pokédex��for a��Pokémon Go–like scavenger hunt.

If you’re interested in logging your sightings, , a companion app to Merlin by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, allows users to track species they’ve seen by location. The data collected and entered into the app is then made available for scientific research, education, and conservation,��essentially��turning eBirders into amateur wildlife biologists.

Toss a��Pair of Binoculars in Your Pack

Birding in its simplest form, unlike many adventure sports, is relatively free of gear, making it a great complementary activity. To enhance the experience, though, it’d be worth investing in a good pair of binoculars. While they can range in price��from $30 to a few grand, there’s no need to break the bank here. Look for a decently priced, quality pair, like the����($120).

Bird-Watch When There’s Downtime

Perhaps you’ve pulled into camp earlier than expected and have a few spare hours before cooking dinner—go look for birds! Maybe your friends are setting up a climb in Joshua Tree National Park,��and you’re left without a task. Go on a mini birding walk; there could be loggerhead shrikes skewering lizards on a Joshua tree.��Maybe your hiking partner is digging a cathole off-trail. Put down your pack, bust out those binos, and check for upland birds in the evergreens, where there could be a sooty grouse in the blue spruce.��Or��maybe you’re taking a breather after a long session of kiteboarding. Walk along the beach; there could be snowy plovers hunkered in the sand dunes. Whatever you’re doing, use your idle time to explore.

Be Proud of Your Sightings

The magic of birding is that it can give��your adventures new meaning—you may have been stormed off a snowy peak in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, but��you saw a Vatican of northern cardinals scurrying around a jack pine. It’s a simple way to engage more with your surroundings.��

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Many ski towns and resorts go out of their way to actively welcome queer snow enthusiasts with ski weeks, winter Pride fests, and other LGBTQ+ events. Want to partake in the fun? This guide breaks down where to ski and which mega-pass to use.

If you’re not interested in a pass, any of the events below can be accessed directly through the independent event organizers, and many include discounts on lift tickets.

Ikon Pass

Access to LGBTQ+ Events: 9

Not only did add Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, Australia’s Mount��Buller, and Switzerland’s Zermatt this year, it now also gets you lift access to the inaugural at Vermont’s Stratton Mountain, which takes place from February 21 to 23. Hosted by , it’s one of the first��outdoor-industry-sponsored gay ski weekends. On top of lodging and event packages (from $435), the summit��offers a two-day lift-ticket, rental, and lesson package ($220)��as well as a two-day cross-country-skiing, snowshoeing, and ice-skating package ($150).

The king of this pass, though, is ��(from $375), the first and longest-running LGBTQ+ ski week. From January 12 to 19, the Colorado event features a downhill costume competition, a comedy show at with Julie Goldman and Alec Mapa, and a South Beach–themed pool party at the . After joining a daily Highland Bowl hike, be sure to stop by for lunch,��a rowdy tradition. The event��raises funds for , a local��nonprofit committed to ending bullying and improving tolerance toward the LGBTQ+ community.��

Can’t swing a full week? The pass also offers lift access to three weekend events elsewhere. In Maine, there’s��(January 10 to 12) and Sunday River’s ��(February 7 to 9), and in Ontario, Canada, there’s Blue Mountain’s����(March 28 to 29). All feature wild parties, like White Out Weekends’s Studio 54-meets-Area 51–themed Booty Bash at ,��complete with a live disco band. WOW also provides free telemark-skiing lessons and demos with��FreeHeeler’s Demo Tour, where participants can test gear from brands like 22 Designs, Crispi, Liberty Skis, and Meidjo.��

Farther��north, in Quebec, the second annual ��(January 30 to February 2) at Mont Tremblant Ski Resort is a great introduction to the Canadian province, with activities like dogsledding and ice climbing alongside Scandinavian-bathing sessions. The Elevation series also visits Mammoth Mountain, California, for ��(March 18 to 22), known for its exuberant après-ski parties. It draws close to 2,500 participants every year.

If you’re looking to plan a more far-flung ski trip, head Down Under for����at New Zealand’s the Remarkables and Mount��Coronet. The ten-day festival begins August 28��and has a robust set of off-mountain outdoor activities, like zip lining and boat tours, in addition to a Pride Party Series, with��packages from $60.��Just across the Tasman Sea, in New South Wales, Australia, kicks off at ��in the country’s Snowy Mountains in early September with a jam-packed schedule of dress-up ski competitions, spa sessions, and karaoke nights.��

Epic Pass

Access to LGBTQ+ Events:��7

The season begins with , at Vermont’s Stowe Mountain Resort, from January 22 to 26. The longest running of its kind on the East Coast, Rendezvous entertains attendees after a day on the hill with performers like last year’s headliner, legendary drag queen Lady Bunny. Next up, in British Columbia,��is��Whistler Blackcomb’s ��(January 26 to February 2). Its highlight is an enormous parade of skiers and boarders��decked out in Pride flags and costumes, slaloming��down the mountain, and then marching��through Whistler Village.

At����(February 22 to 29), be sure to check out the��, billed as Cirque du��Soleil meets New York Fashion Week,��with proceeds benefiting HIV and AIDS organizations in its home state of Colorado as well as in Utah, Swaziland, and Ethiopia. , now celebrating its tenth year, overlaps with the Telluride gathering, running from February 26 to March 1 at the Park City Mountain Resort. Utah residents receive 25 percent��off Elevation��party packages (from $70), while all attendees receive up to 30 percent��off rental equipment through partnering local businesses.

Japan’s original gay ski week, ��(March 6 to 16) is just what you’d expect: next-level costumes and daily onsen parties. Budget-friendly packages, like the Kyoshi��(from $678), which��includes seven nights of lodging and five days of lift access, make the schlep across the Pacific well worth it. In late spring,�� at Colorado’s Breckenridge Ski Resort (April 1 to 5) features an��on-mountain Pride parade, a Sunday drag brunch, and a charity ski race. The year’s events culminate in early September at Falls Creek and Hotham Alpine Resorts in Australia’s Victorian Alps for , host of the highest-altitude LGBTQ+ film festival in the country, the Queer Shorts Film Fest.

Mountain Collective

Access to LGBTQ+ Events:��4

With the addition of Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, Mount��Buller, and Chile’s Valle Nevado, the now provides access to 18 international destinations, four of which host LGBTQ+ events. For the best value��(and 50 percent off on additional days), spend��two free days at California’s��, Colorado’s��, New Zealand’s��, and Australia’s��.

Powder Alliance and the New England Pass

Access to LGBTQ+ Events:��3

grants three days of weekday access (with half-price tickets on weekends) at Marmot Basin in Alberta, where the four-day commences on April 23. While not on the slopes, check out the festival’s burlesque shows, line-dancing workshop, and glacier tours of the Columbia Icefield.��

The aforementioned ski weekends in Maine—Sugarloaf Together and White Out Weekend—can also be accessed using the��, which provides access to Sugarloaf, Sunday River, and New Hampshire’s Loon Mountain.

Queer Ski Events Not on Specific Passes

Europe also has its own extensive circuit of��events. At Switzerland’s ��(January 18 to 25), partake in the��high-altitude Drag Race Competition, where��contestants dress up in their best mountain chic��before flying��down the slopes for the crown and��grand prize: a five-day stay for two at a luxury resort in the Bahamas.��

, at Paradiski in the French Alps, runs from March 21 to 28 and hosts an exclusive set of programming specifically for queer women, with guided ski and snowboard groups, a fondue dinner, a spa party, and live sets by female DJs. Other notable European gay ski weeks include Switzerland’s , which takes place from March 8 to 15 and offers a six-day ski pass for $186, as well as France’s ��(March 14 to 21), with a five-day lift and event pass from $439.��

Closer to home, Oregon’s Mount��Bachelor hosts from January 30 to February 2, while features two separate events in British Columbia: one at Sun Peaks Resort from February 26 to March 1, and one at Big White Ski Resort from April 1 to 5.

LGBTQ+ Ski and Snowboard Clubs and Outing Groups

Another way to celebrate Pride on the slopes this year is through regional and national organizations, like��, ,��,��, and many others. These clubs organize small groups of LGBTQ+ snow-sports enthusiasts for trips to local and international destinations. In the case of the nonprofit group Ski Buddies, you can register for a free membership and choose from a selection of trips, including a week in��, Austria, from January 18 to 25 (from $1,630). The trip provides seven nights of lodging at , daily breakfast and four-course dinners, and six days of lift access at the largest interconnected ski area in Austria, where you can shred��190��miles of ski runs and more than 124 miles of off-piste terrain.

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Every fall, more than 300 bird species across North America��migrate south for the winter, an event affected as much by a bird’s location and breeding timeline as it is by the changing climate. Not only will these festivals guarantee that you’re in the right place at the right time, but they’ll allow you to take part in the kind of awe-inspiring wildlife migrations usually associated with more far-flung destinations. So��book your short-hop flight, grab your binoculars and field guides, and get ready to be captivated alongside North America’s most passionate birding enthusiasts.

Cape May Fall Festival

Cape May, New Jersey; October 17 to 20

New Jersey Audubon’s is the longest-running birding festival in the country—and for good reason. During the crest of the fall migration, more than 100 bird species can be spotted passing the Cape May peninsula, located at the southern tip of the state between��Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, a 50-minute drive from Atlantic City. One of the festival’s highlights is the sky parade of raptors (osprey, sharp-shinned hawks, and kestrels have been prevalent this month) that funnel over Cape May Point; last year��more than 50,000 raptors were counted by between September 1 and November 30. Enjoy daily field trips on land and sea led by notable birders and photographers, including the popular Trip to the Rips,��a three-hour boat tour that offers��the chance to view��waterbirds like gannets, gulls, and terns at the mouth of Delaware Bay, as well as marine mammals like bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales. Day pass from $85��

Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival

Harlingen, Texas; November 6 to 10

Though the always features an impressive roster of daily field trips, professional guides, and keynote speakers, a big draw of the five-day event are��the pre- and post-festival trips, which shuttle attendees to in-the-know birding hot spots near and far. This year’s four-day pre-trip, from November 2 to 5, starts in Houston and explores the piney woods��and coastal marshes of the state, while the excursion following the festival,��from November 11 to 15, ventures over the international border, nearly 300 miles south, to the Unesco-recognized in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. After a five-hour bus journey to��the mountainous cloudforest in the state’s southeast,��you’ll be able to search for endemic species like the Tamaulipas pygmy owl and the Altamira yellowthroat. Registration from $25; trips from $825

San Quintín Bay Bird Festival

Campo La Chorera, Baja California, Mexico; November 8 to 9

Established by local communities and the land-conservation nonprofit five years ago, the annual is a two-day event��that aims to promote the protection of over 25,000 birds that visit San Quintín Bay every year. Located on the west coast of Baja California, 190 miles south of Tijuana, the region features wetlands, sand dunes, and meadows important to migratory shorebirds of the Pacific Flyway. While you need to register, the festival features a variety of free or affordable activities, including boat tours, guided birding hikes, and a bird-watching marathon��where participants try to identify as many��species as possible in a single afternoon. Stay at a beach campsite in ��(from $10).

Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival

Fraser Valley, British Columbia; November 16 to 17

Less than two hours southeast of��downtown Vancouver is Fraser Valley, home the annual , a free event that commemorates one of the largest gatherings of bald eagles in the world. Witness thousands of the raptors feed on spawned-out salmon on the banks of the Fraser River, get up close to the birds on boat tours, and check out local vendors, lectures, and family-friendly entertainment at various locations across the valley. While bald eagles (and salmon) may be the main attraction, keep an eye out for large numbers of trumpeter swans and blue herons drawn to the area’s mild climate.

Festival of the Cranes

San Antonio, New Mexico; November 20 to 23

Birders, photographers, artists, and��local Socorro County residents gather every year to witness the return of tens of thousands of sandhill cranes to their wintering grounds in the Middle Rio Grande Valley at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, 95 miles south of Albuquerque. On top of daily hikes, tours, and seminars organized by Friends of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, offers 65 photography workshops geared toward��capturing wildlife, which sharpens visitors’ perfect shots of the red-crowned birds. Other highlights include kid-friendly activities, like a hands-on duck-banding project and a biologist-led young birder’s walk. Registration is required for the festival, but like the San Quintín Birding Festival, it includes��both free and affordable experiences, as well as more expensive workshops with professionals (from $95).

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It’s official: the humble sleeping bag, along with other iconic outdoor gear like the fanny pack and the fleece jacket in years past, has finally been inducted into the extravagant world of haute couture.

At Milan’s Fashion Week, models donned . The line consists of whimsical pleated gowns made out of ridiculous amounts of down. The ensembles are basically our beloved puffy rendered in its most flamboyant forms, the very definition of goose-plucked eleganza. The gowns are striking not only for their famous Piccioli silhouettes, but also for their colorful Ethiopian textile graphics from Kebede’s line called .

The collection has earned headlines at fashion-focused publications like , , and , for its inclusive��innovation. But it’s also generated Twitter buzz for the gowns’ relationship to a stuffable winter accessory.

In the recently released lookbook, one of the models has her head tightly hooded in pink down, as if it were a sub-zero night and she had pulled her zipper up and cinched the garment’s draw cords. The aesthetic is almost comically similar to memories of friends on backpacking trips with their small faces engulfed in their Big Agneses, Marmots, and Sierra Designs.

As a sleeping bag owner, gear nerd, and writer with a few fashion bylines to my name, I have spent a lot of time thinking about��this collection and I have a few questions.��First: Do these ensembles come with a stuff sack? How many grams are they? Would it be an acceptable replacement for my down quilt? Would any of them (particularly the lovely creamsicle colored one) pair well with my Thermarest? Is the down responsibly sourced? And what about the models? How much did they sweat while wearing them inside that Milanese villa for the photoshoot? How��breathable is the material?

Moncler didn’t return my request for comment on any of the above questions at the time of writing, but��I got some insight into��the puffy gowns while speaking over the phone with popular fashion commentator of Haute Le Mode.

“I think the down jacket material is not something that fashion has been experimented with all that much,” he says.��“I know we’ve had the moment and the moment, but I think there is a real beauty in taking something that is very normalized and utilitarian to us like the down puffy that we use everyday in cities, on the slopes, and to make sleeping bags out of and transforming it into something avant-garde.”

Meagher, who is notorious for being impressed hardly ever, first spoke affectionately on the line after actor and fashion icon wore a piece of the collection to the Paris premiere of the Fantastic Beasts sequel. Up until that point, the line had only been worn by women. Miller arrived in the sharp black down floor-length coat, complete with cape, hood, and gloves that matched the actor’s jet black lipstick. The appearance came not long after his profile in , in which Miller said, “I don't identify as a man. I don't identify as a woman. I barely identify as a human.”

Various writers compared Miller’s look to that of Darth Vader, No-Face (the ghost from Miyazaki’s Spirited Away), the caterpillar from �پ����Ա��’s Alice in Wonderland—and a black Klymit 20-degree mummy sleeping bag.

“I think that the real significance of Ezra wearing the gown to a public premiere is that he began to break down so many barriers on gender,” Meagher says. “We’re beginning to no longer put these strict binaries on clothing and Ezra really brought the conversation to the forefront with the help of the Moncler puffy and Pierpaolo.”

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