THE WATER:

Colorado River
File Under: Toxic threats The Case: Since 1997, 1.7 million tons of perchlorate—an ingredient in rocket fuel—has leached from defense-industry sites and turned up in groundwater and crops in Southern California irrigated by the Colorado River. A 1999 EPA report suggests that four to 18 parts per billion of perchlorate should be considered dangerous, and numerous studies have linked the substance to tumors and thyroid pathologies in adults. Meanwhile, some sections of the Colorado have perchlorate levels up to nine parts per billion. The Crystal Ball: In April, the Bush administration reportedly told EPA officials not to talk about perchlorate until the National Academy of Sciences completes its review of the chemical. California senator Barbara Boxer, who has introduced two bills on perchlorate contamination and a community’s right to know about it, plans to keep pushing on the issue. “I will continue to fight attempts by the Department of Defense to be exempted from state and federal hazardous-waste cleanup laws,” she says, “so that taxpayers and local water districts don’t have to bear the burden of cleaning up someone else’s mess.” Contact: Environmental Protection Agency, 202-272-0167,

THE WATER:
Mattaponi River, Virginia
File Under: Threatened wetlands The Case: Eastern Virginia’s Mattaponi River, a tributary to the York River and one of the most pristine coastal systems in the state, is the proposed site of a 1,500-acre drinking-water reservoir that would serve approximately 600,000 residents in four counties and four cities. Two serious problems: First, constructing the reservoir, which involves building a 70-foot-tall, 100-foot-wide earthen dam, would destroy 400 acres of wetlands—potentially the largest single wetland loss in Virginia since 1972. Second, the local Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes fear the reservoir would adversely affect shad populations, which they rely on for food. The Crystal Ball: Newport News mayor Joe Frank hasn’t presented an alternative to the reservoir, but local activists have come up with a few of their own. They argue that water needs could be met by dredging existing reservoirs, using water from nearby cities, or desalinating ocean water. Contact: Virginia Marine Resources Commission, 757-247-2200, THE WATER: Yuba River, California
File Under: Endangered habitat The Case: The California State Water Resources Control Board released a decision in 2001 that could require the Yuba County Water Agency to let out up to 1,000 more cubic feet of water per second than what was required in a 1965 agreement—a move lauded by conservation groups and booed by the Yuba County Water Agency. The YCWA wants the water for its customers—local townships and irrigation farmers. Conservation groups want to preserve one of the best remaining chinook salmon and steelhead runs in the West. “This is a classic water dispute, and stuck in the middle are the poor fish,” says Chuck Bonham, an attorney with Trout Unlimited. The Crystal Ball: Currently, the decision is tied up in litigation, and it may be months before the fish actually get any water. Contact: Trout Unlimited, 800-834-2419,

THE WATER:
Maalaea Bay, Maui, Hawaii
File Under: Reef destruction The Case: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a plan to extend an existing breakwater in this harbor by an additional 466 feet, turning the wind-whipped Maalaea Bay into a safer and larger area for boaters. But in order to build the $16 million concrete-and-rock buffer, workers will have to blast through 4.8 acres of living coral reef—home to 120 marine species, including endangered hawksbill turtles—possibly altering the Maalaea Freight Train, the world’s fastest ridable wave. The Crystal Ball: Surfrider Foundation is raising funds to hire independent consultants to review the Corps’s plan, and will go to court if necessary. Contact: Surfrider Foundation, 949-492-8170, ; Sierra Club Maui Chapter, 808-579-9802,

THE WATER:
Gunnison River, Colorado
File Under: Whitewater war The Case: Thanks to rapid population growth along Colorado’s Front Range (the area is expected to double in population in the next 40 years), developers want to tap the Gunnison River for their future water needs. But more water withdrawn from the Gunnison could choke Black Canyon—a popular stretch of whitewater in the Rockies. Local paddlers are riled. The Crystal Ball: Front Range growth isn’t slowing down, but the answer is not to siphon off more surface water. “If Front Range residents would use water more efficiently, they wouldn’t need to take it from the Gunnison River,” argues Drew Peternell, a Trout Unlimited attorney. Contact: Trout Unlimited, 800-834-2419,

THE WATER:
Deschutes River, Oregon
File Under: User conflict The Case: Of the 28 U.S. rivers that have management plans requiring permits for use, the Deschutes is the only one that has not implemented a permit system. Commercial guides love the status quo, but private boaters are suing state parks to introduce a first-come, first-served plan that would issue permits and manage the traffic on this wild waterway. Private boaters are willing to take a chance on regulated (and possibly reduced) access if it means they won’t play second fiddle to commercial outfitters. The Crystal Ball: For the past six years, the BLM and local government agencies have failed to approve a permit plan, and it’s unlikely they will anytime soon. Contact: National Organization for Rivers, 719-579-8759,

THE WATER:
Rio Grande, U.S.-Mexico Border
File Under: International incidents The Case: Since late 2000, the U.S. government has locked horns with the Mexican government over water use along the 1,885-mile Rio Grande, more than 800 miles of which forms the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexico currently owes the U.S. 326 billion gallons of Rio Grande water, according to allotments designated in a 1944 water-sharing treaty. The debt, exacerbated by severe drought in the region, has angered Texan farmers in need of water. The Crystal Ball: Mexico is water-strapped and will most likely default on a large part of the debt. Bottom line: Until it rains, the lion’s share of owed water will have to wait. Contact: American Rivers, 202-347-7550,

Big Wins

Now for the good news. Though water disputes often wind up in court—and never leave—here’s something really refreshing: seven worthy fights that had a beginning, middle, and happy ending.

THE WATER:
Gauley River, West Virginia
File Under: Victory for paddlers The Case: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has managed the gates of West Virginia’s Summersville Dam since the 1960s. Local rafters got water time on the 26-mile stretch, covered with more than 100 Class III-V+ rapids, only if they were lucky enough to be on the river during a random release. In the mid-1980s, rafting outfitters, hoping to spark the region’s flagging economy, convinced the Corps to arrange a release schedule for six weekends every fall. Business has been brisk ever since, and the Gauley hosted the 2001 World Rafting Championships—a first in the U.S. Will it stick? Yes. The whitewater industry brings in $9 million to $10 million to the local economy during the fall releases. Contact: Class VI River Runners, 800-252-7784,

THE WATER:
Hudson River, New York
File Under: River cleanup The Case: Until the late 1970s, General Electric dumped toxic PCBs into the Hudson. But Congress’s 1980 Superfund Law mandating that corporate polluters pick up the tab for their own messes would put a stop to GE’s ways. In 2002, the EPA stuck GE with a whopping $490 million tab, which will cover the cost of dredging 40 miles of the upper Hudson. Will it stick? Very likely. Despite GE’s $22 million anti-cleanup advertising campaign, the EPA issued a 2002 Record of Decision mandating that the cleanup start in 2006. Contact: Riverkeeper, 800-217-4837,

THE WATER:
Orange County Coastline, California
File Under: Surf’s up again The Case: Since 1972, the Orange County Sanitation District had exploited Clean Water Act loopholes and spewed 240 million gallons of partially treated sewage—every day—into the Pacific Ocean. By 1999, bacteria counts had pushed above the legal limit in Huntington Beach, California (a.k.a. Surf City). The resulting beach closures shut out surfers until, fed up, they banded with environmentalists to petition for the return of clean waves. Their efforts spurred the OCSD to start a chlorination program last summer and to install a full-filtration system by 2013. Will it stick? Probably. The OCSD has been on board thus far. Contact: Surfrider Foundation, 949-492-8170,

THE WATER:
Kennebec River, Maine
File Under: Dam demolition The Case: Until four years ago, the Edwards Dam—a 25-foot-high, 917-foot-wide timber plug—blocked ten migratory fish species, including Atlantic salmon and endangered sturgeon, from spawning upstream. After a decade of fighting for fish rights, the Kennebec Coalition convinced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that the ecological consequences outweighed the benefit of the modest hydropower output, and in July 1999, FERC decommissioned the dam. Will it stick? Yes. Dam-removal momentum is picking up—since 1999, environmental groups have helped unplug more than 100 across the nation. Contact: American Rivers, 202-347-7550,

THE WATER:
Mono Lake, California
File Under: Lake resurrection The Case: For years, Los Angeles dipped its straws into tributaries that feed Mono Lake, causing water levels in the lake to fall, increasing salinity levels, and threatening insects and shrimp that are key to the food chain. With the ecosystem in danger in 1994, the Mono Lake Committee’s 16-year grassroots campaign persuaded the California State Water Resources Control Board to limit L.A.’s water rights and establish sustainable water levels for Mono Lake. Will it stick? Very likely. Lake levels are up eight feet and are expected to continue rising. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has initiated wastewater-recycling and low-flow-toilet programs. Contact: Mono Lake Committee, 760-647-6595,

THE WATER:
Salmon River, Idaho
File Under: Keeping it wild The Case: In 1988, the Forest Service permitted outfitter Norm Guth to construct four cabins and a lodge on the Salmon River, specifically on a pristine stretch along the Montana state line in the Salmon-Challis National Forest that was protected by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. The environmental organization Wilderness Watch cried foul, arguing that development is prohibited on any river protected by the act. After a 12-year legal crusade, the U.S. District Court in Montana ordered the removal of Guth’s Camp—now called Whitewater West (Guth sold the cabins a few years ago)—and the rehabilitation of the shoreline by 2005. Will it stick? Maybe. In the next few months, Idaho senator Larry Craig—who believes the cabins provide access to underused public land—will attempt to topple the court ruling. Contact: Wilderness Watch, 406-542-2048,

THE WATER:
Richland-Chambers Reservoir and Trinity River, Texas
File Under: Creative wetlands The Case: Faced with a population boom in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the Tarrant Regional Water District constructed 240 acres of wetlands to channel river water into the Richland-Chambers Reservoir. The wetlands will provide a natural filtration system for pollutants between the Trinity River and the reservoir, serve as habitat for area waterfowl species, and meet the growing water demands for Dallas-Fort Worth. Will it stick? Yes. The pilot program is running without a hitch, and the TRWD plans to build 1,760 more wetland acres by 2010. Contact: Tarrant Regional Water District, 817-335-2491,

Jump In: How to Get Involved

You might think water conservation groups have bigger concerns than your local creek. Not so. The work of their grassroots foot soldiers (that means you) can have the most immediate impact on a stream. Says Matt McClain, marketing director of the Surfrider Foundation, “We just want people to take ownership—become a member and volunteer, or pick up trash at your hometown beach.” Here are some ways to get involved. Pay the annual membership fee. Your dollars help fund research projects, advertising campaigns, lobbyists, and lawyers—lots of lawyers. Volunteer your time, and sweat a little. You could find yourself taking samples from local lakes, inviting experts on the Clean Water Act to speak about its finer points, or writing grants to sympathetic foundations. Commit democracy. Advocates propose local, state, and federal legislation (like that which protects endangered species’ habitats), speak at public hearings, and work with environmental groups’ national branches to devise policy campaigns to present to Congress. Listed below are organizations that need your help. WATER WARRIORS

AMERICAN RIVERS (202-347-7550, ) seeks to maintain the protected status of 160 rivers under the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Each spring, AR names America’s most endangered rivers; the 2003 list includes the Klamath River and the Rio Grande. Battlefront: fighting to preserve the Columbia River’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead populations.

AMERICAN WHITEWATER (866-262-8429, ) fights for recreational access to rivers and maintains an excellent database of current river flows on its Web site. Battlefront: the decommissioning of the Dillsboro Dam, on North Carolina’s Class II-IV Tuckasegee River.

EARTH ISLAND INSTITUTE (415-788-3666, ), founded by late enviro great David Brower, assists local environmentalists in preserving and restoring waters under siege, such as Russia’s Lake Baikal and Alaska’s Inland Passage. Battlefront: ending the cruise- ship industry’s practice of dumping sewage and other waste into U.S. oceans, which is still legal thanks to an exemption granted under the Clean Water Act.

NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY (212-979-3000, ) works to protect wetlands, rivers, and lakes that are habitats for numerous bird species. Battlefront: revitalizing the Mississippi River’s adjacent wetlands from Lake Itasca, in Minnesota, south to Cairo, Illinois, to reestablish it as the major U.S. north-south flyway.

NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION (734-769-3351, ) works with U.S. and Canadian governments to curb water contamination in the Great Lakes and targets air polluters as the leading source of mercury contamination in the Great Lakes basin. Battlefront: stopping Lake Michigan from shrinking; excessive urban demand has dramatically reduced water flow into the lake.

NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL (212-727-2700, ) litigates to protect drinking water, works to create marine preserves to stop on- and offshore development, and fights to enforce water-rights laws across the western U.S. Battlefront: attacking attempts by the real-estate-development, oil, chemical, agriculture, and mining industries to rewrite the Clean Water Act and weaken protections for some 80 percent of the nation’s water. Their efforts would reopen trout streams, wetlands, and headwaters to pollution.

OCEAN CONSERVATORY (202-429-5609, ), with more than 900,000 members and volunteers around the world, protects newly discovered marine species and organizes International Coastal Clean-Up Day each September. Battlefront: combating overfishing; in the last 50 years, commercial harvesting has reduced large-fish stocks by 90 percent.

SURFRIDER FOUNDATION (800-743-7873, ) concentrates on coastal conservation and water quality, with an eye toward maintaining clean water and recreational access to surf breaks. Battlefront: establishing a marine reserve at Tres Palmas, a surf break near Rincon, Puerto Rico, that’s home to the Caribbean’s last large expanse of elkhorn coral.

WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE (914-674-0622, ), founded in 1992 by Hudson River fishermen, is now a global collective of 114 groups (with alliances in Bolivia, Costa Rica, and the Czech Republic) assigned to protect entire watersheds. Battlefront: halting mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, which leaches mercury into the water table.

Water Heroes

Barry Dana: The River Voice

The Law Man
Colorado Supreme Court justice Gregory Hobbs calls CHARLES WILKINSON “the poet of western water laws.” While the 63-year-old University of Colorado law professor does have a way with words—he wrote the lyrical conservation classics Fire on the Plateau and Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water, and the Future of the West—Wilkinson also carries a big policy stick. “He is a very powerful and weighty voice on every issue he gets involved in,” says Simeon Herskovits, 39, an attorney with the Taos, New Mexico-based Western Environmental Law Center. Wilkinson was a key consultant on environmental issues for the Clinton administration and is now working on plans to scale back massive water-diversion projects in Colorado and the Southwest, and building support for demolishing dams, like the four behemoths on Washington State’s Lower Snake River. Though President Bush ixnayed that idea, Wilkinson is still optimistic. “In water law, you can’t think in four-year segments,” he says. “Those dams are stupid, and they’re going to come out.” Spoken like a true poet.
—JAMES GLAVE

The Surf Warrior
In the mid-1990s, San Diego-based water activist and surfboard-shop co-owner DONNA FRYE noticed many surfers complaining of strange symptoms, from rashes to eye infections to numbness in their limbs. Frye, 51, suspected that the problem was in the water. She was right: Storm drains, pesticide-treated crops, and leaking septic systems were all running straight into the ocean, in many cases at prime surf breaks. In 1995, she established Surfers Tired of Pollution (STOP) and began mapping the location of storm drains, lobbying in Washington for clean-water legislation, and working on local water policy. Her efforts have paid off. San Diego posted warning signs at drain locations and has cleaned up its act—86 percent of the city’s 102 beaches were rated good to excellent by a local enviro group. In 2001, Frye was elected to the city council, where she’s now waging a battle against a planned expansion of SeaWorld in Mission Bay and working to create the San Diego River Park. “The politics of pollution don’t intimidate me at all,” says Frye. “I just want to give the public back their ocean.”
—MICHAEL HOYER

The Fighting Spirit
When Hudson Riverkeeper ALEX MATTHIESSEN, 39, isn’t patrolling the Hudson in his motorboat to catch polluters in the act, he’s filing lawsuits. In three years as executive director of the Garrison, New York-based Riverkeeper, dedicated to protecting the Hudson River watershed, Matthiessen, son of writer Peter Matthiessen, has transformed the group from a squad of 11 to a company of 22 staffers, prosecuting more than 130 cases against Hudson polluters annually. In February he helped win the largest Clean Water Act award ever when New York City coughed up a $5.7 million penalty for discharging sediment into Esopus Creek, part of a watershed that serves nine million people. Now he’s trying to decommission the Indian Point nuclear facility, a potential terrorist target 22 miles north of Manhattan. But he claims his greatest contribution has been recruiting 15 local Hudson watchdog volunteers. “If we’re going to change the way we think about water protection, everyone has to be part of the dialogue,” he says. “It’s going to take a citizens’ army to do that.”
—KATE SIBER

The Mad Professor
When TYRONE HAYES, a 36-year-old biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, first started dating, he would take women out to the swamp to collect frogs. These days he’s married and has a small army of eager students catching the critters from Montana to East Africa. “Amphibians’ permeable skin makes them particularly susceptible to pollutants,” says Hayes. “That’s why I’m using them as a tool.” Five years ago, he uncovered evidence suggesting that atrazine, the most widely used weed killer in the world, stunts development of male frogs’ larynxes—disastrous for any young hopper who wants to call for a mate. Though the world’s leading atrazine producer, Swiss chemical company Syngenta, commissioned Hayes’s original study, it is now trying to counter his findings. Even so, Hayes has succeeded in drawing attention to the herbicide’s potential dangers, including the possibility it could cause cancer in humans. He is currently conducting amphibian studies on the North Platte and Missouri rivers.
—°­.³§.

The River Voice
In the late 1980s, BARRY DANA, 44, a member of the Penobscot tribe of Maine, established an outdoor education center on an island in the Penobscot River to teach kids outdoor living skills. But when students began to develop headaches and rashes from air- and waterborne pollution discharged by the nearby Lincoln Pulp and Paper Mill, he was forced to move the camp. A decade later, Dana, now chief of the Penobscot Nation and a national champion whitewater canoeist, is leading a fight to stop paper mills from dumping a toxic cocktail of dioxins and PCBs into the river. “I want the mills to have zero discharge into the river,” says Dana, “and I want them to lay claim to producing the most environmentally sound paper in the world.” It hasn’t been an easy fight, since the paper industry is a major political force in Maine. Dana’s been threatened with jail time, cited with contempt of court, and thrust into a complex legal debate over tribal sovereignty. But for the chief, it’s all just part of the job: protecting his people and their waters.
—SAM BASS

The post Water in the Balance appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

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?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

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 ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Lodge

King of the desert: Camelot ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø 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.

The post Windows on the Wild appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

br




NAME: LISA RANDS

AGE: 26

GIG: BOULDERING

SPECIALTY: TECHNICAL OUTDOOR CLIMBS

HOMETOWN: BISHOP, CALIFORNIA

HEIGHT: 5′ 4″

WEIGHT: 115 POUNDS



SEEN NEXT: September 14 and 15 in Rovereto, Italy, in the Bouldering World Cup series, where her explosive style and sheer power could quash dominant Euro competitors like Sandrine Levet, the 2001 World Cup champion. POWER GRRRL: Rands claims more than 50 female first ascents and regularly climbs problems rated V9 and V10 (bouldering routes are rated V0-V15). In March 2001, she nailed Plain High Drifter, in the eastern Sierra, becoming the first American woman to pull a V11.


MINCEMEAT: Lisa hits the rocks three to four days a week, often climbing through blistered or torn digits. Her words of wisdom: “Taped fingers let you climb longer. Especially when you’re bleeding.”


NOBODY’S PERFECT: Rands tends to choke in competitions, especially indoors when clawing her way up plastic holds. In March she lost the 2002 American Bouldering Series Championships—despite a healthy lead—after failing to notice an easy initial hold. “I get nervous,” she says. “Sometimes I can’t control my head.”


SECOND OPINION: “Lisa climbs at the same level as the men,” says U.S. climber Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou, 38, who earned four World Cup titles in the early 1990s. “She’s so exceptionally strong that she could dominate the world circuit—once she gets the mental part together.”

The post Rising Star: Lisa Rands appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

Behold the first alcoholic energy drink. Sort of.

Hype

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Style

The Captain Avalanche

ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Retching

A horrendous post-Eco-Challenge outbreak underscores the unusual hazards of an already savage sport

Me Tarzan, You Jeanne

The French take to the treetops for high-wire adventure—starring hanging logs, zip lines, and yeah, a jungle rope swing

Caught

Will snowkiting bring big air to the prairies?

The post Golden Rules appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.

John Cutter, Designer

Hand Over Foot

Armed with more gears than a Mack truck, a new generation of disabled athletes cranks onto snow and singletrack

Attack of the Killer Bees!

Africanized honeybees wing their way up the West Coast

The Ultimate Survivor

Reality TV titan Mark Burnett intends to be the last man standing in the high-stakes game of adventure racing

Surf the Far North Shore

Want near-deserted sets of 20-footers? Take off, eh!

Banff Mountain Film Festival

Double Track

Banished from the nation’s abandoned lines, a clutch of railbikers finds nirvana in a California canyon

The Middle Denver Peace Process

Do climbing bolts destroy wilderness? After a decade of war in the hills, environmentalists and rock rats draft a treaty.

Stage 14, Tour de France, July 2000

The mountainous 155-mile stage from Draguignan to Briançon may have been the toughest of the race. Here, after 60 miles, the leaders begin the day’s first major climb. Velonews editorial director John Wilcockson unpacks the moment.

Watts Your Step

One British startup plans to wire your shoes

Chesapeake Bay

Where the water is calm, the camping great—and the sea kayaking takes you to a world of beautiful swimmers

The post The New Alpinists appeared first on ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online.