road trip

… otherwise known as Vermont!

My husband and I took a long weekend road trip to Vermont to visit friends at their cabin. From NYC, the drive took us about six hours to our final destination of Stowe; of course my insistence that we stop along the way for photos and the occasional coffee did extend the trip some, but isn’t that what a road trip is all about?

Heading north through New York State way we traveled through the Adirondack Mountain Range. The Adirondacks are a worthy trip in itself. Thousands of streams and lakes, (including famous Lake Placid and Lake George) offer gorgeous scenery, kayak and canoe waterways, tons of hiking trails and camping sites. The scenery here reminded me of my home state of Washington — just with much shorter mountains.

After four hours of arm-out-the-window singing along to our usual road trip tunes (Bob Dylan, Modest Mouse and Neil Diamond) we opted to spend the night in Rutland, Vermont.

Rutland, like many towns in Vermont is small, but large enough to have a Main Street complete with a street fair, organic shops and great restaurants to choose from. Again I was reminded of my roots seeing the laid back, “granola” lifestyle so common to Seattle i.e.: VW bus driving–Birkenstock sporting–fleece wearing–organic food selling — ski and mountain bike bumming… and I loved it! While parts of Jersey and NY also have their “natural” sections that remind us of home at times — but Rutland was the first place we’ve visited since moving to the East Coast where I really felt like a Seattle-ite could move here and fit right in.

In Rutland we ate at the trendy yet homey Table 24. Thinking about their skillet cornbread and macaroni & cheese is a regular past time of mine when I am hungry.
The ingredients are fresh and the staff are mainly college students that may argue that the skiing brought them there more than the local college. After dinner we walked the street fair, listened to the live music and window shopped the local stores.

Rutland, VT street fair

The next day we got an early start for Stowe and made only a few short stops to take some pics and one stop at the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory Headquarters in Waterbury. Free samples!

Diana at Ben & Jerry’s

Stowe is a popular ski town but in the summer it is a hiking/mountain biking town. Tourism is clearly the industry here, as it is in most ski areas.

While in Stowe we checked out the Summer events around town that run through mid-October including the line-up the Stowe Mountain Resort. You can take a 2,300′ ride on the Alpine Slide, get high with Bungee Trampolines or climb some rock walls. Stowe has a Gondola as well that you can ride to the highest peak in the State.

Gondola

We took advantage of the warm weather (low humidity) and hiked some of the more popular trails in the Smuggler’s Notch area. Guided tours are available for every level of hiker, but we opted to go off on our own carefully choosing the hikes that would best fit our ability (I like danger )

We hiked to not very crowded scenic high points on Morse Mountain that offered panoramic views of the Champlain Valley below. We managed to also make it up Sterling Mountain–a four hour trek to the highest trout pond in the state.

The rest of the “hiking” we did was mainly around the town. Art galleries populate the roads of Stowe (one of my favorites was the Stephen Huneck Gallery showing his very popular dog drawings and sculptures) and of course the mountain touristy shops that I never seem to get tired of browsing through.

photo courtesy of www.dogmt.com

Diana at the covered bridge in town

On our last morning we stopped at the Dutch Pancake House for a very filling and delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, Dutch style (crepe like with all ingredients baked in, replicas of what you would find in Holland) and strong coffee. According to this site, the NY Times reviewed this as “The World’s Most Decadent Breakfast” and I’d say that review is pretty accurate.

dutch pancake

Overall, for a four day weekend, Stowe and it’s stopping points along the way was a great road trip from New York City. When I head back in the Winter I’ll be sure to update you on the happenings and you can also trust me to try out the Dutch Pancake House again, simply for the sake of research, of course.

Twice, in as many months, I have heard the title of this post uttered and have now adopted it as an essential descriptive phrase to use when beholding beauty that nearly hurts my eyes.

I first heard it in the British Virgin Islands when the transparently blue/green water and the scores of rainbow fish got to be just too beautiful to see over and over again (yeah, I am really not complaining here…) and one of my travel partners on that trip longed to see “the grayness of Newark” (well, she said that, but of course no one longs to see Newark)… anyway… I uttered the same phrase again while in Zion.

I’d like to think I have visited epic locales– oceans, cities & mountains known for their beauty– but I had not yet seen anything like Zion National Park.
Let me tell you now, any pictures you see, even the professional ones do not capture, in the slightest, what you will witness in person.

The Park, that welcomes three million visitors a year, is divided into 4 sections–all with gorgeous views, scenic drives and hikes for every level of mountaineer.

1.Zion Canyon containing: the Emerald Pools (that Jean, Rachel and I hiked), Angels Landing (the steepest hike in the entire park and upon your completion, if you have the energy to to make it back down, can buy a t-shirt proclaiming your victory ascent and The Narrows which has been voted by National Geographic as in the top 10 of their best 100 hikes in the Nation.

2.Kolob Canyons known for the famous Kolob Arch that is shown in many Zion pamphlets.

picture courtesy of First Light Photographs

3.Kolob Terrace: with the well known, yet challenging Subway hike. Parts of this hike travel through naturally made mountain tunnels and in some parts require partial or depending on the time of year (like last week while I was in Zion) total submersion and swimming into cold water.

photo courtesy of zionnationalpark.com

4. Highway 9 that includes the Tunnel– a spectacular scenic drive that leads to the South side of the Park.

Zion is a massive area and my time there was for exploring the park, but also for my friend’s wedding (which was IN the park and was GORGEOUS) which did not allow me excess time to get all of the hikes in I had wanted. Next time I go back, the Subway hike is first on my list.

Now that you know a little bit about Zion, and my original purpose of the trip… let me display some of my favorite pictures and accompanying stories.

Hiking around various areas of the Canyon we found ourselves in dry river beds full of … sand? Yep. Some of the softest sand to ever have passed in between my toes! The mountain rocks are all Sandstone (some of the largest amount anywhere in the World actually) and the Virgin River, over time, has eroded parts down into, well, sand.

We came across a family of Mountain goats while hiking and I didn’t zoom on this shot–we were this close.

This was the lodge we stayed at, just outside of the Park. The views were incredible and a free shuttle ran every 10 minutes to take you either into town or into the Park (of course we had our stealth Hybrid (see part 1). Us 3 girls shared a giant room with 2 queen beds, a queen sleeper sofa a nearly full kitchen and a deck overlooking the heated pool.

On one of our hikes…

Scenery shot! Too much beauty!!!!

I swear– it was not easy to climb up here even though it looks like it’d be pretty easy…

This concludes part II of the Zion trip… but there is more to come… and take a read of part I if you haven’t yet.

Last Thursday I caught the early flight to Salt Lake City to meet up with two of my old high school buddies, Jean & Rachel. We three had a reunion road trip planned to Zion National Park via Park City to attend our friend Melissa’s wedding in Zion.

When I got into Salt Lake (an hour early–thank you Delta) I had some time to kill before Rachel flew into town. I had been to Salt Lake about 10 years ago for a Husky football game and had a chance to see some of the city and surrounding area. Salt Lake is small, but it is surrounded by mountains pretty much entirely which makes it look even smaller when viewing it from above–which is exactly what I did!

After picking up my hybrid rental car and taking like hours to start it [word to the wise—hybrids make NO noise --not even at point of ignition--until they are going like 25 mph. Who knew?] I drove to the highest point I could, within reason, and found a hike up to Ensign Peak. This place, as many places in Salt Lake, has religious significance to the large Mormon population, but to me it offered a spectacular view of the mountains and city.

After the hike and the wheezing, breathless reminder that Utah is at a much higher elevation than I have been used to on the East Coast, I caught my breath at a Starbucks then toured the city –drive by style–and saw the highlights.

Below is the Capitol building that lies at the foothills of the mountain I had just climbed–near the University of Utah.

After picking up Rachel, we headed north to Park City — the ski mecca of Utah. Of course, skiing wasn’t really going on while we were there, although snow was in the forecast. We were much more interested in gabbing and cruising the town–and what a cute town it is! The “Main Street” had art galleries, restaurants, shops and outrageously expensive pet clothing stores; needless to say–we were in heaven!

Rachel & Di hanging out on the lift chair

Main Street

Absurdly long staircases which have got to be damn near impossible to climb in the snow

One of 3 enormous resident Park City dogs at the doggie boutique

Rachel scoping out some night spots for when Jean meets up with us.

We drove back to Salt Lake to pick up Jean (only 30 minutes away) and then back to Park City to have some dinner and start our reunion! We ate at what we heard is THE hangout during the ski season: The No Name Saloon. The food was awesome and while we were outnumbered by like 75 to 3 in a men to women ratio — we had plenty of time for ourselves to visit and laugh before stopping off at Lindzee O’Michaels Mixologists (see above pic) for $2 Ladies Night. Did I mention that driving is not necessary in Park City? Everything is within walking distance to the hotels!

At the No Name Saloon we got our first taste of Polygamy Porter: Why have just one?

Relaxing at Mixologists. The place had some interesting people… & I don’t mean just us!

Rachel dancing to, what else? The Beastie Boys! Its as if the Girls Trip Reunion Gods were smiling on us!

to be continued…

As many of us already know, the train is the way to go when traveling through Europe. Since not everyone has the luxury of time or even if you do, but want to get out of town quickly (i.e., fallout with your travel partner, a small misunderstanding with the French police) or feel your schedule is getting a bit cramped, a sleeper car on an overnight train can be a perfect solution. Aside from it being a budget friendly choice, sleeping while traveling at night kills two birds with one stone by saving money AND time.

I’ve traveled through all of Western Europe by train with my eurail pass. Various ticket choices are available for however many days and train rides you plan on taking. Of course you can buy your tickets at each stop as you go along, but for those on a budget this can get costly.

Aside from smelling the worst smell that I have ever smelled in my life (seriously, it woke me from a dead sleep) in my 4 bed sleeper car on an overnight train from Paris to Barcelona–most of my rides were non-eventful and I always felt great the next morning to have gained ground while sleeping.

In my pack, I carried a sleep sheet made of fleece (that my mom sewed for me). Fleece is nicer than the thin sheet most travel stores sell mainly because it is warm enough to be your sole bedding. I recommend to anyone who plans on overnight train travel or staying in a hostel (or if you are lucky enough to have an experience like I had and spend the night on a heart shaped bed with a zebra skin head board in the last available room you can find in all of Frankfurt that of course is in the red light district),to pack one of these… and to wash it often.

As I was saying, most of my overnight rides were uneventful–that is until I got to Austria.

On this particular leg of my trip through Europe I was actually on work assignment with my then-job so the train tickets from Vienna to Amsterdam were covered for my travel partner (my friend Sheryl) and me. We felt we were living the high life as we purchased two first-class overnight tickets in our very own sleeper cabin.

diana on the tracks

Fritz, the concierge for our particular car who had a severe case of jazz hands, was overly eager to assist us with our every imaginable need. He gave us a tour of our cabin–and while it was larger than the normal cabin, it was still small and his tour really could have been conducted from the hallway. He explained how our table folded down and how to push it back up against the wall. He showed us how each light switch turned on and off and probably the only useful thing, was how to adjust the air conditioning. As he headed to the door to leave us, he stopped suddenly–his face serious and his stance firm. He held one finger up and with his thick accent in a hoarse whisper said: “do not forget to lock the door”. Looking at each of us, he repeated the statement slowly then added, “You must be safe”. With a click of the lock as well as securing the chain at the top of the door we thanked Fritz, rolled our eyes at each and laughed!
Before we had time to open our complimentary first class sparkling water there was a rap at the door. Sheryl unlocked the bolt and opened the door with the upper chain still fastened. Peering out the gap we saw Fritz slowly shaking his finger at us for opening the door. He was a bit freaky, I mean, was he warning us of his psycho alter ego?

sheryl sitting at the table fritz folded down for us

The laughs from Fritz’s oddness boiled over as we tried to move about our bedroom. Seriously, this was first class??!! There were 2 thin bunk beds, a reading light at each bunk and a small window. Sheryl is about three inches taller than me so she took the top bunk. There was no way we could both fit into the room at the same time so while I sat on my bed unable to sit straight, Sheryl stood in the doorway while we recapped our day. Neither of us were very comfortable in our respective positions so we decided to get some sleep. Our car was last in the train and as I was dozing off to sleep the swaying seemed somewhat more pronounced but it still had that soothing effect I looked forward to on night trains.

diana “sitting” on her bed

sheryl taking up the entire doorway. note the old school camera!

The route we were traveling though seemed to have more curves than normal and the swaying started to resemble that game you play as a kid at the roller-rink–the Whip I think its called; do you know what I am talking about? The last person in the chain of people gets whipped around the rink trying their hardest to hang on and not get “whipped” off.
I remember sliding up and down my bed vertically and a couple times even holding onto the bars of the bunk above me to try & keep still. Sheryl of course had the same problem and for some reason we weren’t scared–just sort of along for the ride and our laughs started up again until we heard a loud whoosh sound and then heard nothing but the train whirring along the tracks.
The night light I had turned on went out, the air-conditioning vent shut off and we could hear commotion in the hallway. Fritz was knocking on each door letting people know that the electricity was out and he wasn’t sure if it would be back on. The train kept moving and the room was starting to get warm with the a/c off. Fritz was passing out sparkling water and advising everyone to open our doors to let air circulate–but he was quick to point out that we shouldn’t fall asleep so as we would all stay safe. Sheryl and I threw the idea around that maybe the lights out and the doors open were all part of Fritz’s master plan–or his alter ego’s master plan…and our laughs came on even stronger while we waited out the electricity while toasting each other with our water.

We did end up making it to Amsterdam safe and sound and we had a fabulous time all over the Netherlands… but thats info for future posts! By the way, the power in the train did come back on after about 3 hours.

So–enjoy your train rides and do try an overnight route if you haven’t before.
Just remember: Avoid the last car, even if it is first class; if your concierge is named Fritz, keep your door locked and most important–keep laughing!

amsterdam by day

amsterdam by night

With Spring officially here and the snow finally melted, I’m ready to get outside! Lets hike!

Growing up in the Pacific North West, it was hard NOT to hike. The outdoor co-op company REI has it’s headquarters in Seattle, the mountain ranges are populated with gorgeous waterfalls, canopied by enormous evergreen trees and thick with rain forests and mountain lakes–some not yet reached by humans. The year-round moderate temperatures in the area allow for enjoyable hiking in every season (just be prepared to spend some money on the Gortex gear as it does rain; a lot.).

Seattle with Rainier in the background flickr: jim914109

University of Washington with mountains at sunset.

In Seattle, where I lived, one can look in every direction (on a clear day of course), and see snow capped mountains encircling the entire city with the gem of the state, the highest elevation point in Washington towering above all the rest: Mt Rainier–nearly 15K feet at the summit. While impossible to hike to the top of Rainier causally as much planning is required due to the conditions and elevation gain– it is not uncommon to go on a day hike in and around Rainier or in other areas just outside of Seattle and reach an elevation gain of 4000 to 5000 ft. Aside from Rainier National Park there are dozens of other hiking spots that are easily climbed in just a few hours including the still active Volcano Mt. St. Helens and one of my favorite spots, Mt. Si which tops out at 4166 ft and is 8 miles round trip.

Mt Rainier flickr: pjink11

Oregon and Vancouver BC make up the rest of the NW and also have their share of hike destinations including Mt. Hood and Crater Lake just outside of Portland, Or and endless trails in Whistler BC –a couple hours drive from Vancouver. Both Ski resorts in the Winter, Whistler and Mt Hood boast nearly as many visitors in the summer for hiking and mountain biking as they do in the Winter due to their reputation for reliably sunny skies and accommodating village environment with lodging, restaurants and nightlife .

Crater Lake

Mt Hood

Whistler

In contrast–here in my new state of New York–the highest point is Mt. Marcy in the Adirondack Mountain Range at 5134 ft. The Adirondacks, in the NE part of New York, boast many lakes and hiking trails, was the nation’s first preserved wilderness and the closest distance for Manhattanites escape the concrete forest and experience the “real” outdoors.

Lake George is one of the highlights in the Adirondacks (popular not just for hiking but also fishing and swimming) and other spots I’ve had the time to discover in the area are Lake Placid, home of the 1980 Winter Olympics and Stowe, VT.

Stowe too is a ski mecca in the winter but caters to the spring and summer crowd with Gondola rides to the tops of the peaks and well kept trails with names like Hogback Mountain and Emily’s Bridge to bring you down.

Stowe, VT

While the elevation gain of these North East locations cannot be compared to the West Coast, one benefit out East is traveling far distances is not required to find hiking opportunities in many different states. The states in the NE are much smaller in size and are in closer proximity to each other than are the states out West, so East Coast hikers generally hike different spots more often.

For example, driving from New Jersey to Vermont takes about 4 hours, but the different routes and states traveled during that drive all have varying trails and scenery (not to mention historical and cultural landmarks). The same time span traveled in the West Coast may get you to the edge of a bordering state, but likely you will still be within the same state you started in.

So which area has better hiking? West or East? Of course it is based on personal preference. If elevation gain is your thing and you don’t mind a little soggy hiking, head West. If covering more area quicker without sacrificing beauty is more appealing–come out East. Either way– go, hike!

the author, hiking Whistler, BC

For more information on any of the trails or locations mentioned, please leave a comment and I will get back to you!

All pictures by diana ellefson except where mentioned.