On April 20, renowned photojournalist Tim Hetherington was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade in the city of Misurata, Libya. At our offices in Santa Fe, the shock of the news was compounded by the fact that we had nearly finished editing what would turn out to be the last interview Hetherington, 40, gave before he died. In mid-March, former ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų photography editor Rob Haggart reached Hetherington at his home in New York City as he prepared for his departure to Libya. The central topic of discussion: the crisis in photojournalism. When something happens in the world, the images we see in the news are increasingly provided by amateurs on the ground with cell-phone cameras. Hetheringtonā€™s take: So what? As he saw it, saving photojournalism requires abandoning it. In 2007, Hetherington teamed up with writer Sebastian Junger on a Vanity Fair assignment to embed with a U.S. platoon in Afghanistanā€™s Taliban-infested Korengal Valley. Not only did one of Hetheringtonā€™s pictures win the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award, but he and Junger turned their rough video footage into Restrepo, which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. Hetherington also produced a photography book, Infidel, a three-screen video installation, Sleeping Soldiers, and a conceptual film, Diary, that tried to make sense of his experiences covering war. When he died, we lost one of the most creative and ambitious experimenters in modern media.Ā 

U.S. Army Sergeant Misha Pemble-Belkin

U.S. Army Sergeant Misha Pemble-Belkin

Soldier at rest

Soldier at rest

Soldier at rest

Soldier at rest

Tim Hetherington

Tim Hetherington with Sebastian Junger at Forward Operating Base Restrepo in 2007

Soldiers at work

Soldiers at work

Soldier at rest

Soldier at rest

HAGGART: Whatā€™s your plan for Libya?
HETHERINGTON: Ah, Iā€™m still trying to work out what to do. Iā€™ve got a potential way in, but the situation is moving so fast, itā€™s very hard to know whether itā€™s a good call or not.

Youā€™re shooting a film?
Yeah, a documentary. The problem is, unlike making still photographs, you donā€™t know what youā€™ll get in this kind of situation. Itā€™s a complete fishing trip.

You studied photography, but now you make films. Is that where visual storytelling is headed?
Iā€™m not interested in replacing photography. Iā€™m interested in whatā€™s happening with the still image and the moving image and their discussion together. But video is having a profound effect on our society. I watched Anderson Cooper right after the Japan earthquake, and the entire broadcast was amateur videos. And they were fascinatingā€”almost more powerful than professional images. Why is that?ā€ˆItā€™s the immediacy. And itā€™s the intimacy. Itā€™s a personal view.

Doesnā€™t a personal view get in the way of the kind of objectivity that journalists offer?
Iā€™ve never been interested in objectivity.

Really?
What is objectivity? Thereā€™s always a perception that Al Jazeera has a point of view, that CNN has a point of view. Iā€™m not advocating citizen journalism necessarily. I think itā€™s a great thing the wires exist. We need everything. It all adds to the layers of understanding and meaning. Iā€™m about being inclusive.

Arenā€™t professionals losing their jobs due to all this inclusiveness?
As professionals weā€™re meant to be communicators, but weā€™re not actually driven by what people can relate to. The photographic community is not thinking hard enough about who weā€™re making the work for. Sometimes professional aesthetics donā€™t help.

What about when professionals alter photos? Earlier this year, New York Times photoĀ­grapher Damon Winter won an award for photos he took of soldiers in Afghanistan with his iPhone, using the Hipstamatic app, which adds all these Ā­filters. Does that count asā€”
ā€”photojournalism? I have no idea. The thing was, it was shot on an iPhone, and thatā€™s the discussion. Iā€™m interested in the content. What was it saying? What did it reveal to us that we hadnā€™t seen already?

And your strategy for revealing new things is to pioneer storytelling formats?
Iā€™ve had a role as an experimenter. Iā€™m expanding the vocabulary of an artist by reaching as wide an audience as possible by using multiple forms. Some of it is immediate, some more contemplative, and each has a different strength and weakness.

In Diary, thereā€™s a moment when you say that you make pictures to try and understand whatā€™s happening to yourself.
I think itā€™s got to come from yourself, first of all. Thatā€™s the most honest place to be Ā­coming from. If I started saying that it came out of a desire to change the world, thatā€™s very suspect. Canā€™t it come out of a place of personal curiĀ­oĀ­sity? A desire to locate myself in the world and to also have some utility?

That was your approach in Afghanistan?
My examination of young men and violence, or of young men and this kind of dramatic energy in war, was also me trying to understand my own fascination with violence. It was as much a journey about my identity as it was about those soldiers.

And it ended with you on the red carpet at the Oscars.
It was really pretty far out. To Ā­realize that, wow, all the way from this tiny outpost in AfghanĀ­Ā­istan to this. I had Pemble [U.S. Army Sergeant Misha Pemble-Belkin] with me in his uniform, and from quite a long way off Tom Hanks recognized him from Restrepo and made a point of coming up to shake his hand and thank him for his service. It was incredible for me to witness that.

Whatā€™s the one big goal that drives your work?
Creative freedom. When youā€™re working for yourself, itā€™s very liberating, and you can make really interesting work. My mom was a Catholic, and I was brought up through a lot of my life by Jesuits, who are a tough and mean bunch, so I hate any sense of authority. Thatā€™s my fate. That sense of not conforming, of doing something that other people arenā€™t doing, is always fun.

Embedding with the U.S. military seems the opposite of that.
Yeah, but then so does making a book about masculinity when you should be taking pictures about war.

The post The Photographer appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

PHOTOGRAPHER ED FREEMAN is working on a book about surfing, though he’s never surfed a day in his life. A couple of years ago, while shooting stock in Hawaii, he stumbled upon some surfers on the North Shore of Oahu. He was blown away by the “athleticism, the intimate relationship with nature, and the inherent danger of it all,” he says. “I knew I wanted to do something that was art, not sports photography. I wanted the pictures to be about how surfing feels to me. Not how it is.”

Freeman readily admits the images he created were “Photoshopped halfway to death.” He spent hours on his computer, crafting the skies, combining different pictures of waves, and in one instance stitching together a Frankensurfer out of multiple riders. Two of the finished products won awards in an annual contest judged by Photo District News, a leading professional-photography publication.

When I was the photo editor at ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų, earlier this decade, I used to look through PDN winners for photos to publish. I’m a freelancer now, but I’m still excited to see the selections. When I first viewed Freeman’s photos this past June, I was blown away. I should have caught on that they were compositesĀ—there are some obvious clues, like overly brooding skies and myopic lightingĀ—but I didn’t. I saw surfers riding 20-foot-tall freight trains of water and thought, These are amazing. Then I went to Freeman’s Web site and saw his disclaimer about making art images. So I did what people do these days: I posted one of his photos on my blog, .

Commenters immediately blasted Freeman, claiming he’d betrayed the sport by ginning up a photo that supposedly captures an authentic athletic achievement. Freeman replied with his own comments, shrugging off the criticism, and when I called him recently he remained unapologetic. “I’m an artist,” he told me. “I’m interested in creating great pictures, not documentary images. I couldn’t care less if they’re ‘real’ or not.”

That’s a common defense in cases like this, and a reasonable point of view. But it fails to take into account that the value of manufactured pictures is intrinsically tied to the authentic shots that came first. No matter how forthright one is about alterations, fake photos cause collateral damage. They devalue the work of photographers with the skills and patience to capture awing images in real time. Even worse, modern photo manipulation is seriously screwing up our concept of reality and our willingness to believe what we see in magazines like ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų.

Of course, truth in photography has always been fuzzy. The old trope “The camera never lies” is, in fact, backwardsĀ—the camera always lies. Since the birth of the medium, photographers have been crafting their images with lens selection, film type, and all manner of darkroom tricks.

“Photographs have always been tampered with,” says Hany Farid, a computer-science professor at Dartmouth College who works with federal law-enforcement agencies on digital forensics. “It’s just that the digital revolution has made it much easier to create sophisticated and compelling fakes.” Farid keeps a greatest-hits list of forgeries online, which includes a photograph of Abraham Lincoln from around 1860 that’s actually a composite: Lincoln’s head propped on southern politician John Calhoun’s body.

In the late 19th century, photographers were intent on proving that their images deserved a place in galleries alongside paintings. Like Ed Freeman, these “pictorialists” espoused the practice of manipulating photographs to achieve artistic intent. In 1932, in response to this movement, a group that included Ansel Adams formed f/64 to champion “straight” photography. Ironically, Adams was known to be a master of dodging and burning (i.e., lightening and darkening), darkroom techniques that allowed him to produce a print reflecting his vision for what the photograph should be.

Over the years, even the most hallowed curators of documentary photos have been seduced by the temptation to doctor images for creative and commercial reasons. The infamous Pulitzer PrizeĀ–winning photo from the 1970 Kent State massacre, which showed a 14-year-old girl leaning over a dead body, was retouched to remove an awkward-looking pole behind her head before being published in Life, Time, and other magazines. In 1982, National Geographic moved the Pyramids of Giza in order to run a horizontal shot on its vertical-format cover.

One of the earliest milestones in our current digital age of manipulation occurred in 1994, four years after the introduction of Adobe Photoshop, when a rising wildlife photographer named Art Wolfe published Migrations, in which a third of the images were photo illustrations. An early adopter of digital tools, Wolfe added elephants and zebras to photos and turned the heads of birds to fit his perfectionist notion of natural patterns. In the introduction, he stated that it was an art book and that he had enhanced images “as a painter would on a canvas,” but Migrations still started a stampede of accusations.

Celebrated outdoor photographers Frans Lanting and the late Galen Rowell criticized the book, with Rowell warning of the changes set into motion once the trust is broken between nature photographers and viewers.

Which brings us to our current crisis. Wolfe told me that if Migrations were published in 2009, nobody would bat an eye. “In today’s natural-history world, the idea of removing a telephone pole or lightening a shadow or removing a distracting out-of-focus branch is acceptable,” he says. Only “purists” would complain, and he “can’t even have a dialogue with them.”

That’s too bad, because some of those purists have smart ideas. Natural-history photographer Kevin Schafer argues that manipulation “waters down the power of real documentary photography.” Our reactions to a photoĀ—amazement, delight, excitementĀ—are, Schafer says, “intimately tied with its impact as a record of a real event.” This is nearly identical to the lesson that memoirist James Frey learned in 2006, when fabrications discovered in A Million Little Pieces made him a national disgrace.

When I called surf photographer and ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų contributor Yassine Ouhilal for his opinion on altering photos, he cited a photo he’d taken in Norway, a guy riding a wave in front of snowcapped peaks. Viewers always assume Ouhilal Photoshopped in the mountains. But he didn’t. “The biggest satisfaction I get,” he says, “is when people ask me if a picture is real, and I say, ‘Yes, it is.'”

And yet the amount of manipulated photography in circulation only grows along with the number of publications willing to push boundaries. The July cover of Outdoor Photographer is an Art Wolfe picture of Utah’s Delicate ArchĀ—with a full moon plopped in the middle. Wolfe had captured the moon with a nifty double exposure that required him to switch to a telephoto lens, but the magazine’s extended photo caption cites only the 17-35-millimeter lens Wolfe used for the shot of the arch. That would make a full moon the size of a pinprick; this one is more like a dime. (Outdoor Photographer claims the omission was an oversight.)

Equally worrisome are the insidious digital alterationsĀ—used to “improve” photosĀ—which have become commonly accepted practice: darkening skies, oversaturating colors, and sharpening everything. These subtle but significant tweaks are now so easy that many photographers (and photo editors) do them out of habit.

David Griffin, director of photography at National Geographic, says that imperceptible digital fixes are a serious threat to integrity. He feels the sly use of manipulation in photojournalism threatens “to erode the veracity of the honest photographic covers that may come in the future.” National Geographic does permit some enhancements, like slight darkening of highlights, opening of shadows, color correction, and the removal of defects (dust and scratches)Ā—all part of what used to be industry-accepted “old darkroom techniques.” But the magazine also requires all assignment photographers to submit their images in raw formatĀ—essentially a digital negativeĀ—so it can oversee all the changes in-house.

That kind of policy would have prevented an embarrassing incident last year for ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų, which published Rod McLean’s stunning photo of sailboats on San Francisco Bay in its Exposure section. Several readers pointed out impossible contradictions in wind, light, and color, and ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų printed a correction. McLean, who created the image by stitching together nine shots, had told the magazine he’d retouched the imageĀ—removing a buoy, adding waves and cloudsĀ—but the editors didn’t realize the extent of the alterations. When I called him, he sounded a lot like Ed Freeman. “I’m looking at photography from my ability to create an image,” he said. “Other people look at photography as capturing a moment. Both approaches have always existed.”

McLean explained that he knows some photographers feel threatened by his techniques, but insisted that he doesn’t retouch images because it’s “the easy way out.” He noted in an e-mail that he spends hours taking photosĀ—then spends many more crafting “seamless images that are very real.”

ā€œI don’t buy the whole altruism thing. I think at the heart of altruism is a selfish deed. You know, and that’s fine. . . I want to reach people. Can’t it come out of a place of personal curiosity? A desire to locate myself in the world and also have some utility?ā€ ā€”Tim Hetherington

YESTERDAY MORNING we received news that award-winning photojournalist and ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų contributor Tim Hetherington was killed by a rocket propelled grenade on Wednesday in the city of Misrata, Libya. He was 40 years old. Three other photographers working at his side , one fatally. At our offices in Santa Fe, the shock of this news was compounded by the fact that we had just finished editing what was likely the last interview Hetherington gave before he died. On March 13, former ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų photography editor Ā reached Hetherington at his home in New York City. The photographer had just returned home from the Acadamy Awards, where Restrepo, the film he co-directed along with writer Sebastian Junger, had been nominated for best documentary. Hetherington was preparing to head to Libya. Below, in an exchange that kicked off the interview, he expresses his uncertainty about the situation he was getting into.

ROB HAGGART: Hey, Tim, how are you?
TIM HETHERINGTON: Rob, I’m very well, man.

Good. Did you find a way into Libya?
Ah, I’m still trying to work out what to do. I mean, I’ve got a potential way in, butā€”I mean the thing is, the situation is moving so fast it’s very hard to know whether it’s a good call or not.

Right.
That’s the main thing at the moment.

And do you have an assignment or are you just going to go?
Yeah, it’s like a top-shelf documentary film. A director who I know whoā€”and I said I wanted to go in. The problem is, unlike making still photographs, you donā€™t know what youā€™ll get in this kind of situation.

Right.
When it’s so fast moving, it’s very hard to structure a kind of narrative. It’s difficult to find charactersā€”you know what I mean? I have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s like a complete fishing trip, so it’s also, like, not wanting toā€”for them back in New York, the directorā€”for them to understand clearly that thatā€™s what it is.

Right, they probably don’t understand that or maybe just basing it on your previous documentaries, right?
I just don’t want to set myself up for them thinking that they’re going to get something and then they don’t, because it’s impossibleā€”it may be impossible to do what they want out of that. No second chancesā€” like it’s so fast moving, it’s pretty crazy what’s going on. In terms of the government moving very close to Benghazi and who knows whether Benghazi is going to fall or whether the rebels will counter-attack or whether Gaddafi will buy people out in the town, you know what I mean?

HETHERINGTON HAD made a name for himself as a genre-busting photojournalist. From his 2007 assignment in Afghanistan for , heā€™d not only teamed up with Junger to turn their rough video footage into , heā€™d won the prestigious award for one of his images. Heā€™d also produced a photography book, , a three-screen video installation, ā€œ,ā€ and a conceptual art film, , that tries to make sense of his experiences covering war.

His willingness to experiment gave him a unique perspective on his profession. By many accounts, photojournalism is in crisis. When something happens in the world, the images we see in the news are increasingly provided by amateurs on-site with cell-phone camerasā€”their raw footage replacing the kind of crafted documentation that used to be supplied by trained professionals. Hetheringtonā€™s was, So what? ā€œIf you are interested in mass communication, then you have to stop thinking of yourself as a photographer,ā€ he said, arguing that, to save his profession, you have to abandon it.

HAGGART: You studied photography but now make films. Is that where visual storytelling is headedā€”to video?
HETHERINGTON:ā€ˆIā€™m not interested in replacing photography. Iā€™m interested in whatā€™s happening with the still image and the moving image and their discussion together. But video is having a profound effect on our society. I watched Anderson Cooper right after the Japan earthquake, and the entire broadcast was amateur videos. And they were fascinatingā€”almost more powerful than professional images. Why is that? Itā€™s the immediacy. And itā€™s the intimacy. Itā€™s a personal view.

Doesnā€™t a personal view get in the way of the kind of objectivity that journalists offer?
Iā€™ve never been interested in objectivity.

Really?
What is objectivity? Thereā€™s always a perceived subjectivityā€”that Al Jazeera has a point of view, that CNN has a point of view. Iā€™m not advocating citizen journalism necessarily. I think itā€™s a great thing that the wires exist. We need everything. It all adds to the layers of understanding and meaning. Iā€™m about being inclusive.

Arenā€™t professionals losing their jobs due to all this inclusiveness?
As professionals weā€™re meant to be communicators, but weā€™re not actually driven by what people can relate to. The photographic community is not thinking hard enough about who weā€™re making the work for. Sometimes professional aesthetics donā€™t help.

What about when professionals alter photos? Earlier this year, New York Times photographer Damon Winter won an award for photos he took of soldiers in Afghanistan with his iPhone, using the Hipstamatic app, which adds all these filters. Does that count asā€”
ā€”photojournalism? I have no idea. The thing was, it was shot on an iPhone, and thatā€™s been the discussion. Iā€™m [more] interested in the content. What was it saying? What did it reveal to us that we hadnā€™t seen already?

And your strategy for revealing new things is to pioneer storytelling formats?
Iā€™ve had a role as an experimenter. Iā€™m expanding the vocabulary of an artist by reaching as wide an audience as possible by using multiple forms. Some of it is immediate, some more contemplative, and each has a different strength and weakness.Ā 

In Diary, thereā€™s a moment when you say that you make pictures to try and understand whatā€™s happening to yourself.
I think itā€™s got to come from yourself, first of all. Thatā€™s the most honest place to be coming from. If I started saying that it came out of a desire to change the world, thatā€™s very suspect. Canā€™t it come out of a place of personal curiosity? A desire to locate myself in the world and also have some utility?

That was your approach in Afghanistan?
My examination of young men and violence, or of young men and this kind of dramatic energy in war, was also me trying to understand my own fascination with violence. It was as much a journey about my identity as it was about those soldiers.

And it ended with you on the red carpet at the Oscars.
It was really pretty far out. To realize that, wow, all the way from this tiny outpost in Afghanistan to this. I had Pemble [U.S. Sergeant Misha Pemble-Belkin] with me in his uniform, and from quite a long way off Tom Hanks recognized him from Restrepo and came up to shake his hand and thank him for his service. It was incredible to witness that.

Whatā€™s the one big goal that drives your work?
Creative freedom. When youā€™re making work for yourself, itā€™s very liberating. My mom was a Catholic, and I was brought up through a lot of my life by Jesuits, who are a tough, mean bunch, so I hate any sense of authority. That sense of not conforming, of doing something that other people arenā€™t doing, is always fun.

Embedding with the U.S. military seems the opposite of that.
Yeah, but then making a book about masculinity when you should be taking pictures about warā€¦

—

ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų‘s condolences go out to Hetheringtonā€™s family and colleagues, including longtime ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų contributing editor Sebastian Junger. In a statement released yesterday, Junger had this to say about his close friend and collaborator:

ā€œThere is no way to express my devastation and sorrow at the death of my dear friend, Tim Hetherington in Misrata, Libya. Tim was one of the most courageous and principled journalists I have ever known. The good that he accomplishedā€”both with his camera, and simply as a concerned person in some of the most devastated countries in the worldā€”cannot be measured. I canā€™t believe he is truly gone.ā€ ā€”Sebastian Junger

The post Tim Hetherington’s Last Interview appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

From the red-rock vistas of Abiquiu to the dunes of White Sandsā€”with a few shots of tequila mixed inā€”New Mexico is another world. Try these 12 perfect days in the Land of Enchantment.

Horseback Riding into the Sunset

Cerrillos

Twenty miles south of Santa Fe, where the southern Rockies peter out into desert, the landscape turns iconic. This is Hollywood-western terrain—films like Young Guns and The Hi-Lo Country have been shot in the sandy washes and scrub-covered hills. Appropriately, it’s also the setting for the Broken Saddle Riding Company, a 22-horse operation in the pleasingly forlorn former mining town of Cerrillos. The stables’ low-slung paddocks and metal ranch fence strung with rogue mementos—requisite cow skull, spurs, and old bridles—suit the scene: At the sound of your car, the lanky and laconic Harrold Grantham will amble out of the tilting tack room in his Wranglers, give you a small but genuine smile, get you situated on a drowsy Tennessee walker, and lead you out for an hour (or two or three) in the piƱon-and-juniper country of the Cerrillos Hills Historic Park.

Though I’ve ridden with Harrold plenty of times over the years, it seems like we never take the same route twice. There are dozens of trails looping through the hills—past fenced-off turquoise mines and panoramas of five mountain ranges and the high desert. Down in the steep-walled Crooked Hat and Devil’s canyons, your horse will ease into a canter so smooth you’ll find yourself whooping with crazed delight.

After the ride, the movie script sends you 12 miles east to the Galisteo Inn’s 1703 adobe hacienda, in the village of Galisteo. Refurbished in late 2004 with an uncluttered Santa Fe design—plaster walls in saturated shades of turquoise and cream, wide-plank pine floors polished to a high luster, deep windowsills, kiva fireplaces in nearly every room—the inn and its 12 guest rooms exude the perfect blend of style and substance. Out front, a portal is shaded by 100-year-old cottonwoods, and a quiet road winds past art galleries to a narrow bridge over the Galisteo River and the high, open lonesome beyond.

BONUS: At the Mine Shaft Tavern (505-473-0743), a classic shoot-’em-up saloon just south of Cerrillos in the outpost of Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid), order a Bud and a green-chile cheeseburger at what’s rumored to be the longest stand-up bar in the West (40 feet of lodgepole pine). The place is dark, moody, and cheap—definitely the real deal.

DETAILS: Horseback riding at the Broken Saddle (505-424-7774, www.brokensaddle.com) costs $50 for a one-hour outing, or $85 for three hours. Doubles at the Galisteo Inn (866-404-8200, ) start at $99 per night.

High-Art Experience

Lightning Field

Lighten Up: The New Mexico Lightning Field

Four hundred stainless-steel poles, each about 20 feet tall, spread over a mile-by-kilometer expanse of high desert wouldn’t seem to have the makings of a fun-filled getaway. Yet art aficionados come from all over the world to experience The Lightning Field, a land-art installation completed by Walter De Maria in 1977. The sculptor scoured the Southwest looking for the perfect spot to erect this influential contribution to contemporary art. Decide for yourself during an overnight stay at the secluded log cabin that looks out on De Maria’s labor of love.

Lest The Lightning Field become some roadside amusement for the traveling hoi polloi, visitors are required to follow a precise routine—and to make reservations well in advance. Your art adventure begins in Quemado, a wind-scoured west-central town. Here, you and up to five companions (the cabin has three bedrooms) are picked up midafternoon by the caretaker, who drives you 40 minutes to the cabin—dropping you off with enchiladas, breakfast food, and snacks. You’re on your own until he retrieves you the next morning.

While the cabin is comfortable, with hot showers and Wild West furnishings, there are no games, books, or TV; you’re here to experience “the work.” And it doesn’t look like much at first. But then you walk the vast field—looking, feeling, sensing. If you’re lucky, thunderheads sweep in, lightning flashes, and the poles glow pink, orange, and blue. Love it or hate it, you’ll never take in art like this, and that alone is worth the trip.

BONUS: After all that art appreciation, treat yourself to dessert in Pie Town, east of Quemado on Highway 60. The Daily Pie Cafe (505-772-2700) serves 25 varieties. Or stop to ponder some other big objects at the Very Large Array, 27 giant radio dish antennae clustered west of Socorro.

DETAILS: Visit The Lightning Field (), maintained by the Dia Art Foundation, from May to October for $110–$135 per person, with meals.

Whitewater Thrills

The Rio Grande

Rapid Descent: The Rio Grande near Taos

In a climate as dry as New Mexico’s, it seems slightly sinful to spend a day immersed in cool, flowing water. But as you raft the Rio Grande through the 800-foot-deep canyon known as the Taos Box, you’ll be too busy issuing Hail Marys (and yelling “Holy Crap!”) to think about guilt. The 17-mile-long Lower Box, with its Class IV rapids, is home to some of the wildest whitewater along the 1,885-mile river.

The scarcity of water makes trip timing critical. So last May, when I noticed the online river-gauge graph leap from a barely floatable 600 cubic feet per second to more than 1,000, I mustered a six-person crew and headed to the put-in, six miles north of Taos at the John Dunn Bridge. Our first 12 miles were gentle, but the Rio Grande spoke up as we approached Powerline Falls, where the cacophony of water reached a thunder. We parked to have a look at the 14-foot drop—we’d have to drift into a slot guarded by boulders, with no chance of paddles touching water until we hit the pool at the bottom. Then we got back in, cinched up our PFDs, and let the pushy current have its way.

Everyone howled at the tipping point, where the tongue of water carried us over the edge and ricocheted us off rocks on our way down. Nervous laughter led to high-fives as we realized we’d made it through the first of many formidable drops. Then the rapids came in succession: Pinball, Rock Garden, Boat Reamer, Screaming Left, Screaming Right, and, before the take-out at Taos Junction Bridge, the appropriately named Sunset. As the sun drew an inky shadow across the canyon, we stepped back on land, reeling from the adrenaline buzz. We kept the thrill alive by driving across the bridge to the BLM campground and cracking beers.

BONUS: Kick-start a river day with a hearty cup of joe and a breakfast burrito at the Bean (505-758-7711), with locations on both ends of Taos.

DETAILS: Kokopelli Rafting ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶųs (800-879-9035, ) leads Lower Box trips from $95 per person. Camping in the Orilla Verde Recreation Area (505-758-8851, ) costs $7 per vehicle.

Eco-Friendly Escape

Taos

Eco-Sensitive Bliss: The Courtyard at El Monte Sagrado

Morocco is an inferno. At least, that’s how it feels from my cushion next to the fire as the masseuse pretzels my legs into “healing” Thai massage positions. When the contortions are over, I slide my eyelids open, prop my elbows on gold pillows, and look out the window. No camels. No bazaar. Instead, steep peaks meet clear skies, and gnarled cottonwoods tower over a low-slung cluster of adobes with signs that read TEXAS, BALI, and MOROCCO. But instead of North Africa, I’m at El Monte Sagrado resort. No matter—both places have a knack for suspending reality.

El Monte Sagrado, 36 suites and casitas circling a luscious green “sacred circle” east of downtown Taos, is all about suspended reality. Half its mission is to propel the notion of luxury escapism to new heights; the other half is to serve as a model of sustainability. On the luxury side: Merge scrambled eggs with the sublime while breakfasting under a priceless Warhol, a Picasso, and multiple Basquiats, part of owner Tom Worrell’s private collection. Get fully buffed with the spa’s High Altitude Adjustment massage or High Desert body polish. Then, after a couple of hours of hiking and yoga, the rich-with-cinnamon Mexican chocolate cake in the De la Tierra restaurant doesn’t seem like a vice.

On the sustainability side, the resort, finished in July 2003, is a 3-D manual on living right. Worrell built El Monte Sagrado to showcase his other business, Dharma Living Systems, which designs eco-friendly wastewater-treatment systems. So as you listen to the splash and trickle of water running from one goldfish-stocked pond to the next, remember: All the nonpotable water is recycled effluent.

BONUS: For unsustainable culinary debauchery, hit Antonio’s (505-758-9889), a cozy Mexican restaurant on Taos’s south side, for chiles rellenos with walnut-and-brandy cream sauce.

DETAILS: One-bedroom casitas at El Monte Sagrado (800-828-8267, ) start at $345 per night; two-bedroom suites start at $1,495.

Splendid Isolation

The rich colors and textures of the canyons and mesas near the village of Abiquiu are nothing short of perfect. This is Georgia O’Keeffe country—the painter first visited in 1917, and more than two decades later she moved here permanently. One look at Abiquiu’s 70-year-old adobe church—its bell tower and wooden cross towering against a brilliant blue sky—and it’s easy to see why she left New York for these more contemplative environs. I’m tempted to stay here, too.

O’Keeffe had a summer house at Ghost Ranch, 14 miles north of Abiquiu, a 21,000-acre property that is now a Presbyterian retreat center and the gateway to spectacular hiking. I’ve chosen a five-miler that starts in a cottonwood-filled valley but quickly gains altitude. I hike alongside the trail’s hulking namesake: Kitchen Mesa, a 600-foot-high sandstone mass. I negotiate a tricky chimney to the flat mesa top and am rewarded with 360-degree views of Abiquiu Reservoir and the Jemez Mountains.

Later, I ease my pickup down the deeply rutted 13-mile road from Highway 84 in Abiquiu to the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, where Benedictine monks keep beehives. The monastery opens its 16-room guesthouse to visitors, who can stay for silent retreat weekends. When I arrive, a smiling Father Bernard gets up from his rocking chair and encourages me to visit their church. I sit in the sacred space, listening to my breath go from shallow to deep. I wonder if O’Keeffe ever spent time at this peaceful place. Somehow I think she could have.

BONUS: Step inside O’Keeffe’s winter home, a 5,000-square-foot adobe in Abiquiu ($25, reservations required; 505-685-4539).

DETAILS: Ghost Ranch (505-685-4333, ) provides hiking info. Rooms at Christ in the Desert () run $70–$125 per person, with meals.

Smokin’ Road Trip

Highway 4 has a story to tell, a real whopper, and I’m driving through the middle of it—the Valles Caldera, a bowl of grass, forest, and streamlets that’s a dozen miles wide and boxed in by the 11,000-foot Jemez Mountains. The massive crater and the region’s volcanic tuff are the fruits of blasts from a ring of prehistoric volcanoes that were 100 times more destructive than Mount St. Helens’ 1980 eruption.

More than a million years later, here I am on a twisty 58-mile road that leads visitors from the sheer canyons of Bandelier National Monument to the yawning meadows of Valles Caldera National Preserve and on to Jemez Springs, where the earth’s interior, although quiet, is far from cold.

For four centuries, Bandelier’s Frijoles Canyon was home to cliff dwellers who lived in (yes, in) its 400-foot-high bluffs. On the mile-long Main Loop trail, you’ll peek inside caves carved into the chalky rock and reflect on what life was like 500 years before the monument was made accessible by road, in 1935.

After leaving the park, Highway 4 skirts Los Alamos and climbs west through a forest of cinnamon-red ponderosa pine before spilling into the remarkable 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve. Purchased from private owners in July 2000, the preserve is managed by a trust that plans to make it self-sustaining by 2015. Climb halfway up Cerros del Abrigo, a fir-covered volcanic dome that bulges from the crater, and watch a herd of elk graze in the basin some 800 feet below.

Now you’re ready for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Jemez Springs (whose geothermal hot pools are steamy indications that the mountains remain volatile) and the end of the road: the charmingly cowboy-kitsch Jemez Mountain Inn.

BONUS: Twelve miles south of Jemez Springs, sample Ponderosa Valley Winery’s award-winning 2004 New Mexico Riesling (505-834-7487, ).

DETAILS: Arrive early at Bandelier (505-672-3861, ); reserve online to hike Valles Caldera (877-851-8946, ). Jemez Mountain Inn (888-819-1075, ) doubles run $85–$125.

Secrets of the Ancients

Much of New Mexico’s vivid character seems to come in the middle of nowhere, but nothing in the state feels quite as nowhere as Chaco Canyon. Stretching through the San Juan Basin, about 100 miles northwest of Albuquerque, this lonely valley, a beneficiary of nine inches of rain per year, seems an unlikely place in which to base a major civilization. But a thousand years ago, this nowhere was a bigger somewhere than anywhere in the Southwest.

Between 850 and 1250, the Chacoans, ancestors of the Hopi and of Pueblo peoples like the Zuni, constructed a dozen “great houses”—multistory stone dwellings unlike anything on the continent before them, the largest comprising more than 600 rooms—and scores of smaller structures throughout the canyon and the surrounding mesas. Archaeologists, astronomers, and the metaphysically inclined have yet to get to the bottom of why this spot was chosen, or to explain the buildings’ eerily accurate alignments along paths of celestial importance. So they still come, over bouncy dirt roads (the route from Nageezi, northeast of the park, is easiest—four-wheel drive usually isn’t needed), to tread lightly among these ancient, expertly constructed walls, which have stood for centuries with the help of the dry climate. Six of the major structures can be accessed easily from the main driving loop, but having ventured all the way here, you’ll want to pick up a free permit at the visitor center and hike some of the 20 miles of backcountry trails to overlooks and more remote sites, such as the massive, ninth-century PeƱasco Blanco.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park—one of three UNESCO World Heritage Sites in New Mexico, along with Taos Pueblo and Carlsbad Caverns—can be done as a day trip, even with some backcountry exploration, but leaving before dusk to get to a hotel would feel sacrilegious. To get the whole, timeless experience, you’ll want to be here for a day and a night, which means after-dark astronomy lectures and camping under the stars as coyotes yelp on the cliffs above you.

BONUS: In Cuba, about 90 minutes from the park on Highway 550, you’ll find some of the state’s best carne adovada (pork in red-chile sauce) and stuffed sopaipillas. El Bruno’s (505-289-9429) happens to have held the first Guinness World Record for longest burrito—7,856 feet in all, with almost two tons of pinto beans. (No pressure: It’s been eaten.)

DETAILS: The 48-site campground is the only place to stay in or anywhere near the park; claim your spot early, on a weekday if you can. Park admission is $8 per car; camping, $10 per site (505-786-7014, ).

Spins and Spas

I’m crawling up the Chamisa Trail in my mountain bike’s lowest gear—the one affectionately called “granny”—though right now I’m wishing I had a great-granny. Maybe it’s breakfast from Cafe Pasqual’s, a 13-table Water Street institution in Santa Fe, that’s throwing a cog out of my cogset. My choice, selected from 25 menu items during a three-coffee deliberation, was a jack-stuffed chile relleno buried under two eggs over easy, which narrowly edged out the smoked-trout hash.

Both my breakfast spot and my spin are New Mexico classics—the Winsor Trail network, including links like the Chamisa, is a must-ride. You can pedal eight miles on the Winsor, from the village of Tesuque to Santa Fe’s small but cherished ski area, for a net gain of 3,100 feet (or a net loss, if you’re a gravity freak with a car shuttle). My hour-plus climb today brings rewards—a tangent on the Borrego and Bear Wallow trails, a glorious rolling descent—and a question: Do I ride too much?

Considering that my town is home to hundreds of great restaurants, 200 art galleries, 11 museums, an opera, and a rich, four-hundred-plus-year history, not to mention ashrams, teahouses, art barns, and Wiccans, I think a change is in order. So I trade sandy singletrack for basalt and marble, letting a massage therapist at Ten Thousand Waves, Santa Fe’s most serene spa, apply 65 stones to my body. The 130-degree black rocks supply heat, while the cool white marble removes it. This stone sautĆ© is like regression analysis—as in past injuries, not past lives.

The new, fluid me drops back to La Posada de Santa Fe, a cottonwood-canopied downtown hotel with 157 “casita” rooms (Spanish for “don’t pack tons of stuff”), some with a kiva fireplace and a porch. Then it’s off to Canyon Road to catch the Friday-evening gallery openings. The sun is dropping below the somewhat expressionistic Jemez Mountains, the clouds above the Sangre de Cristos are an imperial violet, and I walk through nearly 20 galleries without spotting a single bandanna-festooned coyote howling at the moon.

BONUS: The palette at El Farol (505-983-9912), amid the galleries on Canyon, is 100 percent blue agave. A Hornitos marg or two is best consumed with creative tapas like the crispy avocado (battered and flash-fried).

DETAILS: A 70-minute Japanese hot-stone treatment at Ten Thousand Waves Japanese Health Spa (505-982-9304, ) is $139. Rooms at La Posada de Santa Fe (888-367-7625, ) start at $209. New Mexico Bike ‘n’ Sport (505-820-0809, ) rents demo cross-country bikes, like Specialized Stumpjumpers, for $35–$45 per day.

Fishing on the Fly

San Juan River

In the parched and wind-abraded sandstone desert northeast of Farmington, the San Juan River is not only wet but surprisingly profuse with aquatic life. Well known to fly-rod-waving diehards but obscure to the masses, the four-mile, mostly catch-and-release section below the Navajo Dam is stacked fin to fin with up to 75,000 wild browns and stocked rainbows—some as plump as Oprah’s thigh. The fish attain such super-salmonid size by slurping a never-ending buffet of gnats the way whales devour krill. Best of all, you don’t need a master’s in entomology to hook in.

My girlfriend, Lisa—who’d never fished—and I signed up for a day on the San Juan with John Tavenner, a guide there since 1991. John showed her the basics and tied on her flies. While I tried to coax a wily one to eat a No. 24 dry fly, Lisa landed lunkers as fast as John could dance around netting them.

After spending a sun-baked day under bluebird skies, you’ll need someplace dark to sleep. Very dark. For the erudite troglodyte with a flair for the quirky, there’s Kokopelli’s Cave, a bed-and-breakfast an hour from the river on the outskirts of Farmington. With love, care, and plenty of dynamite, geologist Bruce Black blasted a plush, 1,750-square-foot, one-bedroom cave into a sandstone cliff 200 feet above the La Plata River. The cavern, 172 steps below the clifftop, features a waterfall shower and jetted tub, as well as a kitchen and two balconies for watching the sun set while spinning outrageous fishing yarns.

BONUS: Stop in Aztec for a Bus Driver (hash browns smothered in cheddar cheese and green chile) at the Aztec Restaurant (505-334-9586), about 15 miles east of Farmington at the junction of highway 550 and Main Street.

DETAILS: A full-day float with Tavenner’s Sandstone Anglers (888-339-9789, ) costs $315 for two; Kokopelli’s Cave (505-326-2461, ) rents for $220 per night.

Send Me to Climbing Heaven

El Rito

Midway between EspaƃĀ±ola and no place, really, hides El Rito, little more than a general store, a pint-size restaurant, and a handful of adobes clustered on Highway 554. It took me seven years of living in Santa Fe to discover the village, its gorgeous climbers’ playground, and the serene Rancho de San Juan resort nearby. El Rito’s restaurant, El Farolito, couldn’t look less assuming, yet its rich green chile, studded with hunks of pork and tomato, is a three-time winner of the state’s chile cookoff. (Have it atop the pork tamales: true New Mexico comfort food.)

A meal at El Farolito handily fuels a visit to El Rito’s sport crags, a wonderland of about 60 bolted routes ranging from 5.7 to 5.13c/d, all a four-mile drive north from town on Forest Road 44. The area’s appeal is its conglomerate rock, found in perpendicular, cobbled walls that look like they’ll crumble at your touchƂā€”but don’t. Instead, the enormous ocher-, brick-, rust-, and chestnut-colored facesƂā€”punctuated with electric-green lichenƂā€”provide generous holds. As I blasted up Walt’s Wall Waltz, a 72-foot 5.8 (superfun for a novice), the calls of circling ravens replaced the fading voices of my chatty girlfriends below.

ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų takes a turn for the cush at Rancho de San Juan. The main hacienda is flanked by a dozen casitas, each with saltillo-tile floors and handsomely outfitted with reading-friendly rattan chairs, a kiva fireplace, and a jumbo bathroom with a jetted tub and views of the piƃĀ±on-dotted 225-acre property. Walk to a shrine that an artisan carved out of sandstone, or the top of Black Mesa, which looms above the resort and U.S. 285, ribboning in the distance.

You’re meant to bring an appetite to this Relais & ChƃĀ¢teaux property, which attracts diners from Santa Fe and Taos, in addition to hotel guests. The prix fixe dinner is limited only by what’s fresh at the market. One fine meal might include seared king salmon with braised fennel. And then it’s lights out.

BONUS: Authenticity rules at Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs (800-222-9162, www.ojocalientespa.com), an unpretentious spa catering to “cultural creatives” that offers hot iron- and arsenic-rich pools, plus apricot facials, just a hot rock’s throw from El Rito.

DETAILS: El Farolito (505-581-9509) is open every day but Monday. Collect climbing beta at . Doubles at Rancho de San Juan (505-753-6818, ) start at $225; dinner is $55 per person.

Cycling in the High Country

God bless the mining industry. Without man’s lust for wealth, how would anyone have settled the remote southwest corner of New Mexico around Silver City? The mountain town of 10,500 people, nestled at 6,000 feet in the southern foothills of the Pinos Altos Mountains, is closer to Mexico than it is to the nearest U.S. city (El Paso, Texas). And with hundreds of miles of lightly traveled blacktop and a seemingly endless network of high-country trails, it’s one of the country’s best destinations for spring and fall biking.

The quintessential roadie tour is the Gila (pronounced HEE-lah) Inner Loop, a challenging 75-mile ride that crosses the Continental Divide twice and passes a best-of roundup of New Mexico landscapes: striated sandstone cliffs, ponderosa pine forests, streams lined with cottonwoods, and alpine lakes. The route heads north from Silver City on Highway 15, winds through the mountains, and descends into the Mimbres Valley. Sure, there are 3,800 feet of climbing involved, but the visual rewards more than compensate.

Knobby fans will savor the miles of marked singletrack that loop up 7,275-foot Gomez Peak. You can access the network—a spaghetti bowl of technical sections and whoop-de-do downhills—off Little Walnut Road, four miles north of town.

Stay at the Bear Mountain Lodge, an 11-room bed-and-breakfast three miles north of town that’s owned by the Nature Conservancy. The 178-acre converted dude ranch is a bird-watcher’s nirvana. Binoculars and a library of birding books are at your disposal, and every day a naturalist leads hikes or activities. For cyclists, the best parts of Bear Mountain are the jetted bathtubs and Robin Hodges, the cook. My dinner—sirloin tips covered in a light barbecue sauce with a casserole made from cashews, mushrooms, hummus, and rice—may be the state’s best $12 meal.

BONUS: Soak in the hot springs near Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (505-536-9461, www.nps.gov/gicl), 90 minutes north of Silver City.

DETAILS: Doubles at Bear Mountain Lodge (877-620-2327, ) start at $125. For free biking maps, stop at Gila Hike & Bike (505-388-3222), downtown.

Postcards from Beyond

The sand beneath me glistens almost as brightly as the stars overhead as I summit another 30-foot dune and look out over the rolling, nearly treeless landscape. It’s just as I’ve always imagined life on the moonā€”and while White Sands National Monument is not the final frontier, hiking here can be an otherworldly experience. White Sands’ 73,600 acres of windswept gypsum dunes, surrounded by the Chihuahuan Desert and, beyond, by the San Andres and Sacramento mountains, are as desolate as nuclear winterā€”and eerily quiet. The silence is broken only when a jet from nearby Holloman Air Force Base thunders overhead.

You could easily spend a day riding a sledā€”yes, sleddingā€”down the soft hills, basking in the sun, or wandering the park’s six miles of trails. But White Sands is best at nightā€”especially during a full moon, when the reflective sand helps illuminate the landscape and midnight hikes are bright and Nikon-worthy. The cosmic ambience, coupled with a good bottle of PatrĆ³n tequila (no Tang on this trip), makes camping surreal.

For a nearly-as-fantastic encore, head 175 miles southeast to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, a 100-mile-long cave network and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Guided tours into less traveled sections are offered, but I opted for the popular self-guided walk through Carlsbad’s main corridor. The paved, well-lit path descended 100 vertical feet to the Big Room, one of the largest cave rooms in the world. Despite my claustrophobic tendencies, I was relaxed enough to admire the stalagmites, stalactites, and other rock formations, which seemed to evolve with every water droplet that fell sloppily from the 200-foot ceiling.

BONUS: Practice landing the space shuttle (via a high-tech simulator) at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, in Alamogordo, between White Sands and Carlsbad.

DETAILS: Camping at White Sands (505-679-2599, ) is $3 per person per night; register at least an hour before sunset (no advance reservations). Admission to Carlsbad Caverns (505-785-2232, ) is $6 per person.

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COLORADO :: ASPEN & ASPEN HIGHLANDS

FORGET THE FURS AND THE FENDI. Beyond the bling, Aspen is still America’s quintessential ski village, a funky cosmos where World Cup steeps belong to the fearless.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Where else can you sit next to Kurt and Goldie while wolfing lunchtime bratwurst, then follow the sun around Bell Mountain’s bumps for the rest of the afternoon?
NUMBER-ONE RUN: The finest float in Colorado? Atop Aspen Highlands is the 40-degree, 1,500-vertical-foot Highland Bowl. After the hike up, and before the glorious, seemingly endless descent, rest your bones in the summit swing and feast on high-octane views of fourteeners Pyramid Peak and Maroon Bells.
HOT LODGE: Chichi yet cool, luxe yet Lab-friendly, the St. Regis Aspen features s’mores in its cozy aprĆØs-ski lounge, beds for beloved canines, and a spanking-new 15,000-square-foot spa-complete with a little something called the Confluence, artificial hot springs where more than the waters mingle. (Doubles from $385; 888-454-9005, )
SOUL PATCH: Tucked in the trees on Aspen Mountain are shrines to Elvis, Jerry Garcia, Marilyn Monroe, and, of course, Liberace. But Walsh’s Run, one of the steepest drops on Ajax, is where you’ll find sacred ground: The Raoul Wille shrine, a tiny shack festooned with prayer flags and elk bones, honors a longtime local who died climbing in Nepal.

NEW MEXICO :: TAOS

Taos Ski Resort

A GROOVY CONVERGENCE of Native American culture, ski-hard style, and the freest of spirits, Taos is the black diamond in New Mexico’s high-desert crown, offering steep transcendence (and lots of green chile) in the wild, wild West.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Ā”Viva variedad! Park your journeyman Subaru wagon or beat Jeep CJ right next to that limited-edition Mercedes with the Texas platesā€”they’ll appreciate the contrast. Then look heavenward and feast your begoggled eyes on runs so close to vertical they’ll steal your heart (or sink it, if you’re toting a prohibited snowboard).
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Longhorn, a lengthy and snaky double black, shoots between palisades of tall pines, dropping 1,900 vertical feet to a catwalk that spits you out at the base. Masochists should save it for the end of the day, when the bumps are the size of small igloos.
HOT LODGE: In the heart of town is a grand adobe abode called the Fechin Inn, built beside Russian artist Nicolai Fechin’s former home, a 1927 structure listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The elegant, Jacuzzi-equipped 84-room hotel is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Adobe Bar, current home of wicked margaritas. (Doubles, $114-$208; 800-746-2761, )
SOUL PATCH: Dog-tired and depleted? Stop off at art-infested Taos Pizza Outback, where the cooks spin tasty sesame-sprinkled crusts, blank canvases just waiting for your own creative topping conglomerations.

WYOMING :: JACKSON HOLE

DUDE, IT’S LIKE MECCA. If you take sliding around on snow seriously, you’ll eventually make a pilgrimage to the Hole. Hardcore types rightfully revere the sick Wyoming vertical, heavy powder showers, and Euro-style open backcountry. Yep, this is the place . . . to pack a shovel, transceiver, probe, and change of underwear.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Rip, rip, rip all you want: The harder and stronger you ride, the more these Tetons throw at you. And once you think you’re the master, listen for the laughter coming from the lines that have yet to see a descent.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: You’ll find the finest fall-line skiing in the country here, so steel yourself for the best run of the bunch: The Hobacks is 3,000 vertical feet of crazy steeps. Enjoy.
HOT LODGE: When legendary ski mountaineer and cinematographer Rob DesLauriers got sick of living out of his van, he built the new Teton Mountain Lodge, a premium slopeside property with rustic Wyoming written all over it. Just don’t let the high-end accommodations and dining fool you; Rob’s still a ski bum at heart. (Doubles, $149-$329; 800-801-6615, )
SOUL PATCH: The Mangy Moose remains Jackson Hole’s must-hit saloon. The bleary-eyed crew from Teton Gravity Research, pros decked out in next year’s wares, and perma-tan instructors call this place home. But don’t fear the locals; just get what they’re having.

UTAH :: PARK CITY

LIKE ST. MORITZ WITH MORMONS, Park City is not only a vast powdery playground; it’s a true ski-in/ski-out town with big-city swank. After you’ve zonked your mortal coil dropping off cornices and carving down chutes, head to town and knock back an espresso: You have to be awake to enjoy the finer things.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Oh, the mountain comes off as harmless at firstā€”what with those rolling hills flush with cruisersā€”but it drops the hammer a couple lifts in, making for delighted schussers, from expert on down. There’s terrain-park action, and the superior lift service (14 chairs, including four high-speed six-packs) can move more than 27,000 butts an hour.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Not for the timid or the kamikaze, O-zone drops 1,000 feet off the lip of Pinyon Ridge, down a 30- to 40-degree face, before delivering you into forgiving tree trails that lead to a high-speed six heading right back up.
HOT LODGE: Right on chic Main Street is the Treasure Mountain Inn, a locals-owned lodge with a great little cafƩ. This eco-minded pad has a range of homey accommodations, from simple studios to decked-out apartments, as well as a Jacuzzi and heated pool beneath the stars. (Studios, $125-$300; 800-344-2460, )
SOUL PATCH: Once a wild silver town, Park City’s gone all civilized. The high-end gastronomic fusion served up at 350 Main will have you double-checking your coordinatesā€”and for boozophobic Utah, the cocktails are mighty sinful.

BRITISH COLUMBIA :: WHISTLER BLACKCOMB

DOUBLY HEINOUS STEEPS mean twice the fun at Whistler Blackcomb, home to the biggest vertical in North America and an astounding variety of snow conditions. Sister peaks, these British Columbia bad girls practically flaunt their grand vert, true glacier skiing, and leg-burner runs up to seven miles long.
WHY WE LOVE IT: By virtue of the vast and varied terrain (larger than Vail and Aspen combined), this resort has always drawn a cosmopolitan crowd. The number of rowdy young immigrants will surely redouble as opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics approaches. And the village is at only 2,140 feet, so sea-level folk can let loose without fearing hypoxia-empowered hangovers.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: These peaks have long been a favorite stop on the World Cup circuit, thanks in part to the exhilarating 1.5-mile highway known as the Dave Murray Downhill, which rolls off the south shoulder to Whistler’s base.
HOT LODGE: The Fairmont Chateau Whistler is a wonderland of sprawling penthouses and romantic turrets at the foot of Blackcomb Mountain. Luckily, there are more than two dozen bistros and nightclubs nearby to tempt you out of your mountain-view room on the stormier nights. (Doubles, $256-$446; 800-606-8244, )
SOUL PATCH: From the top of Horstman Glacier, traverse under the summit cliffs and cross the ridgeline via Spanky’s Ladder. This brings you to a trove of hidden chutes plunging through a cliff band down to Blackcomb Glacier.

CALIFORNIA :: MAMMOTH

THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA VIBE dominates Mammoth, reflecting surf culture at its most authentic. Witness the resort’s massive superpipe and meticulously sculpted terrain parks, home turf of snowboard phenoms like Tara Dakides, Shaun White, and Olympic silver medalist Danny Kass.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Rising high in the eastern Sierra, this hill is surrounded by the Ansel Adams and John Muir wilderness areas, and Yosemite’s just a few valleys north. The volcanic terrain, nice and steep everywhere you look, gets layers of prime frosting from Pacific storms that drop up to four feet of snow at a time. Otherwise, it’s clear blue skies.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: From the summit, drop off the back side and hike to fantastic Hemlock Bowl: Ski left and follow the signs (or locals), then enjoy Mammoth’s deepest shots. Afterwards, hop on Chair 14 and rest up for another hike. Repeat.
HOT LODGE: If cookie-cutter condos don’t do it for you, check out Mammoth Country Inn, a Bavarian-style bed-and-breakfast. The seven rooms feature bedding worthy of royalty, and two have Jacuzzis. Your hosts, the Weinerts, serve up home-style breakfasts, and it’s just a short scamper to the bus. (Doubles, $145-$185; 866-934-2710, )
SOUL PATCH: Geothermal springs with panoramic mountain vistas, anyone? South of town, just east of Highway 395, Hot Creek gloriously blends a f-f-freezing stream and feverish springs. (Stay out of the scalding stuff.) Sadly, panties are mandatory here. But you can drop your drawers at wilder hot spots like Hilltop and Crab Cooker.

COLORADO :: STEAMBOAT

SOMETIMES COLORADO’S I-70 is a bit, well, constipated, so head for secluded Steamboat, some two hours north. We’re talking relentless powder, some of the West’s best tree skiing, and a chill ambienceā€”on the slopes and back at the lodge.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Located in the Park Rangeā€”where Pacific-born storms usually hit first in Coloradoā€”Steamboat soaks up heavy snow dumps that often skip peaks to the south and east. And many of the aspens are perfectly spaced, as if a gift from God. From the mountain, take a free shuttle the three miles to tiny, colorful Steamboat Springs, where you’ll find a surprising slew of kick-back bars and upscale eats.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Step into the Closet, a forested roller coaster spilling down the west side of Storm Peak, and shake off the dust. Just make sure you’ve got your turns dialedā€”and wear a helmet.
HOT LODGE: Across from the gondola, the plush 327-room Steamboat Grand Resort Hotel serves up a deluxe spa, a fitness center with steam bath, an elegant steak-and-chop house, quiet rooms replete with hardwood furniture, and a cavernous stone lobby with, yep, a stream running through it. (Doubles from $159; 877-269-2628, )
SOUL PATCH: On the Grand’s spacious deck, which looks out on 8,239-foot Emerald Mountain, two truly giant Jacuzzis and a heated outdoor pool offer some of the most luxuriant aprĆØs-ski lounging in the Rockies.

MONTANA :: BIG SKY

Big Sky Ski Resort

LONE MOUNTAIN ERUPTS from the Madison Range like an 11,194-foot catcher’s mitt, nabbing storms swollen with dry Rocky Mountain powder. The utter lack of lines just sweetens the pot. With almost twice as many acres as skiers, Big Sky virtually guarantees instant lift access all day long.
WHY WE LOVE IT: You can dress like a cowboyā€”unironicallyā€”and then snorkel through the fresh, pausing to ogle the remote 10,000-foot summits of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness. Come night, it gets so dark you can see the band of the Milky Way splitting the sky.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Off Lone Mountain’s south face, roar almost 3,000 vertical feet down the ridiculously wide Liberty Bowl and through the Bavarian Forest, where you can bob and weave through spruce and fir.
HOT LODGE: Want quintessential Montana? Rent a log cabin with a hot tub on the deck: The Powder Ridge Cabins have woodstoves, vaulted ceilings, and a lift nearby. (Cabin with three doubles, $525-$772; 800-548-4486, )
SOUL PATCH: See what “big sky” really means: The tram up to the peak offers an eagle’s view of the resort’s most daring lines, plus thousands of square miles of wilderness. Watch a local work the Big Couloirā€”a 50-by-1,500-foot lick of 48-degree terrorā€”and it won’t be just the views stealing your breath.

UTAH :: ALTA & SNOWBIRD

Snowbird Ski Resort

THESE PEAKS ARE THE ODD COUPLE of mountain resortsā€”think hardcore Alta dudes and snazzy Snowbird debsā€”but their souls are united by heavenly powder.
WHY WE LOVE IT: In a word, the white stuff. At Little Cottonwood Canyon, the light-and-dry goods are nonpareil. The evidence? When the Ringling Bros. circus sued Utah for using the slogan “The Greatest Snow on Earth,” the case went all the way to the Supreme Courtā€”and Utah won.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: A long, technical traverse perches you atop Alf’s High Rustler, a 40-degree, 2,000-foot pitch aimed straight at the Alta parking lot. Legend has it that veteran ski-school director Alf Engen once bombed the whole run, with nothing but nipple-deep powder to slow his mad descent.
HOT LODGE: Snowbird’s Iron Blosam threads the ski-lodge needle: It’s got all the perks of a high-end hotelā€”two-story windows, private decks, full kitchens, and an outdoor hot tub-but it’s steeped in a laid-back atmosphere that reminds you of a family cabin in the mountains. (Doubles, $249-$539; 800-453-3000, )
SOUL PATCH: After Snowbird’s last tram heads down for the day, don’t be afraid to join the contingent of ski-crazy locals who gather at the top of Lone Pine for what is usually a low-key party, then take in the sublime view of the spectacular, canyon-framed sunset.

VERMONT :: STOWE

IT’S THE BARNS AND COVERED BRIDGES draped with snow that tip you off: You’re in classic Vermont. This historic resort hails from the hungry thirties, but you’ll be plenty satisfied. With just 4,000 or so permanent residents, Stowe’s got small-town soul galore, and the mountain tempts with wild, winding expert runsā€”and a slew of less challenging ones.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Time has made Stowe a giant on the eastern ski scene, with the help of 4,393-foot Mount Mansfield, Vermont’s highest peak. You can’t beat it for nordic action: The Touring Center at Trapp Family Lodge (owned by a member of the singing von Trapp clan, of The Sound of Music fame) features excellent trails. And where would snowboarding be without a certain resident named Jake Burton?
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Test your mettle on the famous Front Fourā€”National, Lift Line, Starr, and Goatā€”the mountain’s snaking double-black centerpieces. Prepare to be humbled.
HOT LODGE: Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the sumptuously restored Green Mountain Inn pumps up the luxe with modern accoutrements like gas fireplaces, marble bathrooms, Jacuzzis, and a heated outdoor pool. Forget fatigue with a Swedish deep-tissue massageā€”or have hot cider and homemade cookies by the blazing fire. (Doubles from $125; 800-253-7302, )
SOUL PATCH: Get a little wacky with the locals during the Stowe Winter Carnival, in late January: Among other fun, there’s off-season volleyball, a snow-golf tournament (costume required, natch), and the chilly Wintermeister triathlon.

COLORADO :: VAIL & BEAVER CREEK

TALK ABOUT HIGH CONTRAST: These resorts may be virtually side by side, but they don’t see eye to eye. Vail is the gold standard for manicured pistes and big bowls, regularly making it one of the country’s most popular destinations, while Beaver Creek is more of a sedate escape with a profusion of secret stashes.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Via the combo of dry snow and friendly terrain, intermediates feel advancedā€”and experts feel untouchable (if they didn’t already). Roughly half of the resorts’ vast terrain is taken up by the famous Back Bowls, at Vail, and Beaver Creek’s long, challenging Talons, many of which cut through the trees.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: On Vail’s Ledges, the steep bits run 300 feet, then level out and let you regain your wind, then drop another 300, and so onā€”descending for more than a mile, all the way home. At Beaver Creek, Harrier rolls off the west shoulder of Spruce Saddle, becoming a wide, hilly cruiseway perfectly pitched for GS turns.
HOT LODGE: The Austrian-style Hotel Gasthof Gramshammer has been au courant for 40 years. The 38 rooms are arrayed with knee-deep down comforters and traditional woodwork, game dishes are served up in the cozy Antlers dining room, and high indulgence awaits at the steam room, sauna, and two indoor hot tubs. (Doubles, $195-$245; 800-610-7374, )
SOUL PATCH: Don’t miss the Colorado Ski Museum: Dig the roots of modern snow sports and revisit such luminaries as World War II heroes/powder hounds the Tenth Mountain Division, among others.

CALIFORNIA & NEVADA :: HEAVENLY

CAN YOU SAY GIGANTIC? Good, because that’s what Heavenly is. Plus it can claim some of the most ravishing views of any American ski hill: It rests in the limbo between the supernatural blue of Lake Tahoe and the scorched Nevada desert far below.

WHY WE LOVE IT: Nobody skis off-piste on this mountain! A private wonderland awaits those who venture into the trees or take a little hike, but if you want to stay on track, you’ll find that the sheer immensity (almost 5,000 acres) spreads out the skiers nicely. Besides, the groomers are like boulevardsā€”and just as smoothā€”so you can really dig your turns here.

NUMBER-ONE RUN: The Milky Way Bowl, a ten-minute hike up the Skyline Trail, has a steady vertical drop and an utter dearth of other souls. Continue down the chutes of Mott Canyon and have a chuckle at the expense of all the schnooks who ever turned their noses up at this peak.

HOT LODGE: Heavenly’s speedy gondola is two minutes from Lake Tahoe’s Embassy Suites Hotel, very cushy digs with a dizzying nine-story atrium, glass roof, flourishing gardens, and 400 two-room suites. (Suites from $200; 877-497-8483, )

SOUL PATCH: The spectacle of Caesars Tahoe is Disneyland for the savvy gambler. A nonstop bacchanal revolves around slot machines, top-notch shows, and the ubiquitous gaming tablesā€”but without that Vegas overkill. When in Rome . . .

ALBERTA :: LAKE LOUISE

JAW-DROPPING vistas of Banff National Park greet the lucky folks up top of Canada’s biggest ski area, and world-class terrain awaits below.
WHY WE LOVE IT: This place splits styles: At the south side’s terrain park, huck junkies can air their grievances with gravity while fans of pure carving hit the quieter north face to ride the bowls.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Take the SUMMIT Platter up 8,765-foot Mount Whitehorn and cruise Brown Shirt, taking in views of the Bow Valley. Or head out from the Larch area, locate Lookout Chute, and disappear into the treesā€”just make sure you reappear.
HOT LODGE: From the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, gaze out at the glacier-fed namesake lake. To fight off the Canadian chill, try steaming truffle fondue at the hotel’s Walliser Stube; wash that fungus down with some ice wine, made from grapes frozen on the vine. (Doubles, $344; 800-441-1414, www .fairmont.com/lakelouise)
SOUL PATCH: With faraway Victoria Glacier as backdrop, a spin on Lake Louise’s skating rink makes for high entertainment. During January’s ice-carving competition, you can see frozen stars like Winnie the Pooh, then toast marshmallows at the braziers nearby. (Appropriately enough, the silly old bear has been quoted as saying, “Fight fire with marshmallows.”)

COLORADO :: TELLURIDE

A TRUE COWBOY TOWN where down jackets thankfully outnumber mink stoles, Telluride still caters to the glamorous. Spot a hot starlet living it up in one of downtown’s ritzy establishments? Big whoopā€”unless she was thrashing her guide in the steep and deep earlier.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Due to its remote settingā€”there’s just one road leading into this southwestern Colorado box canyon-the mountain always gets far fewer folks than it’s designed to handle. So the queues are quick, the runs pretty much empty, and the midmountain bartenders not too busy. NUMBER ONE RUN: As you float, fly, or surf down the three ridgeline miles of See Forever, looking 100 or so miles west toward Utah’s La Sal Mountains, you are permitted, though not really encouraged, to holler corny lines from Titanic, like “I’m on top of the wooorld!”
HOT LODGE: Live it up at Wyndham Peaks Resort & Golden Door Spa: Think king-size beds, homemade cookies on your pillow (if you ask nicely), and the San Juan Mountains out your window. Head to the spa and baby your fried quads by soaking them in the 102-degree mineral poolā€”perfect prep for a 50-minute Skier Salvation massage. (Doubles from $229; 970-728-6800, )
SOUL PATCH: Melt into an overstuffed leather chair, order a horseradishy bloody mary, and toast tomorrow in Wyndham Peaks’ high-ceilinged great room. That’s good medicine.

MONTANA :: BIG MOUNTAIN

CRAVE A COCKTAIL of wide-open groomers, perfectly spaced trees, and backcountryesque meadows? Look no further than crowdless Big Mountain. And with lots of off-piste powder stashes just waiting, it’s no wonder so many of the snow junkies here sport free heels.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Monster storms transform the mountain’s evergreens into “snow ghosts,” and localsā€”suited up in polyester straight out of the Carter eraā€”love to rip through this hoary host. And it doesn’t hurt that the skyline’s fraught with the lofty peaks of the Canadian Rockies, Glacier National Park, and the Great Bear Wilderness.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: East of North Bowl, you’ll find hundreds of feet of superb vertical, starting with the Nose, then continuing down two shots known as Performance and the Chin. Don’t look for these last two on the map, though: After hogging all that fluffy stuff, you won’t want to tell anyone, either.
HOT LODGE: The ski-in/ski-out Kandahar lodge, right off the mountain, just screams Montana. Think wooden beams, a river-rock fireplace, and rustic rooms with lofts and a bunch of primo down sleeping gear. (Doubles, $109-$309; 800-862-6094, )
SOUL PATCH: When the lifts shut down, the planks and boards stack up outside the Bierstube, where you’ll find local folks swilling pints of Moose Drool beside Seattle techniks escaping the city for the weekend. Be sure to ask your barkeep for one of the ‘Stube’s mysterious souvenir ringsā€”it’s a surpriseā€”then tip at least 20 percent. But you knew that.

CALIFORNIA :: ALPINE MEADOWS

ALL MOUNTAIN AND NO ATTITUDE, Northern California’s Alpine Meadows is designed to take maximum advantage of the spectacular terrain. Though it’s got that laid-back, down-to-earth vibe the West is known for, it’s certainly no bore; far from it. It simply lacks the attendant aggression of resorts with similarly radical steeps.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Chutes and rock bands line this High Sierra bowl, spilling out into gentle gradesā€”so there’s something here for all skill levels. The hike-to skiing and open-boundary policy (not found at neighboring Squaw Valley) equal acres and acres of untouched snow, and the hill’s south side is enormous, wide-open, and drenched with sunshine in the morning.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Palisades, a classic double black diamond off the Alpine Bowl lift, looks skyscraper-steep once you’re staring down it, but fear not: Since it’s north-facing, the snow’s way silky.
HOT LODGE: From the lifts, it’s just a quick ten minutes to the unbeatable Resort at Squaw Creek, with its 403 fine rooms, four restaurants (ranging from diner fare to haute cuisine), outdoor swimming pool, Jacuzzis, and nearby recreation like dogsledding and sleigh rides. (Doubles, $229-$349; 800-403-4434, )
SOUL PATCH: The northern ridge, beyond Estelle Bowl, may take a quarter of an hour to hike and traverse to, but the sweet silence and enormous cedars you’ll find will make you forget the trip. As will the powder.

UTAH :: THE CANYONS

A DECADE BACK, the resort that would become the Canyons was a pretty shabby, and not too popular, locals hill. Now it’s the biggest, most unabashedly go-go resort in Utah-and, miraculously, it’s crowd-free.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Besides the sharp new base village, it’s got the real goods: Days after other Wasatch resorts are all skied out, you’ll still be finding powder stashes hidden among theā€”count ’emā€”eight peaks.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Take the hike up Murdock Peak right off the Super Condor Express Lift, then choose from among seven tempting lines. You’re bound to find your favorite flavor: steep glade, wide-open bowl, or gnarly chute?
HOT LODGE: When NBC’s Katie Couric and Matt Lauer wanted posh digs for their two-week Olympics gig, they picked the deluxe Grand Summit Resort Hotelā€”for good reason. After a soak in your jetted tub, survey the scene at the heated outdoor pool below, and the rest of Summit County, from the bay windows flanking your fireplace. And, of course, there’s the supreme access: If the gondola were any closer, it would be inside. (Doubles, $279; 888-226-9667, )
SOUL PATCH: Take a snowcat-drawn sleigh to midmountain, cross-country or snowshoe it through the woods, and hit the resort’s secluded Viking Yurt for a delectable five-course Scandinavian feast. Go ahead and carbo-loadā€”afterwards, the snowcat will drag you right back down to base.

OREGON :: MT. BACHELOR

THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE gave top skier Bill Healy, of the Army’s Tenth Mountain Division, permission to put three rope tows up the face of central Oregon’s Bachelor Butte way back in 1958. Since then, his dream come true, now known as Mt. Bachelor, has grown to 71 runs serviced by ten lifts. And for those seeking big air, there are three terrain parks.
WHY WE LOVE IT: With as much as 30 feet of snow piling up annually in the mountains of Deschutes National Forest, Mt. Bachelor is one of the Pacific Northwest’s treasures, and an agreement with the Forest Service has spurned commercial development, preserving its wild side.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Head for the Northwest Express chair and exit, if you dare, to Devil’s Backbone, a mettle-testing black diamond. Though steeper up top, it’s good and bumpy almost all the way down its nefarious spine.
HOT LODGE: The Inn of the Seventh Mountain, between Bend and Mt. Bachelor, is the place to sleep if you want first chair the next morning. The lodge-style decorā€”wooden beams, fireplaces, leather reclinersā€”just oozes cozy, and with the Cascades so close by, grand views are there for the feasting. (Doubles, $135-$195; 800-452-6810, )
SOUL PATCH: Hit the Lodge, in Bend, for pints of local 20″ Brown Ale and scrumptious buffalo burgers. Then make good and sure you patronize the McMenamins folksā€”God love ’emā€”renovators of, among others, the old St. Francis school in downtown Bend, home to a hotel with Turkish baths, a pub restaurant, and a throwback cinema.

IDAHO :: SUN VALLEY

HOLLYWOOD HOTTIES, Olympic skiers, and John Kerry may flock to sexy Sun Valley these days, but America’s first ski resort has been drawing us hoi polloi since ’36. Swaths of immaculate corduroy run for miles here, so pray your legs last. No sweat if they don’t: French chefs and other fanciness await below.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Fantastic snow- making gear, five-star base facilities, and runs so fast and long you can attempt to break the sound barrierā€”after stuffing your face with beignets, of course.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: Crank the bindings and launch down Warm Springs. After a continuous 3,100-foot vertical loss on a blue groomer, your quads will glow like an Apollo capsule on reentry.
HOT LODGE: Stay in Ketchum, Sun Valley’s neighbor and the epicenter of the aprĆØs action. The Best Western Kentwood Lodge, situated right in the mix, has an airy stone-and-wood lobby, big rooms, a hot tub, and a pool. (Doubles, $159-$179; 800-805-1001, )
SOUL PATCH: Clomp into Apple’s Bar and Grill, at the base of Greyhawk, and mingle with folks who packed it in after logging 30,000 feet of vertā€”by lunchtime. Notice all the passes tacked to the wall? You could once trade yours for a pitcher of suds. Talk about priorities.

VERMONT :: KILLINGTON

KILLINGTON’S legendarily long season stretches from October through May (sometimes into June), and with seven mountains, the resort has more acreage than any place in the East. Lately, though, Killington’s known as the town that tried to secedeā€”from Vermont, not the Unionā€”a tribute to residents’ fiery, tax-evading Yankee spirit.
WHY WE LOVE IT: Behold the Beast’s 200 runsā€”including high-altitude bumps, endless cruisers, terrain parks, and a halfpipeā€”which keep legions of devotees coming back thirsty.
NUMBER-ONE RUN: You don’t have to be an ace to experience the hair-raisingly steep moguls of Outer Limits, on Bear Mountainā€”just grab a pint and watch the wipeouts from the deck of Bear Mountain Base Lodge.
HOT LODGE: Nab yourself some comfy slopeside digs: The Killington Grand Resort Hotel is well worth the substantial change you’ll drop. This 200-roomer offers studios and suitesā€”all with kitchens, many with fireplacesā€”and the views from the outdoor Jacuzzis and pool are unbeatable. (Doubles from $150; 877-458-4637, )
SOUL PATCH: It may have turned 40 last year, but the Wobbly Barn still parties like a teenager. This steakhouse-cum-nightclub has a hoppin’ happy hour, live music, and a serious boogie jones.

MONTANA :: MOONLIGHT BASIN

Moonlight Basin Ski Resort

EVERY GOOD SKI AREA has a split personalityā€”part nurturer, part dominatrix. But no resort behaves more like Jekyll and Hyde than Moonlight Basin, the one-year-old resort 45 miles south of Bozeman that shares a boundary with Big Sky. First it lulls you, then it tries to kill you.

The lull part: Moonlight is a real estate venture, and the kindly blue and black pistes that meander down the north face of 11,194-foot Lone Mountain are tailored to those looking for vacation homes. The new Lone Tree lift will fill out those offerings this winter, adding more than 500 acres of open glades and unintimidating expert runs.

Moonlight’s sadistic side? Just look up: The Headwaters is a forbidding wall striped with nine chutes pinched by bands of sharp shale and scree. Three Forks is the boast-in-the-bar run, a 1,200-foot plummet into Stillwater Bowl that nudges 50 degrees in spots. (Until a lift is built, reaching such lines requires a 25-to-45-minute hike.)

Moonlight Basin can’t yet keep you occupied for a weekā€”the base area’s swanky lodge doesn’t even have a gear shop or ski schoolā€”but it’s one more reason to book that trip to Big Sky.

IDAHO :: TAMARACK RESORT

THE VIEWS RECALL TAHOE. And the terrain? Call it Steamboat West. That’s the early line on Tamarack Resort, 90 miles north of Boise, which opens in December. The Tahoe analogy is plain from a 7,700-foot spot on West Mountain’s ridge: Far below, 22-mile-long Lake Cascade glistens in Long Valley. What’s more, the resort sits far enough west to rack up 300 annual inches of snow (100 more than Sun Valley), yet it’s east of Oregon’s high desert, ensuring that the bounty arrives talcum-dry.

Don’t expect Tamarack to max out your Pocket Rockets. The tree skiing in glades of aspen and subalpine fir, and the languorous blue runs that unspool down the mountain’s 2,800 vertical feet, summon Steamboatā€”diverting, if not exactly heart-stopping. Snowcat skiing will be offered this year on 500 acres to be made lift-accessible in the next few years. It’s all part of a $1.5 billion plan to make Tamarack a year-round resort with some 2,000 chalets, condos, and hotel rooms. (At press time, just 60 chalets and cottages were available.) For the best aprĆØs-ski, head to the old logging town of McCall, 17 miles north.

:: SKI EMOTIONALLY NAKED!

STUCK IN INTERMEDIATEVILLE and dreaming of a transfer to the friendlier slopes of Advanced City? I sure was, so last winter I gambled on a four-day ski clinic in Utah’s Wasatch Range. I was up for anything that would get me closer to black-diamond bliss.

Ski to Liveā€”launched in 2003 by extreme queen Kristen Ulmer, at Alta and Snowbird resortsā€”takes a uniquely cerebral, holistic approach to improving performance on the slopes, promising nothing less than self-transformation via a cogent blend of hard carving, refreshing yoga, and an intriguing flavor of Zen known as Big Mind. No $200-an-hour therapist ever promised so much.

The 38-year-old Ulmer, veteran of countless ski flicks and former U.S. Freestyle Ski Team member, is a sensitive but sure coach, possessing an infectious buoyancy of spirit that makes every powder acolyte under her wing believe a camera’s rolling just for them over the next mogul. She says conventional instruction is too heavy on mechanics, virtually ignoring mental outlook: “Understanding yourself translates into your skiing in a big way. It’ll catapult you into a whole new level of learning.” So she does it her way. During my Ski to Live weekend, my 13 fellow pupils and I spent about as much time contemplating life in intensely reflective Big Mind sessions as we did tackling Snowbird runs like the steep straitjacket of Wilbere Bowl.

The first night, we shared our hopes (huck big air!) and fears (hairy chutes, sharks). Next morning, we fell into a pleasant rhythm: wake-up yoga; a fat breakfast; lots and lots of skiing in small groups with Ulmer or another instructor; evening sessions with Genpo Roshi, 60, who heads up Salt Lake City’s Kanzeon Zen Center and developed Big Mind; a to-die-for dinner; then profound slumber at the Lodge at Snowbird.

Under Ulmer’s tutelage, skiers and snowboarders employ mantras, which can improve focus, and learn to execute proper form, like correctly positioning shoulders through turns. (Chanting Charge! in one’s head at each turn actually does have a way of refining performance.) Throwing Roshi in the mix proves to be even more radical: He uses challenging discussions and role-playing exercises intended to help you harmoniously integrate the sometimes conflicting aspects of your personality, thus allowing you to dig out from the solipsistic center of your own little universe. It’s pretty cool.

But my defining moment came not when I face-planted right in front of the video camera (hello, embarrassing playback!) nor when I carved some relatively pretty turns in Mineral Basin; it came in a whiteout, during a three-below-zero cruise along the Cirque Traverse, at nearly 11,000 feet. Suddenly I felt fearless joy-not joyless fear-in anticipation of the double black on deck.

The post We Sing the Slopes Fantastic appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Plenty of people rocked our world this year—like resilient shark-attack survivor Bethany Hamilton, Olympic supa-swimma Michael Phelps, valiant Iraq war photographer Chris Anderson, and (of course) Lance, with his butt-whompingest Tour win yet. Meet the top 25 picks in our roundup of adventure heroes who stand a cut above.

Laird Hamilton

Laird Hamilton

Misty May & Kerri Walsh

Solid-Gold Spikers

Despite the anything-can-happen aura surrounding this summer’s Olympic Games, certain outcomes seemed inevitable: There would be drama and tears in the gymnastics competition, archery would not make prime time, and the American women would win beach volleyball gold. Of course, it’s easy to achieve world dominance on the sand if you are the formidable twosome of Misty May—a five-foot-nine, 150-pound 27-year-old with coils for legs—and Kerri Walsh, 26, whose six-foot-two, 155-pound beanstalk body lets her cover every inch of the net and court. It’s not surprising that both women are blessed with Athena-given genes—May’s mother was a nationally ranked tennis player, while Walsh’s mom was voted MVP on her college volleyball team at Santa Clara University—and both were college superstars in their own right. At Long Beach State, L.A. native May led her team to a 36–0 record and the 1998 NCAA championship, while Walsh, a native of Santa Clara, California, racked up four All-American honors and two consecutive NCAA championships at Stanford. The two paired up in 2001 and were ranked number one in the world by the end of the 2002 season, becoming the first American team to win the world championships, in 2003. Three years of playing solid ball together certainly paid off: The duo (who beat Brazilians Shelda Bede and Adriana Behar in the gold-medal round) didn’t drop a single game in Athens. “We played consistently and aggressively from the very first game,” says May. “I didn’t have any doubt we would win gold.”

Rush Sturges, Marlow Long, & Brooks Baldwin

Mad Auteurs

Judging from the footage in Young Gun Productions’ 2004 DVD New Reign, extreme kayaking has found its heirs apparent. The flick, 30-plus minutes of pure kayak porn, stars the trio and a cadre of their underage, overtalented pals running 70-foot waterfalls, cartwheeling through ten-foot standing waves, and raising hell on some of the world’s fiercest waterways, from Uganda’s White Nile to Canada’s Slave River. Set to rap and hip-hop, it forgoes narration for frame after frame of lemming-style plunges and teenage rowdiness. (In one scene, paddler Merlin Hanauer cranks the rental van through high-speed donuts in a Norway parking lot.) Talent and guts notwithstanding, the Young Guns’ irreverence and Hiltonesque reputation for partying haven’t gone over well with the sport’s veterans. “Don’t get me wrong—they go huge,” says Clay Wright, 37, a member of the U.S. Freestyle Kayak Team since 1995. “But they need to learn that people aren’t just watching them when they’re on the water.” Which, as it turns out, is most of the time: Long, 20, Baldwin, 20, and 19-year-old Sturges, the 2003 junior world freestyle champion, made their first movie, The Next Generation, in 2002 as students at the Vermont-based kayaking academy ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Quest. For their next offering, Dynasty, due out in late 2005, they’ll head to the Congo’s big water. “With a 15- or 20-foot wave,” says Sturges, “anything’s possible.”

Keir Dillon

Snowboarder

Keir Dillon

Keir Dillon

Keir Dillon couldn’t concentrate. It was the February 2004 World Superpipe Championship in Park City, Utah, and the pipe’s 18-foot walls were booming with the sound system’s house music and the noise of the raucous crowd. So he put on his earmuff-size Sony headphones, tuned in to the mellow vocals of a singer from his church, dropped in, and won gold. That same focus earned Dillon third-place finishes in both the X Games in January and the U.S. Open in March—a trifecta of podium appearances at the sport’s most renowned contests. In the pipe, Dillon, 27, is known best for his personalized McTwist—a 540-degree spinning front flip—and soaring amplitude. Off the snow, the Carlsbad, California–based boarder—who is married and sticks to a rigorous year-round training regimen in hopes of making the 2006 Olympic squad—is leading a new revolution of career-focused riders by being up front about who he is and what it takes to win. “You can’t be pro these days and be a complete derelict,” he says. “It’s about being dialed.”

Lauren Lee

Model Climber

“I don’t have the patience for sticking around climbs very long,” says 24-year-old boulderer Lauren Lee, “so I just send them [climb without falling] as quickly as possible.” In her case, impatience is a virtue. After less than two years of crag time, the five-foot-five, 110-pounder from Cincinnati was snagging first-place finishes at the 2001 American Bouldering Series and the Subaru Gorge Games. In 2002, she finished second to France’s Myriam Matteau at the Bouldering World Cup in Rovereto, Italy, then went on to win the prestigious Phoenix Dyno competition in April 2003 and the Professional Climbing Association competition in Salt Lake City in January 2004. But just because Lee can rage on the rock doesn’t mean she’s a dirtbag climber: A model for gearmakers Five Ten, Prana, and BlueWater, Lee has been known to compete in a skirt. True to form, she’s throwing herself headlong into the next step: sport climbing. In July, Lee put up the fastest female ascent on Dumpster BBQ, a notoriously difficult 5.13c pitch outside Rifle, Colorado. And in September, she became the youngest American woman, and third overall, to send a 5.13d. “It’s one thing to be strong, but it’s another to know how to move on the rock,” says World Cup climber Chris Sharma, 23. “Lauren has both. She’s got huge potential.”

Stewart+Brown

Eco-Fashionistas

Stewart+Brown

Stewart+Brown

At long last, the human species has evolved to the point where we can grasp the concept that earth-friendly fashions need not stop at hemp. This is due in no small part to Stewart+Brown, the Ventura, California–based green-produced, downtown-inspired apparel company created in 2002 by the husband-and-wife team of designer Karen Stewart, 35, and brand guru Howard Brown, 37, alumni of Patagonia and Urban Outfitters, respectively. “You know the Dr. Seuss book The Lorax? ‘I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!'” says Brown, by way of explaining their mission. “We want to mix environmental consciousness with good, cool design.” Toward that end, Stewart+Brown gives 1 percent of its gross profit to environmental causes. All of their cotton products are 100 percent organic; the cashmere comes from a fledgling Mongolian cashmere co-op run by herders who process the woolly stuff themselves; their Surp+ tote bags are stitched from leftover ripstop nylon and the remnants of fly-fishing waders; and their fleece is Stewart’s own invention, a proprietary blend of organic cotton, polyester, and spandex. They’d intended to take their new line slowly, conceiving the company while raising their two-year-old daughter, Hazel. But when the zeitgeist calls, you have to answer, particularly when those calls are for cashmere and they’re coming from national franchises like Anthropologie, trendsetting boutiques like Butter, in Brooklyn, and celebs like Cameron Diaz and Liv Tyler (who ordered their infant line: cashmere baby blanket, hat, and neckie). While tastemakers swoon—”Oooh, the hats!” cries Organic Style‘s Danny Seo—Stewart and Brown are planning to expand, and scrambling to keep up with existing sales. “Did you hear that sigh?” says Brown. “I just spent six straight weeks packing boxes, and people are already placing reorders. Stores are selling out.”

Alexander Fyfe

Soccer Captain

While the Iraqi National Soccer Team was gearing up for its knockout performance at the 2004 Summer Olympics, U.S. Army captain Alexander Fyfe was helping the country’s next generation of athletes sharpen their dribbling skills. Fyfe, a civil-affairs officer with the Fort Lewis, Washington–based 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, was stationed in Mosul, Iraq, last February when he noticed some local kids playing with a makeshift ball made of straw. The 26-year-old West Point grad—a standout midfielder as a teenager in Rocky Point, New York—e-mailed his high school coach, Al Ellis, and asked him to ship over a few balls. Ellis broadcast the request over the Internet, and soon Fyfe had received $25,000 worth of jerseys, balls, and other soccer equipment from the United States and Japan, which he helped distribute to children throughout northern Iraq. Though his is a goodwill mission, Fyfe still has to watch his back: In June, while on a delivery run to schools near the town of Qara Qosh, his convoy was ambushed by anti-American insurgents. The soldiers escaped harm, but the incident rattled Fyfe, who hopes to end his tour of duty by year’s end and return home to the Northwest for a winter of hiking and skiing. “This soccer project is one of hundreds of good news stories happening here every day,” he insists. “I’ll leave Iraq knowing that I played a small part in a very big production.” Whatever the outcome in Iraq, it’s hard to contest the rightness of kids playing sports outside.

Joe Don Morton

Smoke Jumper

The wildfire outside the Alaskan town of Arctic Village was small, maybe only five acres, when veteran firefighter Joe Don Morton hurled himself from the belly of a Casa 212 aircraft on June 22, 2004. Even 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, in the sparsely vegetated foothills of the Brooks Range, it took eight men and two CL-215 tanker planes three days to douse the blaze. Morton, 34, is a veteran Alaska Smokejumper, one of 68 elite firefighters who serve as the Last Frontier’s first line of defense against wildfires, parachuting into the backcountry as soon as flames are spotted. Smoke jumpers are a burly breed, but in Alaska—where 99 percent of the state is wild and roadless backcountry—the job redefines hardcore. “When I heard about guys throwing themselves into the middle of burning, untamed wilderness 500 miles from the nearest road,” says Morton, a former Navy search-and-rescue swimmer who got his start fighting fires in Arizona, “I knew it was my calling.” Good thing, because 2004 was Alaska’s worst fire season on record, with 680 separate blazes charring nearly 6.5 million acres across the state, including the headline-grabbing Boundary Fire, which scorched 537,000 acres of the White Mountains National Recreation Area and threatened suburban Fairbanks in June. “It looked like a war zone,” says Morton, who made nine jumps between May and late September, often hauling up to 110 pounds of gear (including a Kevlar jumpsuit, hard hat, ax, and chainsaw) to clear terrain just ahead of the flames. “The large fires kept our guys out there a long time,” says base manager Dalan Romero. “They were a challenge to everyone’s endurance.”

Lance Armstrong

The Boss

More Lance? Yeah, more Lance. Because a cyclist now ranks alongside transcendent, single-name icons like PelĆ© and Jordan. Because, as a 32-year-old cancer survivor, he accomplished something after cancer—six Tour de France victories—that no one else has managed in an entire career. Because here’s how he described this summer’s 2,110-mile battle for his record-setting yellow jersey: “It’s as if I was with my five friends and we were 13 years old and we all had new bikes and we said, ‘OK, we’re going to race from here to there.'” Because rather than quit now, he is out there training, getting ready to unleash another season of hurt on the competition. Because he stamped LIVESTRONG on a yellow rubber band, sold it for a buck, and has generated upwards of $13 million for his cancer foundation. Because his rock-star girlfriend lives in L.A., and his career is based in Europe, but he insists on training in Texas so he can be closer to his kids. Because his cameo was the best part of Dodgeball. Because no matter how much is written about him, the next time he races, you’ll watch.

Bethany Hamilton

Surfer

Bethany Hamilton

Bethany Hamilton

“Then it happened,” writes 14-year-old Bethany Hamilton in her new book, Soul Surfer. “A wave rolled through, I caught it, put my hand on the deck to push up, and I was standing. I guess I started getting the technique wired after that.” Let us be the first to say that this is a massive understatement. Last January, ten weeks after losing her left arm in a grisly shark attack that made international headlines, Hamilton rode a six-foot wave on her six-foot-two-inch surfboard and placed fifth in her age group in a National Scholastic Surfing Association meet in Hawaii. In August she won the women’s open division of an NSSA Hawaii conference contest, outsurfing the reigning champ, 12-year-old Carissa Moore. How is this possible? Hamilton credits her family (her parents, Cheri and Tom, and two brothers, Noah and Timmy, all surf), supporters in her hometown of Princeville, Kauai, her strong faith, and her unwavering mission to turn pro. In addition to physical therapy, her daily workouts include beach sprints, crunches, stretches, and balance work. She also surfs three times a day on Kauai’s best breaks, fine-tuning her technique with help from surf-training legend Ben Aipa, 63, who has coached Kelly Slater and Sonny Garcia. Though she wears a prosthetic on land, she rides the waves without one: paddling with her right arm, kicking hard, planting her body in the middle of the board, standing up, and then dropping in. “For most of us, surfing with two arms is hard enough,” says Sunshine Makarow, publisher of Surf Life for Women. “But Bethany’s still out there surfing competitively, and she can rip!”

Justin Carven

Guru of Grease

No doubt you’ve been hearing the buzz about biodiesel. A chemically processed mixture of vegetable oil, methanol, and lye, usually blended with other diesel fuels, it sells for about the same price as unleaded gas, with fewer greenhouse-gas emissions and up to 40 percent better mileage. But 27-year-old Justin Carven, of Florence, Massachusetts, has come up with a smarter, cheaper way to drive greener. Carven’s Greasecar Vegetable Fuel System modifies any diesel engine to run on pure recycled cooking oil—cleaner and more fuel-efficient than biodiesel and free at Chinese restaurants and fast-food joints nationwide. Carven developed the Greasecar concept while studying mechanical design at Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. His first real road test—a 2000 postgraduation trip from Cape Cod to California and back in a grease-powered VW Westfalia—drew so much attention that he soon began marketing easy-to-install Greasecar kits to the public. Carven and his staff of three (who produce all the components by hand in East Hampton, Massachusetts) report that 2004 sales are up 500 percent over last year, with 60 Greasecar kits, at $795 a pop, being ordered each month by a customer base that’s grown beyond the original dreadlocks-and-patchouli crowd. “I tried using biodiesel, but it was hard to find, and I figured why not go 100 percent?” says Mark Howard, an information-technology consultant in New Hampshire who installed a Greasecar system on his 1997 VW Passat last spring. “I estimate that I save $80 to $100 a month on gas.” Carven admits that vegetable oil is not the perfect replacement for gasoline—for one thing, lugging around vats of grease and filtering out the McNugget batter and other impurities can be a chore. But he thinks it’s a worthy alternative until another green fuel is developed. “It’s renewable, produced domestically, and not going to run out like fossil fuels,” he argues. “This stuff literally grows on trees.”

Danny Way

Big-Air Huckster

Danny Way

Danny Way

In the four-wheeled world of skateboarding, the name Danny Way has always been synonymous with big. That’s because, from the start of his pro skateboarding career, at age 14, Way has never stopped flying. The 30-year-old vert (a.k.a. halfpipe) skateboarder and father of two from Encinitas, California, made headlines in 1997 when he became the first skateboarder to jump from a helicopter onto a vert ramp—a move he aptly named the “bomb drop” and repeated two years later for MTV. In June 2003, Way set two back-to-back world records in a single jump at a mega–skate ramp in Temecula, California: First he landed a 75-foot-long backside 360 over a 40-foot gap, with the momentum carrying him into the vert pipe, where he soared to 23.5 feet of vertical. This August, he wowed audiences at the X Games in Los Angeles by breaking his own world record with a practice jump of 79 feet—and then going on to win the big-air ramp event. Needless to say, it can be messy work: In the past year, Way has received 25 stitches on his right elbow, ripped off all the skin on his stomach, and been knocked unconscious twice. But that’s nothing compared with his eight surgeries—six on his left knee alone—in the past ten years. Way is just as aggressive off the ramp. In 1995, he helped his brother, Damon, and friend Ken Block start DC Shoes, a San Diego–based skateboarding-apparel company, which they sold to Quiksilver in March 2004 for $100 million. Now he has the windfall to develop his latest idea—a portable 90-foot-high, 300-foot-long ramp that, he hopes, will kick off a big-air world tour. “Trying something new can be rough,” Way admits, “but once you make it happen, the possibilities are endless.”

Becky Bristow

Expedition Kayaker

Just eight weeks after the U.S. State Department warned Americans off traveling to Iran this May, 27-year-old expedition kayaker Becky Bristow drove overland from Turkey with a team of paddlers from Britain and Argentina for a series of self-supported multi-day descents down Iran’s Class IV and V Bakhtiari, Zez, and Sezar rivers. As it turns out, pushy water was only half of the challenge: Reconciling river-rat culture with Islamic law came with its own set of hardships. Despite 100-degree average temperatures, Bristow paddled in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt and donned a head scarf while portaging. At one point, three villagers accosted the team along the Zez River—holding Becky in her boat and making menacing hand gestures until the team’s British photographer, Alex Nicks, handed over his camera to appease them. “That was some outrageous stuff that I don’t think happens over there that often,” says Bristow. “The majority of the time we met beautiful people who were generous and friendly.” Bristow got her start on tamer waters in 1989, paddling the North Saskatchewan River near her home in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, in a 13-foot fiberglass kayak her father bought at a garage sale. Fourteen years later, she has notched first descents in Alaska, Ecuador, Russia, and B.C. (she scouted drainages from a helicopter during the three summers she fought forest fires), starred in TGR’s film Wehyakin and Scott Lindgren’s Aerated, and is in the process of launching her own production company, Wild Soul Creations. “She comes off as an unassuming, mild-mannered Canadian,” says fellow paddler Kristen Read, 29. “It turns out she’s also a total badass.”

Kit DesLauriers

Freeskier

Kit DesLauriers

Kit DesLauriers

When Kit DesLauriers, 35, arrived at the base of Alaska’s 20,320-foot Mount McKinley this May, the entire summit was capped in blue ice. But a little hardpack wasn’t going to stop her from becoming the first American woman to ski the continent’s tallest peak. For 26 days, she and her husband, Rob, assaulted the mountain, helping to rescue a stranded Korean party and enduring biting snowstorms. At the summit, DesLauriers strapped on her alpine planks and skied down windswept icefields, arriving, eight hours of skiing later, at base camp at 7,200 feet. As an extended warm-up to the McKinley expedition, the Jackson, Wyoming, local carved turns on 13,770-foot Grand Teton in June 2003 and, the following November, clinched the first female ski descent of New Zealand’s 9,960-foot Mount Aspiring. This spring, DesLauriers will attempt two more ski expeditions—one to the Himalayas or Greenland and one to an undisclosed peak in Chile. “Skiing is life,” says DesLauriers. “I love winter. I love the mountains. Sometimes it feels like the easiest thing in the world to be doing.”

Jimmy Chin

All-Mountain Man

Jimmy Chin

Jimmy Chin

How do you get to be a professional adventurer? It’s a frequently asked question, and 31-year-old Jimmy Chin has the bona fides to answer. Based in Jackson, Wyoming, he has made newsworthy ascents in the Karakoram, the Himalayas (including Everest), and the tallest sandstone towers in the world, in Mali. A couple of years ago, he joined mountaineer Conrad Anker, the late photographer Galen Rowell, and me on a 275-mile unsupported traverse of a never-explored corner of northwestern Tibet, where each guy had a 250-pound rickshaw strapped (as Jimmy put it) “to our asses.” Jimmy proved his strength, not only carting gear at 16,000 feet but capturing the decisive moments with both still and video cameras. But that’s the easy part of what you need to be a pro. The more difficult (and important) part is something you’re born with, and it makes you the type that other adventurers want on their team: You can’t stop smiling, no matter how tough it gets; you never complain, because your glass is always half full and there’s nothing to complain about; and your ego is post-Copernican—out there orbiting around with everyone else’s, not at the center of anything. And, oh, yeah, I forgot—I guess it doesn’t hurt if People magazine votes you one of the country’s most eligible bachelors.

Michael Phelps

Heavy-Medal Swimmer

In case you fell asleep during the gazillion hours that the Olympics were televised this August, here’s a news flash: Michael Phelps was the Man. Swimming 17 races in seven days, the 19-year-old Maryland native nabbed six gold medals and two bronzes, a record haul for any sport in a single, non-boycotted Olympics. Although Phelps’s physique guarantees domination in the pool—observe his lean six-foot-four, 195-pound frame, flipperlike size-14 feet, six-foot-seven-inch wingspan, and extra-long torso—it was his bring-it-on mentality that cemented him as the one to beat in Athens. “He went after competition, not glory,” says Olympic commentator Rowdy Gaines, who won three gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. “He wasn’t afraid to take on the world’s best.” Case in point: Instead of entering the 200-meter backstroke—an event where at least a silver medal was a lock—Phelps swam against his Australian rival Ian Thorpe in the 200-meter freestyle, losing to Thorpe but snagging the bronze and breaking his own American record. But the much-heralded sportsmanship moment came when Phelps gave up his butterfly leg in the 4-by-100-meter medley relay to then-medalless teammate Ian Crocker. The U.S. team proceeded to win gold. Phelps’s pro status makes him ineligible for collegiate competition, but he’s still logging 50 pool miles a week as he prepares to start his freshman year at the University of Michigan, under the watchful eye of his longtime coach, Bob Bowman. It’s never too soon to start training for Beijing.

Rush Randle

Wave Doctor

Rush Randle, the greatest wave-sports athlete you’ve never heard of, lives for the cutting edge. Ever heard of tow-in surfing? Randle, 31, along with fellow all-star Laird Hamilton, invented it on Maui’s north coast in the early nineties. Ditto for kiteboarding, which made its debut in 1994–95, also on Maui. But his latest and greatest concoction is the upstart sport of foilboarding. The hybrid invention—which mounts an aluminum or carbon hydrofoil blade onto a wakeboard—got Hollywood treatment in Step Into Liquid and Billabong Odyssey, with sequences of foilboarders riding long, graceful swells. The physics are like that of an airplane wing: As the blade slices cleanly through the water, it provides so much lift that the board glides clear above the surface of the wave. The result is longer, faster, smoother rides—which may someday be the key to catching 100-foot waves. “It feels like flying,” says Randle, who builds and sells foilboards on Maui, where he lives with his wife, Erin, and their seven-year-old son. “It’s like being a pelican, riding the swells.” So for now, the Oahu native has dialed back his competition in the wildly nichefied sports of flow surfing (done in artificial pools) and sling surfing (in which a jet ski flings the surfer at a wave, launching him into acrobatic aerials) to concentrate on the hydrofoil. When the right swell hits this winter, he’ll be out there going the distance: “I want to take the longest ride on a single swell ever,” declares Randle, whose personal best is two miles. “With the right swell, I think I can go 50.”

AndrƩ TolmƩ

Golfer in the Rough

For most duffers, losing 509 balls and shooting 290 over par in one round would be a sign to quit the sport. Not for AndrĆ© TolmĆ©. His epic traverse of the world’s longest, most unconventional links—the 2.3-million-yard, par-11,880 country of Mongolia—made him the global spokesman for a nascent sport: extreme golf. In July, the 35-year-old civil engineer from Northfield, New Hampshire, completed his epic 90-day, 1,300-mile golfing expedition across the Mongolian steppes, where he spent most days fighting off fierce Siberian winds as he whacked balls with a 3-iron. What kept TolmĆ© going were the nomadic Mongolians who welcomed him into their yurts at night and fed him high-calorie (if not haute-cuisine) slabs of mutton fat, fermented mare’s milk, and sheep-brain pĆ¢Ć© smeared on sliced sheep’s liver. TolmĆ©’s efforts landed him a spot on Jay Leno’s guest list in August and the coveted title of Golfer of the Year (as proclaimed by venerable New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson)—beating out country-club champs Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. When asked what could possibly top teeing off across Mongolia, he would only say, enigmatically, “I’ve got a few ideas.”

Tim Bluhm

Vagabond Rocker

Tim Bluhm

Tim Bluhm

Tim Bluhm lives in a 1995 Chevy Sportvan, but don’t let that throw you: The lead singer of the San Francisco band the Mother Hips has still managed to release nine albums, play more than 2,000 concerts, and build a cultish fan base—all the while stringing together a life of wilderness rambles that are as much Jack London as Jack Johnson. He tramps up and down the Golden State, skiing Mount Shasta, free-soloing Tuolumne Meadows’ Cathedral Peak, surfing the cold Northern California coast, and telemark-skiing the Sierra. This summer, he broke a 14-year concert streak and worked as a climbing guide in Yosemite. With a sun-soaked sound that blends Merle Haggard with the Beach Boys, Bluhm pitched his tent on a plot of California’s imagination and has been singing into the roar of the bulldozers ever since, a self-proclaimed “time-sick son of a grizzly bear” along the lines of Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt, with a similarly loyal following. In February, lines formed around the block in San Francisco for the premiere of Stories We Could Tell, a feature-length documentary about the band. This month, Bluhm releases California Way, a two-day session that Fog City Records producer Dan Prothero calls a “love letter from and about a disappearing place.” Reached by cell phone on a highway in the Sierra, Bluhm admitted that if he’d hit the jackpot ten years ago, he “probably would have just spent it all. Now,” he said, “I’d buy a better van. Or at least get my brakes fixed.”

Dwight Aspinwall & Perry Dowst

Gear Savants

What do you get when two New Hampshire engineers train their Ivy League brains on the lowly camp stove? Say hello to the Jetboil, a snazzy, all-in-one portable kitchen that—in 11 months on the market—has revolutionized backcountry cooking. It began as a brainstorm back in the nineties, when software engineer Dwight Aspinwall, now 43, was trekking Tasmania’s rain- and wind-pummeled South Coast Track. Every day, he’d watch his Aussie friends root around in their packs for their stoves, their pots, and their matches to make afternoon tea. Gotta be a better way, he thought. In 2001, Aspinwall teamed up with his second cousin, engineer Perry Dowst, 44. Three years and a few accidental fires later, the $80 Jetboil Personal Cooking System was born—an integrated fuel burner/pot/mug combo with a Star Trek–looking “FluxRing” heat exchanger that gives it double the heat-transfer efficiency of most other backpacking stoves. All you really need to know, though, is that, with infomercial-worthy ease and a flick of a knob (no lighter required!), it boils a cup of water in 60 seconds and uses 50 percent less fuel than a standard camp stove to do it. Since arriving in outdoor stores last January, Jetboil has become the buzz of bivy ledges and surf breaks nationwide—with everyone from firefighters to alpinists preaching the gospel of a fast cup of joe on the go. “A monkey could put this thing together and start boiling water within a minute,” says mountain guide Steven Tickle, who packed Jetboils for his clients’ fast-and-light assault on Nepal’s 22,494-foot Ama Dablam this fall. “You can always rely on it.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Environmental Action Hero

When he took over as governor of California in November 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the 57-year-old, Austria-born bodybuilder and action-film star, was poised to do what many thought was impossible: turn the GOP—or at least his Left Coast slice of it—green. ” ‘Jobs vs. the environment’ is a false choice,” he said on the campaign trail, and then he backed it up with an ambitious environmental action plan for California that included mandates to cut air pollution in half by 2010; start a Green Building Bank, offering incentives to eco-friendly construction projects; and ensure that 20 percent of California’s power comes from renewable sources by 2010 (and 33 percent by 2020). So how’s he doing so far? After focusing on budget deficits and government restructuring for the first ten months of his term, in September the Governator signed into law more than 20 pro-environment bills, creating the Sierra Nevada Conservancy to protect 25 million acres of central California and cracking down on cruise-ship pollution, while also backing a 25 percent reduction in exhaust emissions from cars and light trucks by 2016. Even skeptical groups like the Sierra Club are giving him a cautious thumbs-up. “He’s off to a fair start in signing legislation,” says Bill Allayaud, legislative director of Sierra Club California. “But his whole record is uneven.” Right, and what about the famous vow to modify one of his Hummers into a hydrogen-fuel-cell hybrid? California EPA director Terry Tamminen, the former head of Santa Monica BayKeeper whom Arnold appointed at the recommendation of cousin-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is standing by his boss. “He promised to convert one of his Hummers to hydrogen during the campaign,” says Tamminen, “and the governor is always a man of his word.”

Chris Anderson

Frontline Photographer

Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson

American Chris Anderson didn’t set out to become a war photographer. “It chose me. I didn’t choose it,” he says of his recent status as the intrepid shooter on every photo editor’s short list. At the relatively young age of 34, he has all the trappings of a grizzled photojournalist: an assortment of dented and dust-clogged rangefinder cameras; barely lived-in apartments in Paris and New York; a prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal, awarded by the Overseas Press Club for exceptional courage and enterprise; and a passport bloated with stamps from conflict-torn hot spots in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel. In truth, when Anderson signed on with U.S. News & World Report to spend three months covering the war in Afghanistan—and, 16 months later, with The New York Times Magazine to cover the war in Iraq—all he really desired was to see how people live their lives and to capture moments of human drama by “shooting stories at eye level,” as he calls his brand of experiential photography. “Chris is the embodiment of the creative spirit: restless, searching, always moving on,” says legendary photojournalist James Nachtwey, 56. “He wants to know how things look out of the corner of his eye, on the dead run.” Such was the case on April 7, 2003, two days before Baghdad fell, when Anderson was riding with an armored column through the center of the city, the only journalist to do so. He survived a direct RPG hit on his vehicle and, despite nearly losing an eye to shrapnel, joined a similar mission two days later. “People are usually shocked that I enjoy my job as much as I do,” he admits. “But with all the strife and chaos going on around me, as sick as it sounds, it’s an absolute adventure.”

Jim Prosser

Sustainable Vintner

Oregon winemaker Jim Prosser says his delectable 2002 vintage possesses “an ageable combination of power and grace.” The same can be said of the 41-year-old recreational mountaineer–cum–professional vintner, whose 1999 debut pinot noir turned international critics into salivating sissies. Prosser’s J.K. Carriere label continues to wow oenophiles at restaurants from NYC’s Oceana to Aspen’s Ajax Tavern, with pinots ranging from $18 to $65 that, Prosser says, are “more about seduction and less about ‘haul you back to the cave by the hair.'” He and his crew of 16 produce the wine in a converted hazelnut barn in the Willamette Valley, using centuries-old techniques and locally grown, pesticide-free grapes. “Great wines are made at the margins,” says the Peace Corps alum (he served as a small-business consultant in Lithuania from 1993 to 1995), who compares winemaking’s risks and rewards to those of climbing a peak or catching a trout. When he’s not off skiing Mount Bachelor or fishing the Deschutes, Prosser relishes the long hours caught up in the vines or on the crush deck. But things get less rosĆ© when the bees come out to bite. Deathly allergic, he’s twice ended up in a near-coma working in the vineyards. “It reminds me I’ve made a conscious choice to do what I do,” declares Prosser. “Know thine enemy, I say.” Fittingly, his label pays tribute to his nemesis: A big wasp underlies the vintage.

Jim Fraps & Jeff & Paula Pensiero

Big-Pow Hoteliers

Annual snowfall of 42 feet, 36,000 acres of untracked bowls, and 18,000 vertical feet of deep turns a day: Welcome to the “church of the fall line” at Baldface Lodge, one of North America’s largest—and newest—snowcat skiing operations, whose worshipers have included late snowboarding king Craig Kelley, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, and Foo Fighters bass player Nate Mendel. Eight years ago, the founders of this 24-guest powder haven in the heart of British Columbia’s Kootenay Mountains, 37-year-old Jim Fraps and his college buddy Jeff Pensiero, 35, were working and boarding in Tahoe—surviving on ramen noodles and a dream: to cash in on B.C.’s backcountry. The two scraped together $50,000, then scouted an area near Nelson that raked in consistently huge snowfalls. By the time they were granted tenure from the B.C. government for the land, in 2000, their $50,000 was history. Then a friend introduced Pensiero to Mendel and Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl, both eager investors. In December 2002 the duo, along with Pensiero’s wife, Paula, opened the lodge, a timber-framed structure perched at 6,750 feet on a ridge linking five peaks. A steady diet of cabernet and plank-grilled salmon—along with guides like 1998 Olympic boarder Mark Fawcett—and a happy, happening vibe have charmed guests ever since. “Their enthusiasm is infectious,” says Mendel. “It spreads throughout the whole operation.”

Darren Berrecloth

Freeride Mountain Biker

Darren Berrecloth

Darren Berrecloth

Darren Berrecloth, 23, remembers the exact moment he decided to dedicate his life to mountain biking. It was the summer of 2002, he’d taken the day off from his job at a Vancouver, B.C., machine shop to compete in a dirt-jump contest in Whistler, and his boss was pissed. “This skinny, nerdy guy was yelling at me that I needed to snap out of this biking thing,” he remembers, “to wake up and smell the coffee.” Berrecloth was fired on the spot. That fall, he showed up in Virgin, Utah, for the Red Bull Rampage—freeriding’s premier huckfest—unregistered, unsponsored, and virtually unknown. He took third. Since then, “Bear Claw” has almost single-handedly radicalized freeride mountain biking by bringing BMX stunts like spins, hand grabs, and no-hands seat grabs to an already extreme sport. With signature moves like the Superman Seat Grab Indian Air (translation: flying through the air, feet off the pedals, bike out in front, one hand on the bars), he won both the 2003 Joyride Slopestyle Expression Session, in Whistler, and the 2004 Monster Park Slopestyle Invitational, in Marquette, Michigan. While Berrecloth’s outta-nowhere podium finishes have raised eyebrows, his film segments have redefined what’s possible with two knobby tires and eight inches of travel. In the 2003 video New World Disorder IV: Ride the Lightning, he pulled a 360 off a 25-foot cliff in Kamloops, B.C. “People were blown away,” says filmmaker Derek Westerlund. “It was a big jump for most riders to even go off, and Darren rode up and did a 360 off it.” In Westerlund’s latest film, Disorderly Conduct, Berrecloth clears a 50-foot jump over a canyon in France. One man’s lunacy is just the logical next step for Berrecloth: “I’m always pushing myself to learn new things,” he says. “That’s what makes me tick.”

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