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An unexpected adventure in the Whites
By Lisa Schoonmaker | Photo: Mike Jones, Beyond Ktaadn
After an evening rain, the morning dawned bright and windy, with mounting promise for an unexpected adventure—that is, if you’re willing to suffer up a wet, slippery, unremittingly steep trail with giant, sharp, moss-covered rocks. But if you don’t know what’s coming, hey, anything’s possible.
Hints for a rich experience and safe return
Photo: Roberta Forest
Those who enjoy hiking solo go alone for several reasons. Hiking solo simplifies planning and coordination—you decide on a route, gather together what you need, and go.
Navigating brambles, branches and balsam needles to remote peaks
By Shari Aber | Photo: Joe Ferri
I’ve always pushed the limits. That’s who I am. That’s why I was working for my black belt in karate when I was 50—gave it up after I tore my meniscus and had to undergo the first of 3 arthroscopic knee surgeries. It’s why I decided to learn to roll a kayak when I was 60.
The Santa Fe Chili and Marching Society
By Charlie Cragin | Photo: Charlie Cragin
One thing is certain when the members of the Santa Fe Chili and Marching Society convene for their Wednesday hikes. The hike will start at 7,000 feet altitude and it’s usually uphill from there.
A privileged encounter with moose
By Jean Hoekwater | Photo: Mark Picard
A light breeze lifted leaves of mountain-ash and heart-leaved birch still in the dark shadow of Katahdin while morning bird songs mingled with sounds of water running from a thousand clefts and ravines overhead.
Charismatic creatures of the high country
By Jessica Rykken | Photo: Jessica Rykken
Hike up to an alpine meadow in peak flowering season and take in the magnificent view. Then stop and listen. Can you hear the buzz resonating from blooms all around you? Watch for movement darting between one flower and its neighbor, or whizzing by to a distant patch of plants. Up here, you’re deep in pollinator country, and what you see and hear before you is an intricate network of plants and animals that have coevolved over millennia to ensure each other’s survival and success. Now focus more closely on the insects landing and feeding on the flowers, it’s likely the first ones you’ll notice are among the biggest and loudest—the busy, buzzy bumble bees.
By Richard Diaz | Photo: Greg Ulfik
As a kid I wanted be a forest ranger. You know, climb a mountain, go to the top of a fire tower, view the landscape as far as the horizon, and here we were, living on the edge of the Taconic Range.
By Fritz Burke | Map by Edward Rolfe
Room 231, Northern Exposure Motor Inn, Gorham, NH.
I'm surrounded by annoyingly fit-looking young adults with strange names: Beehive, Puma, November, Little Toaster, and Calves. Peter Pan is farther up trail. Calves is my son Jonas.
By Jennifer Anderson | Photo: Glen Mittelhauser
Up on North Traveler Mountain in Maine wild blueberries grow everywhere, along the trail and across the wide open ridgeline. Once you are out in the open above the trees, blueberry bushes brush right up against your legs as you move along the trail, and the ripe fruit hangs in bunches so uniformly blue and numerous you must stop in your tracks.
