Nothing beats a mountain slope ablaze with fall color. I know there’s a scientific explanation for the phenomenon—chlorophyll production stops, carotenoids take over—but I believe the leaf transformation is Mother Nature’s greatest magic trick, when she turns a canvas of green into sparkling hues of red, orange, and yellow.

Living in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge mountains, I am a lifelong leaf watcher, and have found nine mountain towns that are smack dab in the middle of the magic. Each gives you easy access to scenery and adventures, but also offers good food, comfortable digs, and a chance to make the most out of the season—think brisk fall hikes, pumping bike rides, and Oktoberfests.

1. Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Named after a cliff overlooking a gorge where wind seems to blow upward, the small, tourist-centric town of Blowing Rock is sandwiched within the lush slopes of the Southern Appalachians, which are incredibly green in the summer but come alive with color in fall as the hardwoods show off in reds, oranges, and yellows. The small town has a walkable, quaint village vibe, but is surrounded by some of the most rugged peaks in the East.

Peak Season: Blowing Rock sits at around 4,000 feet, and fall color tends to peak in mid to late October here, although you’ll still find color in early November. Sugar Mountain Ski Resort hosts an the weekend of October 7 to 8, and the annual , which has a caterpillar race that prophesies the length of winter, runs October 21 and 22.

What to do in Blowing Rock

Cruise the Blue Ridge Parkway: Running for 469 miles between Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway is a bucket-list destination for a scenic drive or epic mountain pedal. I think one of the prettiest sections of the two-lane paved road is near Blowing Rock. Whether you’re pedaling or driving, plan to traverse the , a 1,234-foot- bridge that hovers along the edge of Grandfather Mountain, delivering epic long-range views. From Blowing Rock, make a 20-mile loop by heading south on the Blue Ridge Parkway for 10 miles, crossing the viaduct, and taking Highway 221 north back to town.

Hike Grandfather Mountain: The five-mile out-and-back journey on is a mix of hiking, rock scrambling, and ladder climbing as you make your way up and over three distinct 5,000-foot peaks along the mountain. It’s a vertical adventure and one of my favorite trails in the South. In just over two miles gaining 1,500 feet, you’ll get unmatched views of the surrounding 5,000- and 6,000-foot peaks of North Carolina’s High Country.

Stay: Treat yourself with a room and some hands-on relaxation at , a resort and spa operating out of a historic Greek Revival mansion on a 42-acre mountain top outside of Blowing Rock. (From $250 a night, with a three-night minimum during leaf season.)

Don’t Miss: The southern fair at , a casual restaurant and bottle shop on Blowing Rock’s Main Street that focuses on home-grown ingredients. Try the Cilantro Trout Nachos.

2. Salt Lake City, Utah

OK, Salt Lake is a city (population 200,478), but it’s a mountain city, with access to eight canyons dropping off the adjacent Wasatch Mountains and loaded with white-trunked aspens with leaves that turn bright yellow during fall. The leaf peeping begins right in the heart of town, where parks hold stands of old-growth trees, but you want to spend most of your time exploring the tree-lined gorges that descend from the mountains east of the valley.

Peak Season: Hit it from mid-September through mid-October to see the aspens pop. Snowbird Resort hosts an ongoing celebration, complete with lederhosen and beer steins, every weekend from August 12 to October 15. You can also try to catch a football game at the University of Utah’s Rice Eccles Stadium.

What to do Around Salt Lake City

Pedal Big Cottonwood Canyon: The 15-mile-long State Road 190 climbs through the heart of Big Cottonwood Canyon, ascending almost 4,000 feet from Salt Lake to Brighton Ski Resort. It’s a popular scenic drive in the fall when the aspens are popping, but also a badass road-cycling route with plenty of long-range views and rest stops at picnic areas. You’ll contend with some 13 percent climbs, but remember this is an out-and-back, so anything you climb, you get to bomb, including the dramatic “S Curve” switchback in the middle of the route. Keep an eye out for moose.

Run the Wasatch Crest Trail: This high-alpine singletrack has near-constant 360-degree views as it rolls between 7,000 and 10,000 feet from Big Cottonwood Canyon all the way to Park City. It’s one of the most popular mountain-bike trails in Utah, but tackling it as a trail run might give you more opportunity to soak in the big views. You can form a loop from the top of Millcreek Canyon via the Big Water Trail, Desolation Lake Trail, , and Red Pine Trail that will take you through a number of aspen groves before and after topping out on the Crest.

Stay: The evo Hotel, in the Granary District, a now thriving former industrial zone, doesn’t just have comfy rooms but a bouldering gym, yoga classes, and regular film nights. From $163 a night.

Don’t Miss: is also located in the Granary District, and specializes in lagers perfect for drinking on a crisp fall afternoon. They have a Bavarian-style Helles on tap all year long, but I say go all in on the seasonal schtick with their Bavarian Dunkel Lager, a malty, dark beer with notes of chocolate.

3. Stowe, Vermont

Stowe is best known for its winter activities—mainly alpine and nordic skiing—but this picturesque village at the base of Mount Mansfield absolutely sings with activity and color in the fall. Most of the forest surrounding the town of 5,000 consists of hardwoods, dominated by sugar maples that turn fire red, with beech and birch trees in shades of yellow and orange.

Peak Season: The hardwoods begin turning in the middle of September and typically peak in mid-October. The Trapp Family Lodge, of the famed musical von Trapp family from Austria, hosts an on September 16 this year, while the annual in which people build catapults and hurl pumpkins for distance, will be on October 1.

What to do in Stowe, Vermont

Hike the Mansfield Traverse: This has you climbing up Stowe Mountain Resort’s Haselton Trail to the top of Mansfield’s Nose before zipping along the ridgeline and descending the Long Trail into Smugglers’ Notch State Park. The climbing is arduous, but you earn 360-degree views of the Green Mountains in their fall splendor.

Mountain Bike Cady Hill Forest: For an easy pedal, stick to the 5.5-mile Stowe Recreation Path, a paved greenway that cruises along the West Branch of the Little River through the farm country north of town. For singletrack, veer off the Stowe Rec Path and head to , where 11 miles of purpose-built trails flow through a canvas of technicolor leaves. The nearly mile-long descent on Florence, with its banked turns, rollers, and tabletops, is the standout trail in the forest.

Stay: There’s no shortage of quality lodges and resorts in and around Stowe, but I like the vibe at , designed with adventure in mind. It offers bike storage, a yoga room, and direct access to the Little River and the Stowe Rec Path. (From $150.)

Don’t Miss: The apple cider. Fall means more than just pretty leaves in Vermont. It means ripe apples. , a working cider mill, has become a destination for those who want to see how cider is made while also sampling the goods. There’s a restaurant on site, too; get a grilled panini with local cheddar and cider jelly.

4. Taos, New Mexico

Don’t let the high-desert location fool you; there are plenty of hardwoods in these hills. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains are packed with stands of aspen trees turning yellow and orange in the fall, sticking out like splotches of paint against the backdrop of evergreens. Go lower in the valley, and the cottonwoods are turning yellow. I spent a weekend fly fishing streams around Taos one fall several years ago and was blown away by the color surrounding me. Meanwhile,�� restaurants, such as a local favorite called the Love Apple, make the most of autumn harvests, while the brims with apples, greens, gourds, and nuts.

Peak Season: Leaves begin to change in the middle of September, and color will peak in mid-October, lingering into November. Get your timing right and you can hit the annual in nearby Red River (October 6 to 8), which is complete with German food and music.

What to do in Taos, New Mexico

Raft the Rio Grande: There’s some serious whitewater nearby as the Rio Grande rages through the Taos Box Canyon, but there’s also serious foliage to be seen on the mellow stretches of the famous river. Sign up for a of the Orilla Verde section of the Rio Grande ($65 per adult) where the water meanders past stands of cottonwoods in full glory. Trips run into the middle of October.

Take a Scenic Drive: Highway 64, an 80-mile byway from Taos to Tierra Amarilla, features a number of pullouts overlooking the Brazos Cliffs, which are flanked by golden aspens. Also be sure to stop at Garcia Park, inside where a high-elevation meadow is ringed by aspens, and the higher peaks of Wheeler Peak Wilderness Area dominate the skyline.

Stay: has a handful of cabins and tipis on a 40-acre farm north of Taos (from $119 for tipis; from $129 for cabins). The goji berries for which it is named are harvested in the summer, but the farm also features pumpkin patches and apple orchards, not to mention barrel saunas set beneath the hardwoods.

Don’t Miss: Angel Fire Resort runs a on weekends in the fall ($20 per adult), carrying you to the top of the 10,677-foot peak of the same name, for views of the entire Moreno Valley and Wheeler Peak beyond. From the top, you can take your pick of hiking trails down.

5. New Paltz, New York

This vibrant college town (go SUNY Hawks!) sits on the edge of the Shawangunk Ridge within the Catskill Mountains, just 90 miles from New York City. The terrain is a mix of rocky crags, steep mountains, and Hudson River farmland, most of which is shrouded in tufts of hardwoods that turn it on each fall. Much of the land surrounding this town of 7,500 is protected as either a state park or preserve and open to the public.

Peak Season: The colors tend to peak between early and mid-October, as the red oaks, maples, and dogwoods shift into bright reds, oranges, and yellows. September and October are prime apple-picking season as well. Pick your own (and pumpkins too) at .

What to do in New Paltz, New York

Climb in the Gunks: The Shawangunk Ridge, aka the Gunks, is a collection of quartz conglomerate cliffs inside the ($20 entry fee) in the Catskills Mountains that offer some of the best trad climbing in the country, with hundreds of high-quality routes, mostly one to three pitches. September and October, thanks to the cooler weather, are stellar climbing season. The scenery ain’t bad either, as the hardwoods that dominate the valley below the Shawangunks are ablaze with color. Try the classic two-pitch High Exposure, an amazingly airy 5.6 with a roof crux that will have you questioning the grade.

Bike the carriage trails: Minnewaska State Park has an extensive system of double-track carriage trails that are perfect for your gravel bike. Knock out a of the system, and you’ll loop around Lake Minnewaska and top out on outcroppings with dramatic views of the area.

Stay: The rooms at aren’t cheap (from $995 a night), but the massive historic building sits on its own lake and the prices are all-inclusive, including three meals, afternoon tea and cookies, and access to 85 miles of trails on the property. You can even borrow fishing rods and bait to fish in the lake.

Don’t Miss: The hard cider. The Hudson Valley has a longstanding tradition of apple growing, and a number of cideries have popped up in recent years. grows the apples on its own farm, just east of New Paltz, for its dry and semi-sour ciders. Try the raw cider, which is unfiltered and wild-fermented.

6. Leavenworth, Washington��

Tucked into the Cascade Mountains, the Bavarian-styled village of Leavenworth is partially known as a ski town thanks to its access to Stevens Pass, 40 minutes away. But I’d argue that Leavenworth truly comes alive in the fall, amid the glow of the aspens and cottonwoods that surround the Wenatchee River as it winds through town, while the restaurants and breweries that line Front Street double down on German fare. Bonus? The mountains surrounding Leavenworth have stands of Larch trees, pines whose needles turn golden yellow during the fall.

Peak Season: Leaves start turning in the middle of September and typically peak in mid-October. The small town hosts one of the largest in the country, with events that span three weekends (September 29 to 30, October 6 to 7, and October 13 to 14).

What to do in Leavenworth, Washington

Boulder in Icicle Creek Canyon: Bouldering on the river rocks along the edge of Icicle Creek will put you in the thick of some of the best foliage in the area. Boulders with established problems can be found throughout the canyon along the road. There is no shortage of options, but head to the for the biggest selection at all grades. Breadline, a V0 with gentle layback moves and a clean landing, is the best entry problem to the area.

Hike to Colchuck Lake: This aqua-blue alpine lake sits beneath two of the tallest peaks in Washington: Dragontail and Colchuck Peak. It’s a pretty scene any time of year, but downright magnificent in the fall when the thick forest of larches on the edge of the lake go golden. It’s a tough , but one of the most brilliant foliage hikes ever. Make sure you have cash for a parking pass at Colchuck Lake Trailhead ($5 a day, or purchase an annual which covers all day-use fees for $30).

Stay: Bed down at LOGE Riverside, which has eight recently renovated one-bedroom cabins along the Wenatchee River. In addition to views of the river, the cabins feature a communal outdoor area with hammocks, fire pits, and an open-air kitchen. (From $143 a night.)

Don’t Miss: A brat at . You’re in Bavaria, right? So you order a brat, put some sauerkraut and locally made mustards on it, sit in a beer garden next to a fire pit, and eat it.

��7. Crested Butte, Colorado

You know Crested Butte Resort offers insanely good skiing, and you may know that downtown Crested Butte has a fun, Wild West vibe thanks to the multi-colored facades of the wooden buildings that line Elk Avenue, many of which date back to the late 1800s. But you might not know that those mountains that turn white in winter will shimmer with golden aspens in the fall. September and October are shoulder season in this ski town, which means you won’t have to fight the crowds that line up for the powder come winter.

Peak Season: The aspens should peak in the middle of September and fizzle out by the first of October. Show up on September 9 for the and you can sample bowls of the good stuff from amateurs and professional chefs alike.��

What to do in Crested Butte, Colorado

Hike Kebler Pass: Colorado is known for its aspens, and even has a pretty famous town named after the tree. But the largest aspen grove in the state sits at Kebler Pass in It’s more than 100 acres, holding an estimated 47,000 trees. Hike the easy from Lost Lake Campground near the summit of the pass, for a three-mile jaunt through the yellow trees.

Bike Strand Hill: Kebler Pass has no monopoly on aspens in the Crested Butte area.

is an intermediate-friendly mountain-bike trail that cruises through broad meadows with epic views of Teocali and Whetstone Mountains before delivering you into thick groves of aspens. The singletrack is more flowy than technical, such that the trail stands out amid Crested Butte’s notoriously gnarly mountain biking.

Stay: , in a renovated historic saloon, isn’t huge; there are only six bedrooms, but it’s the common spaces that make this lodge sing. The place is outfitted with an indoor saltwater pool, rooftop hot tub, steam room, and gear lockers, and it even boasts an oxygen-enriched air system to help you combat altitude fatigue. (From $1,080 a night, two-night minimum.)

Don’t Miss: The rum at . Head to the tasting room in downtown Crested Butte for samples of their American-made rum and other cocktails. Order the Hot Flash, a pineapple-and-habanero-infused rum with house-made apple cider.

8. Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Eureka Springs is just plain pretty. The whole town, which is built into the side of a mountain, is on the National Register of Historic Places for its lovingly restored Victorian-era architecture. In the fall, those ornate buildings are completely enveloped by technicolor hardwoods. Need more enticing? The town has 13 cold natural springs, which people have been visiting for their healing properties since the late 1800s. Meanwhile, the mellow Ozark Mountains roll away from main street in every direction.

Peak Season: Mild temps and lower elevation means a later bloom, so expect the leaves to peak late in October.

What to do in Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Bike Lake Leatherwood: This city park protects 1,610 acres of surprisingly steep slopes on the edge of Lake Leatherwood, which is why pro trail builders targeted the park for the , a series of downhill-mountain-bike trails. The spot has now become the state’s most coveted downhill park. There’s something for all skill levels, but DH2, a black diamond, is the standout, beginning with lots of flow before finishing with a quarter-mile of steep, rocky bliss.

Paddle the Kings River: Kings is a free-flowing river running north through the Ozarks into Missouri, passing a series of dramatic rock bluffs and dense forest on its 90-mile journey. Canoe the mellow eight-mile Rockhouse to Trigger Gap, which passes through a preserve owned by the Arkansas Nature Conservancy, and is full of rocky beaches and flanked by foliage. Rent canoes and arrange for a shuttle with ($80 a day).

Stay: Complete your tour-de-trees by sleeping in them. The are six elevated cabins in a canopy of colorful leaves in a 52-acre forest. Each treehouse comes with a fireplace and hot tub. (From $249 a night.)

Don’t Miss: The seasonal menu at . It’s a set, multi-course affair that changes monthly or weekly depending on the chef’s mood and what’s available. Last October had fall-inspired twists like lamb-and-pumpkin pot pie and pear-and-cider sorbet.

9. Stanley, Idaho

There’s “small,” and then there’s Stanley, with a year-round population of fewer than 75. Summer is high season in this outpost tucked into the Sawtooth Valley, at the base of the rugged Sawtooth Mountains, so fall takes on a relatively sleepy vibe. That’s just fine by us, because you’re here for the foliage, not the crowds. Yellow and gold cottonwoods line the rivers, and aspens decorate the mountain slopes. As for recreation, you’ve got fishing and hiking galore, not to mention a bevy of natural hot springs for soaking.

Peak Season: Show up in late September or early October for your best chance at peak color. Also note that a lot of businesses shut down by the end of October.

What to do in Stanley, Idaho

Bike the Sawtooths: The 116-mile Sawtooth Scenic Highway (highway 75) makes for a foliage-filled jaunt. You can take it easy in a car or earn your views by pedaling a portion of this highway. The Galena Summit Overlook (8,701 feet) at the top of Galena Pass makes for a good turnaround point, as it offers a broad view of the entire Sawtooth Valley, highlighted by the headwaters of the Salmon River and the rocky peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains. It’s a big, 60-mile out and back, but you’ll get your fill of foliage and scenic views.

Hike the Redfish Lake Area: The 1,500-acre Redfish Lake, south of Stanley, is a hub of recreation in the Sawtooth Valley, hosting a number of trailheads with paths leading into the higher elevations of the Sawtooth Mountains. The lake is also a hot spot for fall foliage, as the banks surrounding the water are filled with aspens glinting in the sun. Hike the 4.4-mile out and back (Trail 186), from the Redfish Trailhead, for an easy stroll through a tunnel of these sparkling trees.

Stay: has inexpensive rooms in the heart of town. Those rooms also have incredible views of the Sawtooths, and access to the resort’s private hot springs. (From $119.)

Don’t Miss: The hot springs. There are 130 different hot springs in Idaho, several of which surround the small town of Stanley. You have many options, but , with its waterfall and separate natural pools, might be the most scenic.

Graham Averill is ���ϳԹ��� magazine’s national-parks columnist. He loves all seasons, but after this incredibly hot summer, is really looking forward to fall. He’s ready to ride bikes through falling leaves and drink malty lagers next to a campfire.

For more by this author, see:

The Creepiest Unsolved Mysteries in U.S. National Parks

The 10 Most Beautiful Hikes in U.S. National Forests

The post The 9 Best Mountain Towns to See Fall Foliage appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Summer is on. And this is the summer to beat all summers, as millions of American travelers attested over Memorial Day weekend, taking to the roads and skies to kick off the season in record numbers. ���ϳԹ��� staffers have plenty of their own exciting getaways planned, including hiking from mountain town to mountain town in Colorado, pedaling and cork-popping in Provence, road-tripping to visit wolves and see iconic high-desert scenery in the American Southwest, and more. You, too, can go��big.

Reveling in Rocky Mountain Highs and Pies

I take full advantage of my birthday each year by forcing my friends—a group not quite as adventurous as��me—to come along for activities they’d usually roll their eyes at. This year we’re hiking in Colorado from Aspen to Crested Butte, an 11-mile day trip over 12,500-foot , with some 3,000 feet of elevation gain. (My friends must truly love me.) We’ve tapped one friend,��who I couldn’t convince to trek with us, to drop the rest of us off and pick us up,��though that service is also offered locally��by Dolly’s Mountain Shuttle and Alpine Express. While I’m most looking forward to gorgeous lakes, vibrant wildflowers, and expansive views of the Elk Range, my pals are excited to spend a night in the towns on each end. We’ll be fueling up on caffeine and pastries at Local Coffee House in Aspen on the front end and celebrating our accomplishment with pizza and beer at Secret Stash,��my favorite spot in Crested Butte. The decor feels like an Indian restaurant and a Red Robin collided, with a distinctly ski-town vibe, and the weird and wonderful pizzas are to die for. —Mikaela Ruland, associate content director at National Park Trips

Recreating on the Jersey Shore

I’ll always be a defender of the Jersey Shore, particularly Stone Harbor, located on Seven Mile Island. This East Coast beach town is home to tons of wildlife, soft sand, and the best seafood. It’s the perfect spot for large families to gather. I’m looking forward to my seaside runs and bike rides along the path that extends the entirety of the island. It’s also fun to kayak the marsh along the bay side or head just over Gull Island Thorofare Bridge to check out the Wetlands Institute. When you’re looking for a respite from the bustle, stroll down Second Avenue��to the Stone Harbor Bird Sanctuary. I’ve never considered myself much of a birder, yet I always love walking the sanctuary’s��trails. A mile north is Springer’s, which makes the best homemade ice cream in the world. On summer nights, the line for a cone can wrap around the block. Other can’t-miss establishments include Quahog’s Seafood Shack and Bar for dinner, and Coffee Talk for your morning caffeine fix (it’s the famed establishment where Taylor Swift once performed acoustic shows). —Ellen O’Brien, digital editor

Wheeling About Provence

At some point in planning this summer’s adventure, I recalled a favorite saying from Oscar Wilde: “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” How true. Every morning I open to peruse the latest highlights from the European cycling scene, and most evenings I consult The New York Times’ cooking section for an interesting recipe. Blend those reading habits, add a dash of Francophilia, and—voilà—I find myself heading to Provence. For cool temperatures, zero crowds, and the glorious light of autumn in the Luberon Valley, my wife and I will spend a week exploring back roads and high peaks by bike in the department of Vaucluse. Each morning we’ll stock up at a local patisserie before rolling out of the tiny medieval town of Venasque, whose untouched Gallo-Roman architecture and clifftop views earned it the designation of one of the 126 most beautiful villages in France. We’ll pedal until hunger or a vineyard beckon, with an ascent of Mont Ventoux (an iconic Tour de France climb) as the week’s big goal. Come evening we’ll meander alongwinding country roads in search of a quiet bistro, perhaps in another village, like Carpentras or��Roussillon, for a Provençal feast of bouillabaisse or black truffle omelet, paired with a bottle of the rosé for which this region is famous. For dessert we’ll hope for a slice of clafoutis, a traditional flan-like tart loaded with plump apricots or black cherries sourced from a nearby orchard. All of which merits another maxim, this one from��the��legendary 19th-century gourmand Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. “Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es,” he said, which translates to “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” Would it come as any surprise that Brillat-Savarin was French, born just a few hours up the Rhône River from Venasque? —Jonathan Dorn, senior vice president of strategy and studios

Rafting Down the Rogue

Every summer my family and I go on vacation where I grew up, on the southern coast of Oregon. Gold Beach, a town of some 2,000 people, is nestled between timber-covered mountains and the mighty Pacific, with the mouth of the Rogue River serving as its northern edge. As an outdoorsman, I’ve always loved going back, but I appreciate it more and more each time I return. There are three amazing ways to experience the Rogue. One is rafting the 32.4-mile Wild Rogue section of Class III–IV rapids, a trip that can be tackled in three or four days; it requires a hard-to-get permit or a guide setup, but you’ll never forget floating through this remote section of canyon. The second way to see it is with , a jet-boat operator whose charming staff grew up in the area and are super knowledgeable about the flora and fauna you’re likely to see, including river otters, black bears, bald eagles, and ospreys. If you have the time, take the company’s Wilderness Whitewater Tour, which stops at Cougar Lane Lodge, famous for its BBQ. The third option, if the bite is on, is to go Chinook salmon fishing in the mouth of the river, preferably with local legend and guide Helen Burns. If you’re staying in town and want to be close to the beach and amenities, book the Beach Pea Suite at the new —it has a glorious soaking tub. Good eats are plentiful in the area, and some of my favorite places are the Barnacle Bistro, Tu Tu Tun Lodge, and the award-winning Redfish Restaurant in Port Orford. For beer, you can’t go wrong with anything from Arch Rock Brewing Company, but the Pistol River Pale is outstanding. You also shouldn’t miss the short hike down Cape Sebastian: It starts from an overlook about 800 feet above the ocean, giving you views for miles in any direction; from there you’ll descend just shy of two miles through Sitka spruce, salmonberry bushes, and ferns to the beach, where waves break powerfully against sandstone cliffs, even during the summer. Check out the tide pools before the climb back out. And finally, if you have kids, don’t miss Prehistoric Gardens in Port Orford, where 23 life-size dinosaur replicas are hidden in the old-growth forest. The quiet and solitude of this moss-covered grove is spectacular. —Will Taylor, group gear director

Roaming Around Historic Annapolis

Annapolis, Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay, is where I come from and where I return every year. For one thing, they have flowers—bursting tulip magnolias in rows, and lilacs—in spring when scraps of snow still cover my hillside in Colorado, and now the hydrangeas, snapdragons, magnolias, and peonies should be out, with the locust blooms just finishing. In my friend Molly’s family, the locust blooms are a sign that soft crabs are running. The best time to go is summer, because there are so many things to do. We kids grew up swimming, sailing, windsurfing, and water-skiing. We went crabbing in dinghies with trotlines or by roaming around docks and pilings with crab nets in hand. The historic town (Annapolis was the nation’s capital from 1783 to 1784) is built around two brick-paved circles; the State House, where the Maryland legislature meets, and St. Anne’s Church are set in, respectively, State Circle and Church Circle, to symbolize separation of church and state. Near both is the harbor, where the oyster boats used to dock, and the Market House, housing many concessions, where my siblings and I worked. (I scooped ice cream, gaining a mean right arm.) You can buy crab cakes, oysters, soups, cheese, and fruit there, and walk across the street to a statue of Alex Haley, the author of Roots, reading a book to children; it commemorates the shameful fact that his forebear Kunte Kinte was sold here at the City Dock. You might also visit St. John’s College (established in 1696) and the adjacent Naval Academy. Don’t miss the clam chowder at Middleton’s Café (which dates back to 1750) or the fun scene at McGarvey’s, a tavern where my grown sons now go get beers. On a beautiful day, hike (it is intermittently closed, but you can still walk around the area), looking out at the Chesapeake and the four-mile Bay Bridge, or take the loop trail in Quiet Waters Park on the South River. —Alison Osius, senior editor

Off-Roading in Iceland

My husband and I are beyond stoked: we’re headed to Ireland and Iceland for a two-week adventure. He hasn’t been to Ireland, but I lived there as a kid, so I’ve got that country dialed. It’ll be a whirlwind coastal tour, with a climb up Croagh Patrick, near my old cottage on the west coast. Iceland, however, remains untapped for us both. We love a thermal-springs soak after hard hikes and trail runs, and prefer to dodge crowds and drive less, so this smallish outdoor mecca was a no-brainer addition. We’ll play it fast and loose, but here’s how I think our trip will go down: After we fly into Reykjavík, the capital, we’ll pick up our rented Dacia Duster 4X4 camper van with a rooftop tent ($900 for five days, it’s tricked out with sleeping and cooking essentials and a hot spot for GPS; for more information, visit ). We’ll hit the Bónus grocery store—it’s the cheapest option on the pricey island, according to a seasoned buddy—to stock up on supplies, and then we’ll head northeast on the Ring Road, a.k.a. Route 1, to the fjords, vales, and 4,000-foot summits of the Tröllaskagi Peninsula. Along the way, we’ll take offshoot F-roads (F for ����ä����, which means “mountain” in Icelandic), summer-only gravel tracks restricted to four-wheel-drive vehicles. By crisscrossing over central peaks, we’ll access remote terrain rich with waterfalls, lava fields, alpine valleys, and camping spots that most of Iceland’s seven million annual tourists don’t explore. We’ll circle back south to scrub away our dirt and sweat at the geothermal Blue Lagoon ($64 for day tickets) before��departing. All told, it’ll be an unscripted, abbreviated blast, and I consider this a reconnaissance mission for next time. —Patty Hodapp, interim digital director

Road-Tripping Through the Native Southwest

This summer I’m focusing on road trips, and luckily I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a good place to launch from. I’ve been so dismayed by recent delays and cancellations from plane travel that I don’t feel like spending any more time than I have to in airports. Which is fine, because I’ve had a Southwest bucket list that I’m excited to finally make a dent in. Near the top of my list is a guided tour of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in western New Mexico, near El Morro National Monument. The sanctuary takes in both wild and domesticated wolves and protects them for the rest of their lives. Rumor has it that author George R.R. Martin, also a Santa Fe resident, has supported the sanctuary, and some of the wolves are named after his Game of Thrones characters. From there I plan to head west to visit some important Native sites. I want to go to Canyon de Chelly, in northeastern Arizona, and take a Navajo-led horseback tour. Canyon de Chelly, often called a mini Grand Canyon, is part of the Navajo Nation. Evidence of human occupation there dates back 4,000 years. It’s also the tragic spot where Kit Carson forced out the Navajo in 1863. Then I’m going to head to Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, on the Utah border. Also a part of the Navajo Nation, this stunning landscape and its spectacular sandstone buttes show up on my Instagram feed��every so often, and I want to learn about the history on a Navajo-guided tour and experience the awe and grandeur. —Mary Turner, deputy editor and travel director

The post Our Picks for the Best ���ϳԹ��� Destinations This Summer appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Once upon a time, there was a magical town named Crested Butte. It was nestled in a valley in southwest Colorado among beautiful, towering peaks and shivering aspen groves. The mountains made the town difficult to get to—it lay, quite literally, at the end of a two-lane road. There were a couple of dirt roads in, too, but after the late-fall snowstorms, they became impassable. And so the mountains protected the town.

For a long time things were good. In the winter, there was powder to ski; in the summer, there were trails to ride. Most important, there were not so many visitors, at least compared to other mountain towns. Crested Butte was far from the constant roar and snaking brake lights of I-70, Denver’s thoroughfare to the mountains; and some might also say the family who owned the ski resort did a pretty crappy��job of marketing it. But the residents��liked it this way. Their town had not sold its soul for tourist dollars and high-speed lifts like Aspen or Vail. They still had their T-bars, their funky culture, their cruiser bikes parked unlocked on the streets.

But��things began to change. Crested Butte was discovered, in the same way that other magical towns were being discovered. More people began to visit, and those people told their friends and posted glowy photos on Instagram. More people bought second homes there, driving up the price of real estate. Then came the Airbnbs and the VRBOs, which allowed second-home owners to earn a lot more money renting to tourists than to the people who actually lived and worked there. The locals found it harder and harder to afford a place to rent or buy in town. They began to leave, moving 35 minutes downvalley��to Gunnison or disappearing from the area altogether. By 2017, some wondered if Airbnb was going to kill this, and other, magical towns.

Then came the pandemic. Maybe this part of the story you know. Unchained from their desks, the hordes of newly remote white-collar workers descended upon all the magical mountain towns, and in just one year, the median list price for a home in Crested Butte jumped 40 percent, to $895,000. Rents soared, too—20 to 40 percent in Colorado ski towns like Crested Butte, according to one . Meanwhile, both for-sale and rental inventory plummeted. Now it was nearly impossible for locals to find housing.

And one day in the summer of 2021, the town simply stopped working. Restaurants began to shut down for parts of the day or entire days of the week. “Help Wanted” signs appeared up and down the main street of Elk Avenue. It didn’t matter that the sidewalks teemed with tourists freed from COVID lockdowns and ready to spend. Lines grew. People waited an hour and a half, two hours for food. What’s happening? visitors grumped.

The newspapers reported on the problem: it was so hard to find affordable housing in town that there weren’t enough people left to work in town. It wasn’t just Crested Butte, either. The headlines popped up all summer long:

In July, NPR shone its spotlight on Crested Butte: ��Indeed, by that point the valley’s tourism association was running ads in the local paper informing visitors about the housing shortage and asking them to be patient with slower than usual service. The window of the iconic Wooden Nickel steakhouse displayed an “Employee Crisis Limited Menu” notice. The sign went on to explain that, on top of having “barely enough employees to run the restaurant,” some cooks had just quit. “We’re sorry we’re unable to provide the menu you expected,” it told would-be diners. “Thank you for joining us on this challenging evening.” Across the street, at the Brick Oven Pizzeria, someone had affixed a sticker on the wall of the men’s bathroom that read, simply, “SAVE CB.”

The magical town, it seemed, was in serious trouble.

The post How to Save a Ski Town appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

It’s no surprise that mountain towns across the West have a problem. The pandemic-fueled real estate boom has priced out locals from Bozeman, Montana, to Bend, Oregon. In the Colorado towns of Ouray and Telluride, housing shortages have led to worker shortages, forcing businesses to operate at reduced capacity. And in Crested Butte, Colorado, the 2021 school year began��without school buses, because the district can’t find anyone in the area to hire to drive them.

But for some mountain-town residents, this problem is nothing new.

Karla Garcia Gonzales moved from Peru to Telluride in 2004, where she began working as a cultural outreach coordinator and organizing for immigrants’ rights. For more than a decade she tried to bridge the Latino community with the wealth and opportunity that exist in Telluride. But she could never reconcile the fact that she could casually talk to a billionaire at the coffee shop and then walk down the block to help a single mother with multiple jobs figure out how to make rent.

San Miguel County, where Telluride is located, ranked eighth in the nation in highest income inequality, according to a . And it isn’t exactly the most racially equitable either. The Latino population there makes up a significant percentage of the local workforce but until recently not have access to federally funded affordable housing because many of them are undocumented, leaving few options in an already limited workforce-housing market. Many are forced to commute long distances or share housing. Meanwhile, Black residents make up less than 1 percent of the population.

Eventually, for Gonzalez, the wealth inequality was “too much in her face.” She worked tirelessly for her community but couldn’t afford to buy a home. In 2011, she moved to Denver, away from the friends and landscape she loved.

“The joys of skiing and small-mountain-town living have disproportionately been conferred to wealthy white people,” says Willa Williford, an affordable-housing consultant for mountain communities across Colorado.

Many of these mountain towns began to address racial and social inequities more seriously in response to the Black Lives Matter groundswell in 2020. Now they are struggling to house even the longtime locals (who are largely white and middle class). Yet what feels like two separate losing battles actually creates one collective opportunity. If these places can find a way to stop catering to the ultrarich and instead create more accessible, just, and equitable atmospheres for BIPOC residents and visitors, they may have a chance to save what is left of their middle-class souls.

In Williford’s opinion, the first thing to address is affordable housing. In Telluride, where the median household income is $66,000 and the average residential property sells for $2.1 million (not to mention the many houses listed in the area at $36 million), the pain of inequality is felt by nearly all of the full-time residents making local wages.

Williford says that many mountain communities where she works are keenly aware of the ways that state and federal resources don’t adequately address housing needs; as a result, local leaders are innovating solutions that could be applied elsewhere. In Steamboat Springs, is working on housing-advocacy programs for its��Latino community. In Leadville, are negotiating with a mining company to donate land for a project aimed at increasing the rental pool. In Crested Butte, is exploring ideas to provide housing specifically to attract BIPOC folks. And in Bozeman, creators of an innovative, are hoping to further prove that smart, equitable growth is possible.

“I think we need to do a white paper on the cost to these places of keeping people out,” says Christine Walker, former director of the Jackson/Teton County Housing Authority, in Wyoming, and now a workforce-housing consultant. She notes that to be inclusive, you must increase density, a concept that most mountain communities fiercely resist to such an extent that residents have often relocated in an effort to escape crowds. In the end, though, this exclusivity hurts all members of the community.

Low-density zoning policies in many mountain-resort towns favor large, expensive single-family homes that are often used as second homes and vacation rentals. (Generally one- to two-thirds of housing stock in ski-resort communities aren’t occupied year-round, according to a conducted by the Colorado Association of Ski Towns and the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments.) The simple equation of finite land and increased demand for housing means that a local wage is not enough to buy a home, and workers are forced downvalley. Small-town perks like biking to work or living next to friends are lost. Business owners struggle to find employees. Water and energy are used inefficiently, traffic increases, carbon dioxide emissions rise, and wildlife collisions increase.

When a community has to import its workforce, it leaves residents, commuters, and visitors exposed. For example, when a massive storm is expected to roll through the Tetons, emergency responders employed in Jackson—many of whom live outside Teton County—have to decide whether they will go home for the night and risk sketchy or closed roads in the morning, or stay somewhere in town (local hotels offer discounted rates for these occasions). One such storm could prohibit 20 percent of teachers from getting to school, 18 of 21��Teton County patrol officers from reporting for duty, and almost half of its hospital employees and critical workers, like snowplow drivers and mechanics, from getting to their jobs.

In San Francisco, a city notorious for its absurd housing prices and the resulting gentrification, a 2018 report showed that an average teacher could afford just 0.7 percent of the available housing, and first responders could afford 2.4 percent of the currently listed housing. To help solve their housing crises, voters a ballot measure that increased taxes on property sales worth over $10 million. This revenue will help fund rent relief and affordable housing for low- and middle-income residents. Seattle passed in July, imposing an additional tax on high-income earners that will then go toward community development, local business assistance, and workforce housing. Vancouver, British Columbia, Oakland, California, and Washington, D.C., have implemented taxes on homes that remain vacant a majority of the year. Mountain towns need to follow suit.

Fortunately, some are. A Teton County legislator is proposing a second-home fee, and Breckenridge, Colorado, is buying houses in town and converting them to deed-restricted dwellings to increase the number of diverse inhabitants year-round. Other places, including Summit County, Colorado, Truckee, California, and Steamboat Springs and Crested Butte, have all elected to tax themselves and/or visitors to create dedicated local funding sources for housing.

An increasing amount of demonstrate that individuals who interact with different socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds, whether at school, work, or in neighborhoods, fare better in mental health, personal finances, academics, and employment rates. There’s evidence that corporations with better gender and racial representation have higher profits and are more , that children who attend more integrated schools develop more , and that diversity fosters more and consensus building.

Inclusivity is also good for business. Even Rob Katz, the CEO of Vail Resorts, admits��that the ski industry has waited far too long to invest in communities of color. Katz wrote an to his employees, acknowledging that the lack of diversity in the ski industry is “not only a moral and societal issue, but a business issue.” The U.S. Census Bureau projects that more than half of the country will be non-white by 2044, and according to a report by the National Ski Areas Association, visits by people of color have remained fairly stagnant in the past decade and are not tracking with the growth of minority populations in the U.S. Katz recognizes that the ski industry must broaden its base to more skiers of color if it wants to survive. Similarly, the mountain-biking, climbing, hunting, and fishing industries, all of which feed mountain towns’ tourism economies, have remained mostly white while the face of America becomes increasingly diverse.

Geographically isolated mountain communities once thought exclusionary practices could insulate them from modern and urban hardships—this is clearly no longer the case. Safety nets that previously held communities together are being stretched thin and tearing as wealth pours in and inequitable practices endure. Gonzales stresses that we cannot use old solutions for new problems, and that these communities have the power to level the playing field. She believes that bringing people to the table “not because they think like you or look like you, but because they are different” is key to the survival of mountain towns. “We are in this mess together,” she says. “Let’s work together, so we can learn and build together.”

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Hotel buyouts for groups of vacationers has become��a growing, pandemic-fueled trend, and it’s obvious why: you get all the amenities of a hotel��but��don’t have to interact with other guests. While renting out an entire lodge for you and your traveling companions doesn’t come cheap, we��found some adventure-oriented destination properties that range in price, so you can match such a��getaway with your budget.

Cache House

Jackson, Wyoming

When it opened below the in January 2020, the�� was designed as a communal, pod-style hotel for budget-conscious skiers and adventurers visiting Jackson Hole and the Tetons. But COVID-19��makes sleeping in a group��and using a shared bathroom a little tricky. Cache House allows�� of its��24-bunk rooms��for $99 per person, which includes dinner and a lift ticket to .��

Otter Bar Lodge

Forks of Salmon, California

has been a world-class whitewater kayaking school since 1981. It’s located in a stunningly beautiful, extremely remote stretch of shoreline along Northern California’s Salmon River, about��three hours south��of��the Oregon border. Due to COVID-19, owners Peter and Kristy Sturges have shuttered the kayaking school and turned their property into a buyout-only, vacation-rental lodge (from $2,500 per night, with a four-night minimum). You’ll have seven bedrooms, a sauna and a hot tub, and swimming holes and road biking out your door.

TreeHouse Point

Fall City, Washington

These aren’t your average backyard treehouses. Designed and constructed by master treehouse builder Pete Nelson,�� is a family-owned retreat in the Snoqualmie Valley, 30 minutes east of Seattle. You can stay in��seven of these exquisite structures��(from $300 each) or rent them all for a small gathering. (Take note: kids under 13 aren’t allowed to stay overnight in the treehouses.) There’s an on-site yoga studio and miles of hiking trails nearby.

Camp Wandawega

Elkhorn, Wisconsin

Take over the summer-camp-style�� for the option to stay in a variety of properties, from cabins and��A-frames to vintage trailers, tepees, and tents. The whole place can sleep up to 50 people. If your group is smaller, you can book out single��units via Airbnb, like the�� (from $1,200) or a�� (from $650) and still have plenty of room to roam. Camp counselors are on hand to suggest outings, which include��guided trout fishing,��cycling, archery, and canoeing.

AutoCamp Cape Cod

Falmouth, Massachusetts

, which has two locations in California, is opening a�� this spring. Its��upscale Airstreams��look more like a hotel room than a camper, and its tiny-home cabins and deluxe canvas tents are great for families.��You can rent the whole place for events of��up to 250 guests (full buyouts from $15,000), or just book a couple of neighboring Airstreams (from $229 each) for your group. Spend your days deep-sea fishing or sea-kayaking off the cape or hiking through a 135-acre reserve at , 30 minutes away. Cruiser bikes are available for loan.

Scarp Ridge Lodge

Crested Butte, Colorado

Housed in a historic building in downtown Crested Butte,�� is available for full-group buyouts year-round (from $4,200). The 13,500-square-foot lodge has five bedrooms, plus a bunk room for kids, as well as plenty of space for��hanging out, such as��a great room and bar, an indoor saltwater pool, and a rooftop hot tub. In the winter, guided cat skiing is included. Year-round, your stay comes with chef-prepared meals and customized adventure planning.��

Urban Cowboy Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

The best part about a buyout of the eight-bedroom, 19th-century Victorian��mansion known as ?��It includes a private bartender and meals from Roberta’s, an iconic Brooklyn restaurant set up at��the property’s�� through 2021 (from $6,000 a night). There are seven suites inside the main lodge, as well as a freestanding cabin out back. By day, bike��, paddleboard the Cumberland River, or explore 30 miles of underground pathways at��.��

Washington School House

Park City, Utah

With 12 well-appointed rooms and suites, the��—set in a building first built as a school back in 1889—feels more like an expansive home than a hotel. The luxury property��can sleep up to 34 people, has a heated outdoor pool, and offers a 24-hour concierge that can plan outings like skiing at nearby or��, snowshoeing, dogsledding, and��fly-fishing. Breakfast and a daily après-ski spread are��included (full buyouts from $7,000).

Ruby 360 Lodge

Lamoille, Nevada

Yes, there’s a jagged mountain range in the middle of Nevada—the Rubies. And although there are no ski resorts, there is a lone heli-ski outfitter, called . In 2017, the heli operation’s owners built a ten-room lodge,��, that overlooks the Great Basin Valley and can be rented out year-round (from $2,500 per night for ten��rooms). Amenities include chef-prepared meals, a hot tub with a stellar view, and a helicopter landing pad out the front��door.��

SurfHouse

Encinitas, California

With just eight rooms, the��, a boutique hotel minutes from the beach in sunny Encinitas, north of San Diego, is the perfect size for a buyout (rooms range from $130 to $250, a��full buyout from $1,200). It has four rooms on the top floor and four rooms on the ground��floor, so smaller groups could also just book out one��floor. Each room has an outdoor shower, and a stay comes with��free loaner surfboards and cruiser bikes.

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I was born and raised in Vermont, in the glory of maples. Driving to Colorado in 2004 for my freshman year of college, not only was I feeling the general ache of leaving home, but I was also dealing with the specific sorrow—worse than saying goodbye to Ma and Pa—of missing the hardwoods and their phantasmagorical foliage. What have the Rockies got to offer? Blue spruce? Dark, brooding firs? Little did I know.

My first weekend in the West, a classmate and I cruised into the high country without an agenda, ending up on Kebler Pass, a dirt road that links the small mountain town of Crested Butte with the even smaller mountain town of Paonia and, en route, weaves through some of our planet’s largest, oldest organisms. Populus tremuloides, the quaking aspen, grows in clonal colonies, which means each stem in a grove is genetically identical, connected by an immense underground root system called a rhizome. A few hundred miles away, in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest, the (a.k.a. Pando, Latin for “I spread”)��is estimated to weigh 13 million pounds and cover 100-plus acres. Nobody’s sure of the exact stats on the mosaic of Kebler groves in the Gunnison National Forest, but researchers suspect they could be bigger. From what my friend and I observed that stunning September weekend—a wash of gold extending over entire mountainsides, an infinity of leaves, untold groves blending and blurring to yonder horizon—I’m pretty well sold.

That astounding arboreal vision inspired a dream, a fantasy, a crazy idea that I’ve been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to shake. What happens when you hike for hours, eschewing map and GPS, intentionally losing yourself in the labyrinth of an über-tree, a megabody? What happens when you pull a hammock out of your pack, rig it 30 feet off the deck between two pale, chalky branches, and ease into the lazy daze of an autumn afternoon? What happens when, having dozed off, you wake at dusk to coyotes howling and woodpeckers drumming and deer browsing the ferny understory? Do you realize, in an instantaneous epiphany, that these animals, like you, are akin to the mites and other microcritters that reside on a human’s eyelashes—that you are all so tiny, so very tiny? Does your mind explode from the joy of this realization, from the bliss of being grasped by such hugeness?

These are not rhetorical questions. At least they don’t have to be.

Hammock, sleeping bag, foam Thermarest pad—check. Harness, carabiners, extra slings, Prusik loops, ATC for rappelling—check. Coil of disconcertingly abraded rope donated by a buddy who actually understands knots and anchors—check. Dubious skillset but enough grit and gumption to (hopefully) get the job done—check-a-frigging-roo! Quasi-prepared, I stepped from the dusty Kebler Pass road��on a recent September morning and, at long last, entered the sun-shot intricacies, the shade-dappled mysteries, in search of the perfect hanging campsite.

About that search. I learned technical tree climbing in Arizona’s ponderosa pines while employed by the Forest Service on a demographic study of northern goshawks. (Nab the nestlings, lower them in a sack to the ground crew, wait for measurements to be taken and blood to be drawn, haul the nestlings back up.)��Typically, my boss used a hunting bow to fire fishing line over a beefy limb, lifted a strand of parachute cord with the fishing line, lifted a static rope with the parachute cord, then gave me the nod. Mechanical Petzl ascenders were important, and a scuffed red helmet was reassuring, but ultimately the beefy limb made everything possible. Limbs of this type abound on pondos. Not so much on aspens.

Bushwhacking south from Kebler, I was rewarded with��sightings of a dozen squirrels, a great horned owl snoozing on her midday roost, a sweet mossy boulder facing a sweet mossy creek, and precisely zero beefy limbs within my limited reach. Alas, I don’t own a crossbow, slingshot, or potato cannon and was thus dependent on a skinny biceps and an iffy sidearm to launch my gear into the canopy. Furthermore,��I refused to settle for just any über-tree, just any two-bit, run-of-the-mill megabody.

According to a Forest Service ��on aspen ecology,��“The members of a clone can be distinguished from those of a neighboring clone often by a variety of traits such as leaf shape and size, bark character, branching habit, resistance to disease and air pollution, sex, time of flushing, and autumn leaf color.” This final trait was my guide—color. I didn’t pretend that the trip was a legit expedition tasked with discovering and accurately delineating a Kebler version of the Trembling Giant, but I did know from experience that certain groves remain green well into late fall, whereas others pop their gold early. A casual visual survey, I figured, ought to steer me directly into the heart of a particularly woolly botanical beast. And that’s what I desired.

I eventually found my quarry—found myself stumbling around inside it, giggling and gleefully swearing, neck craned—a few hours before sunset. White columns scratched black with bear-claw calligraphy. Stout pillars supporting a gilded ceiling reminiscent of ornate church domes in Venice and Rome. A thousand stems, 10 thousand stems, 10��bazillion stems! I would have liked to make a rough tally, pace a perimeter, jot notes, but the slanting light and chill in the air insisted otherwise. Nerdy citizen science could be postponed until tomorrow. I had to empty my pack, sort my tangled equipment, review the art of the Prusik hitch, and commence the shitshow.

Er, the safe and methodical climb. Yes, that’s right. Safe and methodical.

Jack Turner, in his book , writes,��“I’ve always wanted to hang a hammock high in an aspen grove and live among the leaves.” This coming from a member of the elite Exum Mountain Guides, a grizzled alpinist who has spent decades in the Greater Ranges—the astonishingly epic landscapes that you’d assume would render relatively dinky Western deciduous forests boring. But no, the murmuring, vibrating, mesmerizing aspens compel our attention in a way that icy slopes and soaring granite buttresses cannot. For the aspens are alive—they��are, in the case of Kebler Pass, a vast encompassing life. Those ethereal zones above treeline, albeit thrilling and savagely beautiful, present us with the heavens, not the homey earth. (Recall that our primate ancestors sought refuge from marauding predators in the forest canopy, and that allure is likely coded into us at the cellular level.)

I thought about this once the awkward, arduous battle (twigs in the hair, fumbled Nalgene, wild flailing galore) was complete and, whew, I was suspended in my nylon aerie. Far from comfortably suspended, due to the harness I planned to wear all night and the severe wedgie it caused, but suspended nonetheless. A couple stories above the ground. Sweat drying. Spiders keeping me company, traversing invisible filaments, playfully mocking me with their graceful mobility.

And I thought, too, of about giant sequoias that I read in the New York Times Magazine back in 2017, not long after Trump became president. The author, Jon Mooallem, made the point that it was a good moment for humility and perspective-taking in America, and for that reason he was embarking on a pilgrimage to encounter lives older and grander than his own. While I applaud Mooallem’s initiative, a part of me—the part that swayed, that gazed, that reveled in the exuberant smother of hues and textures and tones, the riot of receding chlorophyll, the dendritic complexity—feels the need to amend his notion, to push it further. The Kebler aspens dwarfed me, indeed, but better yet they left me with a sense of embeddedness and immersion, a sense of how habitat holds us. My tentative hypothesis is that the average outdoorsy person’s love of nature has less to do with scenery and sporty fun and whatnot than it does with being embraced by the world. Locating a niche, a place within the broader place. Appreciating the wilderness that surrounds and sustains.

Peanut butter sandwich for dinner—check. Airplane bottle of Scotch for dessert—check. Baby in a crib, cozy and drowsy, his fancy ecosophical thoughts hushed by the lullabye of a leaf-rustling breeze—check-a-frigging-roo! My heavy eyelids closed and opened, closed and opened. Drifting at the edge of consciousness, I delighted, despite the persistent wedgie, in the image of stars through foliage, a glittering universe beyond cracks in the ever-shifting crown.

And then, seemingly a mere 15 minutes having passed, the dawn chorus roused me, warblers and nuthatches flitting around my head, perching beside my toes. My spine was kinked. Frost had silvered half my sleeping bag. I pounded a cold instant coffee, dismantled camp, and rappelled.

Not out of something, but deeper into something. Call it Populus tremuloides, the über-tree, the megabeing. Call it whatever you please.

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High Country, directed by and produced by , tells a timeless American tale of how a community of conscientious and forward-thinking young people, disguised as ski bums and hippies, happened upon Crested Butte, Colorado, a town once on the fringe of society, and worked to conserve��and protect it for years to come. The story of its heritage and evolution, from , reveals a place that has always been defined by its people. Watch the full film .

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In March, as spring-break travel and the coronavirus outbreak��were simultaneously ramping up across the United States, thousands of visitors flocked to mountain towns��across the West. As a result, rural areas like Sun Valley, Idaho;��Park City, Utah;��and Crested Butte, Colorado, soon became early COVID-19 hot spots. By the end of that��month, 17,000-person Gunnison County, home to Crested Butte Mountain Resort, had the highest coronavirus infection rate per capita in the state��and the .

But unlike many early rural hot spots that shakily weighed difficult decisions between a few positive coronavirus cases and spring-break income, residents in��Gunnison Valley—a string of small communities nestled between the Elk, West Elk, and Sawatch Ranges in west-central Colorado—knew exactly what to do. Despite a lack of guidance from state and federal governments, a sparsity of data, and insufficient testing, county officials swiftly imposed some of the strictest public-health measures in the nation, banning short-term rentals, closing nonessential businesses, prohibiting visitors by law,��and cutting off public-land access to nonresidents. Anyone caught breaking the rules was subject to up to . Many locals attribute the fast action to the community’s collective memory of another deadly pandemic.

In the fall of 1918, the Spanish flu was ��faster than wildfire. The virus killed up to 10 percent of the population in many cities in the state��and eventually took the lives of nearly ��worldwide.

But Gunnison Valley managed to almost completely elude the deadliest pandemic in recent history by mandating what the ��at the time��a “quarantine against all the world.”

Before the valley had even a single case of the Spanish flu, the board of health closed all schools and churches and barred gatherings of more than four people. Barricades and fences went up on the main highways. Lanterns and signs warned motorists to drive straight through, and train passengers who stepped foot onto the platform were forced to quarantine for up to five days or risk jail time.��

When Colorado leadership succumbed to political pressures to reopen businesses less than two months after the initial lockdown, causing a major spike in illnesses and deaths, Gunnison remained quarantined for four months. As a result, it��saw , while nearly 8,000 died elsewhere across the state.��

Fast-forward 101 springs. On March 12, the county confirmed three positive coronavirus cases. Within the week, hundreds of valley residents reported��that they had symptoms. Large signs along Highway 135 read ��and “No Tourist Gunnison COVID-19.” Notices posted on the doors of the Gunnison airport read:��“Visitors to Gunnison County are directed to return home immediately.”

By the time Colorado governor Jared Polis issued a statewide stay-at-home order two weeks later, on March 25, his regulations almost matched Gunnison’s restrictions. Joni Reynolds, Gunnison County’s health and human services director, says state and other��county��officials have been reaching out to them for guidance.

“Gunnison’s response to the Spanish flu has been infamous throughout my career in public health,” says Reynolds. “It helped remind me of the rugged community, the communal spirit, and the expectations that we will pull together to navigate this event.”

On April 3, as wealthy urbanites across the country , Gunnison took the even bolder step of barring the��county’s second homeowners from traveling to their properties. Non-full-time residents were required to return to primary residences elsewhere.��

“There are approximately 4,000 second-home units in the valley,” , “and if each became occupied with two people, it would add 50 percent to the county’s current population.”(County officials have made some exceptions for non-primary residents who were already present before the pandemic began.)��

“Every hunk of bread means something to us,” says��CJ Malcolm, chief of emergency services at Gunnison Valley Hospital. The county has a seasonal economy, and many local businesses make most of their money for the year during a few key months, March being one of them.��

Despite the tough restrictions, Malcolm��says��that “there’s been very little grumbling” and that “the support, even from small businesses, is unbelievable.” He moved to the valley almost five years ago and is still struck by the community’s connective tissue.

Local businesses have been offering free lunches to EMS��providers, first responders, and the emergency-operation center. A rum distillery adapted its��operation��to make sanitizing products. Almost 600 people have volunteered to take phone calls, monitor patients, and deliver food and medicine. Residents��and frequent visitors alike are supporting businesses online by buying gift certificates and donating to the “CB Tip Jar,”��which has raised almost $50,000 for restaurant service workers.��

Walking through the streets of Crested Butte and Gunnison, people stand awkwardly far from each other while chatting near the post office. Parents on bikes tow their kids on sleds through slushy snow. In the middle of Elk Avenue, Crested Butte’s main street, which would normally be crowded with cars and people, a woman throws a Frisbee to her dog. A couple of blocks down, two men play hockey from opposite sides of the street. The marquee at the closed movie theater reads��“You Are Essential.”

While Gunnison Valley has remained fairly tame, tensions between locals and part-timers are being exacerbated. Some full-time residents with out-of-town license plates have been verbally harassed by people who think they’re visitors. Others have reported their neighbors to the police if they suspect they’re breaking public-health orders. So far��the cops have given warnings��but no citations.

While some second homeowners are empathetic to the plight of their small mountain getaway, others find it an overreach and a breach of property rights. One anonymous second homeowner��told the editor of the Crested Butte News that he “will sue and never come back.”��

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, recently ��to the Gunnison Department of Health and Human Services, stating, “The banishment of nonresident Texas homeowners is entirely unconstitutional and unacceptable….��We would appreciate confirmation that you will modify your order to protect the rights of non-resident homeowners.”��

Mathew Hoyt, Gunnison’s deputy county attorney,����that the county’s orders are authorized by Colorado and federal law. In a , Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser backed Gunnison’s decision: “Don’t mess with Colorado…. The��Gunnison County public health order is constitutional and calls for collaborative problem solving.”��

Gunnison County’s��Reynolds��believes the public-health orders are working and that the community has done a good job managing and limiting the spread of the coronavirus—numbers of COVID-19 patients being admitted to the hospital are leveling off, and the number of people reporting��symptoms has sharply declined. As of April 27, there were 105 confirmed cases, 1,260 people who had reported themselves as symptomatic, and 32 hospitalizations.��

“For a community like ours, it reinforces the idea of, when there is an all-hands-on-deck moment, you show up and you take care of things because your community needs you to, not necessarily because it only impacts you personally,”��says��Gunnison County commissioner Jonathan Houck.

But Reynolds warns that it’s��not over yet. She says the county is most likely on a “narrow plateau” and that stricter public-health orders must be maintained to ensure that the county doesn’t��see another surge in cases.

Gunnison Valley has never been an easy place to live. Its lowest elevation is 7,700 feet. It’s consistently one of the coldest places in the nation. Its economy has always reckoned with uncontrollable factors, like harsh winters lasting up to eight months.

Bound by topography and forged by cold,��residents embody��different types of grit. Commissioner Houck believes that community members will continue to do what is needed to avoid a resurgence of cases,��even if restrictions remain in effect longer than other places.��“We did it in 1918,” he says, “and from the ground up, folks here are able to say, ‘Yeah, this is who we are.’”

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For aspiring landscape and nature photographers, there’s a long list of natural occurrences happening in 2020 worth traveling for. And��if you’re investing the time and money to get to Yosemite��for Firefall (when Horsetail Falls turns a flaming red)��or Patagonia for the total solar eclipse, make sure you don’t miss the shot. I called my friend , a hobbyist who specializes in astrophotography and has snapped pictures of events like 2017’s in Casper, Wyoming, for his advice on the tools and techniques necessary to capture some of this year’s most stunning natural events.

For the Solar Eclipse in Patagonia

If you missed the eclipse in 2017, you still have a great opportunity for a photo (and a once-in-a-lifetime trip) in 2020. A total solar eclipse will be visible from Argentina, Chile, and some parts of the South Pacific on December 14. Any DSLR or mirrorless camera will do, but if you’re serious about getting the perfect shot, it’s hard to beat (from $3,500). Its 61-megapixel sensor offers extraordinary resolution and detail.

Once you’ve got your camera, you’ll want a telephoto lens with a focal length of at least 500 millimeters to fill your frame with the sun. If you don’t plan to use this level of zoom in the future, Silver’s advice is to rent a lens. Purchasing high-quality zoom lenses for full-frame cameras can range from $900 to over $3,000, so you might��opt to lease a pair from�� starting around $100 per week. Alternatively, you can add a (from $500) to a shorter lens to double its reach.

The trickiest part about getting a photo of an eclipse is making sure you don’t hurt your eyes and your camera’s sensor. While totality is the only brief moment when it’s safe to look at or photograph the sun without a , you’ll need one if you want to capture the moments leading up to it. Finally, never look at the sun without eye protection. Make sure to pack a pair of .

For Firefall in Yosemite

Chances are you’ve seen photos of Yosemite’s famous Firefall by now. Every year in late February, when conditions for the falls to run��are just right (like enough snowpack) and the skies are clear,��Horsetail Falls will glow red, giving the illusion that it’s on fire.

Peak Firefall season is February 15 to 23. The event happens around 5:15 P.M. and only lasts about ten minutes. To get a good photo, you’ll want to set up at the picnic area. The same camera mentioned above will work well, but you won’t need as long of a lens. “If you have a typical lens, you can get a pretty damn cool picture,” Silver says. This level of zoom will allow you to quickly change your focal length and reframe the shot��so you can get a variety of different images—both close-up and far away. In terms of settings, keep your ISO low (around 100), so you get less noise, and your aperture narrow (f/12 or above) for more detail and a wider depth of field. Adjust your shutter speed according to the light conditions.

You should also consider bringing a with you to compensate for slower shutter speeds, considering that��Firefall happens at sunset when the light is fading.

For a Meteor Shower

The Perseid meteor shower, the most active of the year, will peak on August 12��and typically features 50 to 75 meteors per hour.

To snag a solid photo of the night sky, you’ll want a fast prime lens—meaning one with a wide aperture that lets in a lot of light. This will allow you to use a lower ISO and have less noise in your image. A lot of folks recommend a superwide angle lens, like , but Silver’s go-to is the , because it’s sharp while allowing plenty of light in. “You don’t always need a superwide angle lens,” he says. “Sometimes a 35- or 50-milimeter lens will get you an awesome picture, with objects like trees in the foreground.” For starters, set your aperture as wide as possible (f/1.8��in the case of the Sony lens), and adjust your ISO down—to between 200 and 400—from there.

As for shutter speed, you’ll want to use a long exposure to get the effect of meteors streaking across the sky. If your camera has a bulb mode, using a will allow you to vary the exposure time better than the camera’s built-in timer settings. Silver recommends starting with a 15-to-30-second exposure for your first few test shots��and adjusting based on the results. He also urges using manual focus and��not blindly relying on the (which is supposed to allow for sharp photos of faraway objects). The mark on some lenses might not be accurate, so shoot with it before heading out at night to make sure you don’t end up with a bunch of blurry photos the next��morning.

The less light pollution you have, the better. Silver recommends using to search for��a good shooting location.

For the Northern Lights

The northern lights are on most photographers’ bucket lists, but they’re difficult to capture simply because it’s rare to see them. Your best bet is to head somewhere like Alaska, northern Canada, Iceland, Finland, or Norway between September and April. You’ll need clear skies, darkness (which won’t be hard to find), and .

If you’re lucky enough to see the northern lights, capturing them in a photo isn’t difficult. The same kit you use for any type of astrophotography will work great—meaning you’ll need a DSLR or mirrorless camera;��a fast, wide-angle lens;��a tripod;��and a remote trigger. You’ll want to use as wide of an aperture and as low of an ISO as possible so your shots don’t blur, and adjust your shutter speed accordingly.

For Wildflowers in Crested Butte��

Plenty of took notice of last year’s incredible —and caught flack for their unfortunate behavior while trying to snap a photo. While the Superbloom doesn’t happen every year, there are plenty of��wildflower blooms worth capturing.

I’d recommend heading to the high country surrounding Crested Butte, Colorado, in July or August. Known as the Wildflower Capital of the World,��and home to over 50 varieties, Crested Butte also hosts a wildflower festival from July 10 to 19, featuring��wildflower-specific photography classes.

As for gear, you’ll want a 90-to-100-millimeter macro lens. A is optimized to focus on subjects at an extremely close distance and can capture highly detailed images of small objects—any��close-up shot you’ve seen of a bug or flower was taken with a macro lens. Try shooting in aperture-priority mode, in which the camera automatically sets the shutter speed and ISO based on whatever aperture you chose. This gives you creative control over how much of your subject will be in focus and how blurred the background will be.

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How do you get to your regular mountain-bike trails? Are you one of the privileged few who lives just pedal strokes from the trailhead? Or are your rides bookended by drives or long pavement slogs?

If you fall into the latter category, as I do living in New York City,��or if you could simply use a change of scenery from those trails right outside your front door, you’ve no doubt contemplated taking a riding vacation. Everybody’s heard of places like Crested Butte, Moab, and Park City in the context of mountain-bike fantasylands, but increasingly,��Bentonville, Arkansas,��is emerging as a riding destination. Yes,��Bentonville, a city heretofore known best as the birthplace and world headquarters of Walmart; and yes, Arkansas, a state Americans in the Snob Belt have recently come to associate with citizens under siege by .

This��summer, Bike Bentonville, an organization that promotes a cycling-oriented culture and tourism in town, invited me��to speak at the Arkansas Bike Summit in Bentonville. I’d read stories of how the Walton family (heirs to Walmart founder Sam Walton)��was��turning the region into a mountain-bike paradise, so I eagerly accepted, but beyond that, I really didn’t know what to expect out of the town.��What I got was not only a highly satisfying weekend bicycle escape��but also a surprise infusion of art and culture I hadn’t realized I needed��and quite possibly a preview of my next family vacation.

Because vendors flock from all over in order to supplicate themselves before one of the largest retailers on the face of the earth, Bentonville is easy to reach—you can fly nonstop into Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport from most major U.S. cities, and I had no trouble finding an inexpensive flight from LaGuardia. Moreover, the�� bike shop is located right in the middle of downtown Bentonville, and for anywhere from $38 to $120 for 24 hours, it rents a full range of bikes, from cruisers to hybrids to road bikes to hardtails to high-end dual-suspension bikes to e-mountain bikes. It even has bike��trailers for $20. Sure, we’re all attached to our own bikes, but between the airline fees and the onerous process of packing and unpacking (not to mention the risk of damage), traveling with them is arguably not worth it. I was so secure in the knowledge that a pro-level shop had me covered, I simply threw a few things in a backpack and warmed up for my trip by riding to the airport.

The first thing you notice when you deplane at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport is the smell; the region is also the country’s largest poultry producer and the home of Tyson Foods, so the air immediately around the airport is a bit funky. The second thing you notice—at least if you ride a bike—is the life-size mountain-bike diorama in the airport promoting the network, which includes the trails in and around Bentonville and boasts 300 miles of singletrack.

These trails are a product of the Walton Family Foundation’s commitment to “investing in our home region of Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta,” according to its��PR boilerplate language. It’s a sizable investment, too; , it has��spent $74 million over ten years to build 163 miles of paved and unpaved bike trails. The investment is paying off for the region: the foundation says bicycling provided a $137 million boost to northwest Arkansas in 2017 alone, in part because “proximity to bicycle infrastructure” encourages people to relocate to the area. You can thank the Waltons’ love of bikes for this. (Brothers Tom and Steuart Walton, grandchildren of Sam Walton, are passionate cyclists.)

On the morning of my first full day in Bentonville, I headed to the conference and got my first glimpse of downtown. Moderately upscale-looking restaurants and shops surrounded Bentonville City Square, which was beginning to fill with food trucks, stalls, and vendors for the Saturday farmers’ market. On the southeast corner of the square was Walton’s, the five-and-dime store Sam Walton opened in 1950 that now serves as the home of the . Preserved as a mid-century idyll complete with a soda fountain and a gift shop selling Red Ryder BB guns, its quaint folksiness belies the downtown-killing retail behemoth it ultimately spawned.

And yet downtown Bentonville itself is clearly thriving. After spending some time at the summit, I wandered around as storm clouds amassed overhead. Block Street Records sold actual records, made from vinyl. Ozark Mountain Bagel Co. combined two words I, as a New Yorker, never thought I’d see together on a single sign, those being Ozark��and bagel.��A gift shop sold T-shirts comparing Bentonville to Manhattan, and overall I got a sense that this was a place that was warm and southern��and at the same time not ashamed to trade on a sense of cultural cachet.

Bikes are a major part of Bentonville’s sales pitch, and the Walton Family Foundation’s investment in cycling has clearly informed the cityscape. The tourist information center had decals in the window, the sidewalk chalkboard outside the Bentonville Tap Room tempted cyclists with craft beer, Phat Tire��took up a full corner of prime downtown real estate, and bike-specific way-finding signs similar to the ones you see in Portland, Oregon,��(save for the Walmart logo) pointed to nearby landmarks.

Cycling has played a major role in the vibrant feeling of the city center. “Folks around here will tell you that no one came downtown about ten��years ago, and now you see people everyday,” says Aimee Ross, director of��Bike Bentonville. “Not only people, but people riding bikes and all types of people:��families, young students, large groups of women only, and all types of bikes.” People did indeed roll around town on bicycles, and dirty mountain bikes leaned against walls and windows of local eateries. It was all enough to make me forget where I was, though the Confederate monument in the middle of the town square quickly re-centered my GPS.

By this time, the sky was about to erupt, so I ducked into Pressroom, an airy, wood-and-metal��contemporary American restaurant that would be at home in any gentrified downtown in the nation. (Bentonville has a burgeoning food scene: “Good restaurants there,” remarked my brother, who works in fine dining, when I mentioned I’d be visiting.) In a way, I suppose coming from New York to Arkansas and ordering an IPA and a hamburger on gluten-free bread is not exactly branching out—in fact it’s kind of like visiting Europe and eating at McDonald’s—but I did it anyway, and everything was excellent. Other downtown dining options include the��, whose executive chef, Matthew McClure, is a six-time James Beard semifinalist for best chef, and which specializes in “High South” cuisine, which is northwest Arkansas’s signature culinary movement.

It was still raining when I emerged from Pressroom, but the worst of the storm had passed, so beneath a steady drizzle and under the spell of a craft-beer buzz, I walked the one mile to the via the Art Trail. Most people were still sheltering from the rain,��and I hardly saw a soul as I made my way through a lush rainforest traversed by a clay-colored creek, the pitter-patter of the rain on the tree canopy lulling me into a trancelike state. Occasionally, I also glimpsed immaculately manicured, swooping ribbons of dirt paths twisting and undulating their way through the vegetation. They seemed precious, like a network of roadways for gnomes. In my experience, that degree of landscaping is always accessorized with a “No Bikes!” sign—not to mention I was also in the immediate vicinity of an art museum—so I was amazed when I finally figured out that these were mountain-bike trails.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, founded by Alice Walton in 2011, is a primitively modern concrete structure that emerges from a chocolate-milk-colored swamp, like something out of Planet of the Apes, and beneath the dreary gray sky it looked vaguely dystopian. Inside was another matter; it was way more Cameron Frye’s dad’s garage from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, except instead of a vintage Ferrari, it housed a gobsmacking collection of art: portraits of George Washington, Maxfield Parrish’s “Lantern Bearers,” paintings by George Tooker, who��I’d never heard of but whose work had me transfixed. If back at the square I’d forgotten I was in Arkansas, here I forgot I was in the United States. Surrounded by international tourists and fine art, I could easily have been somewhere in Europe. It was only when the volunteers spoke—genially and regionally accented, like Walmart greeters—that I remembered I was back in Bentonville. Certainly you couldn’t have gotten me on a plane just to go to a museum and look at some art, but now that I was here, I felt as though Crystal Bridges alone had been worth the trip.

By the next morning, I’d recovered from my Stendhal syndrome and remembered why I’d really come to Bentonville: to ride bikes. It was dry outside, but the forecast threatened rain again, and so I made my way down to Phat Tire as soon as it opened in order to pick up a rental. Like tailors at a fashion show, the staff at this bike shop sets visitors up with rental bikes swiftly yet expertly and then sends them out onto Bentonville’s lavish trail network like models onto a runway. In short order, I was astride a Trek Fuel EX Plus, saddle in position and suspension settings dialed.

Given all the rain the day before, I was concerned that the trails would be wet, and I didn’t want to be the person who sashays into town, leaves a bunch of ruts all over the place, and then goes home. My fitter at Phat Tire allayed my concerns, explaining that the trails drained well, and that, in any case,��Bentonville promises��365 days of riding and has the resources to keep everything in good repair. “You’re a guest, don’t worry about it,” seemed to be the prevailing attitude.

I needn’t have worried. “Even during a rainstorm, we have trails that are rocky in composition that you can easily ride,”��Erin Rushing told me later in an email. Rushing is the executive director of , a nonprofit that develops local multi-use trails.��“Our climate is mild enough that it rarely gets too hot or too cold to ride. We use professional trail builders, who have years of experience building trails that are not only sustainable but enjoyable.”

Sure enough, the trails were dry, save for the odd puddle or two, and even the red-clay singletrack that I’d been warned might not fare well was firm and rideable. Not only that, but navigationally, the trails were practically idiotproof. From the pump track right off the town square, I found myself on the swoopy trails I’d walked by the day before, and within minutes��I was deep in Slaughter Pen, a trail network of over 20 miles. Everything was so intuitive and well signed that finding my way was mostly a question of just riding and occasionally consulting the MTB Project app to confirm I was where I thought I was. Even technical trail features were clearly marked with signs reading “FEATURE,” and there were always alternate lines if I was inclined to edit them out. Compared to the hardscrabble riding I was used to in the Northeast—where trail maintenance is intermittent, signage is a novelty, and it can take a full season to figure out the lines—the trails of Slaughter Pen felt positively sumptuous.

Crossing over Razorback Regional Greenway, a nearly 40-mile shared-use path that goes all the way to Fayetteville, Arkansas, I rode the twisty ups and downs of the Tatamagouche and Medusa Trails. This was the most fun I’d had on a bike since L’Eroica California��in the spring; a network of red-clay ribbons, berms, smooth stonework and wooden bridges, all flowing into each other like streams beneath a lush canopy. It was the cycling equivalent of binge-watching a new show on Netflix—just pedal and watch it all unfold.

Beyond the trails, I was riding��the Back 40, a 20-mile loop skirting the Missouri border that I had heard is a little more rough around the edges than the Slaughter Pen system. I was tempted to press on, but I considered the menacing storm clouds and the lack of food in my pack, and ultimately figured there was no point in turning a delightful romp into a possible slog. Instead I stayed in Slaughter Pen and gradually made my way back to downtown Bentonville, telling myself I’d have some lunch and then head out for round two. Alas, shortly after I returned to civilization, the skies opened yet again, and I was just tired enough to not mind having an excuse to stop riding. I returned the Trek to Phat Tire and trawled downtown��for gifts before heading back to the hotel and getting ready for my return flight.

If the trails in Bentonville were a Whole Foods, then my ride was basically the equivalent of ducking in and nibbling on a free sample. But it was more than enough to make me want to return. And while I could no doubt lose myself on those trails for days on end, what was most appealing about Bentonville��was the turnkey nature of it as a vacation destination��and how well it lent itself to short but satisfying jaunts of both riding and culture. The town is walkable and bikeable, so if your hotel provides a shuttle (as mine did) or you hop in a cab for the 20-minute, $40 trip from the airport, you don’t need to rent a motor vehicle. You don’t have to pore over maps for days on end. You don’t have to pack a bunch of gear or do a lot of planning. Just bring some pedals, grab a bike at Phat Tire, and ride. Also, because Bentonville is designed for two things—mountain biking��and hosting travelers from all over the place who want to do business with Walmart—there are not only plenty��of flights��but a plethora of accommodation options, ranging from double-digit chain motels to the , where a luxury suite will run you somewhere around $500.

I could easily imagine coming back for a full-on weekend shred fest, but what I really lamented was that my family wasn’t with me. Between the user-friendly mountain-bike trails, the greenway, and Crystal Bridges—all directly accessible right from downtown—it’s really set up perfectly for an active, car-free��family getaway. I saw parents with kids riding the trails, which made me miss my own little ones. This multi-ability, multigenerational trail use is by design: “All new trail networks are built with progression in mind,” Rushing wrote in his email. “We are always looking for the perfect mix of trail difficulty for all ages and abilities. I have three boys (18,14, and 8) and we all ride, so developing trails and trail systems that we can all go to and enjoy as a family is important to me, as well as to our community.” So if you’re the family shredder, you can go rip it up early, then join up with the rest of the clan for some more mellow pedaling.

There’s also a lot more to come from the region. According to Rushing, roughly two to three miles of trails are being built per week, “so odds are you’re going to find new trail every time you come visit.” On top of that, he said, “We are also constantly updating and reworking existing trails in the older networks and making them even sweeter.” Then there’s cyclocross. In 2022, the�� will come to Fayetteville, less than 25 miles away—it will be held on land at Millsap Mountain that is being developed as a cycling venue, with a grant from the Walton Family Foundation. Starting this year, the site also hosted FayetteCross, an elite two-day race in October.

If you’re leery of corporations, you may be hesitant to accept the Walton family’s largesse, but hey, if you appreciate bikes and art,��then at least two of their interests align with your own. Anyway,��it beats giving more money to the Walt Disney Company. And there are no mountain-bike trails on Space Mountain.

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