Philo

the

hiking issue EXPLORING THE

UPPER PENINSULA

MOUNTAIN VIEWS IN VERMONT, ALASKA, & MORE

&

A CITY STOP ALONG THE WAY THE HIKING ISSUE

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contributors JOE JASZEWSKI KELLY PETERS GRACE HARCZ RACHEL LEVIN MAX WHITTAKER CARI HUME

see more of us @PHILOMAGAZINE EXCLUSIVE PHOTO STORIES CAN BE FOUND IN OUR IPAD EDITION

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veryone needs to find a way to escape sometimes. Daily life can take a toll, especially if you live in a city. That’s why for this issue, we decided to gather different outlooks on places around the States. These contributors are from varying places, and their writings and art are derived from what inspires them and has made an impact on their lives.

Achieving the idealistic peace and quiet are commonly different to everyone; would you rather hike up a mountain for a few days by yourself, or relax by a lake with your family?

See a new city by the water, or kayak in the middle of nowhere? Perhaps dive in and try something new for a change. We’ve brought together a range of beautiful and unique places that will inspire and motivate you to find your perfect escape.

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in this issue letters 8. MARQUETTE, LAND OF THE BEAUTY 32. KAYAKING LAKE TAHOE IN WINTER 40. MOVING TO ALASKA 58. YOUR OWN PRIVATE IDAHO

art 16. SUMMER DAYS 24. A MORNING ON PRESQUE 48. ALASKAN AIR 66. THE WILD NORTHWEST 70. A TASTE OF THE CITY 76. VERMONT 84. A LOOK BEHIND THE CANVAS

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From top to bottom: “Summer Days” in Lake Superior, Michigan (Cari Hume). “Kayaking Lake Tahoe in Winter” (Joe Jaszewski).

“Exploring Vermont” (Cari Hume).

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MARQUETTE, THE LAND OF BEAUTY UPPER MICHIGAN’S NATURAL WONDERS ARE A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION AND TRANQUILITY. WRITTEN BY KELLY PETERS & CARI HUME PHOTOGR APHY BY C ARI HUME

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arquette is a unique little gem hidden on a peninsula without much else; the university is probably what’s holding most of the population in this town. There isn’t much cityscape to be found except the occasional high rise overlooking the lake, which is about four stories. Some people surrounding this town on the outskirts live deep in the woods and only just got electricity in the past couple years. Several professors don’t email or don’t own televisions. Plain and simple: they don’t like computers or the outside media that’s unnecessary. Not to say we’re all living in the dark ages up here, we just like to move a bit slower than the city folk. When you leave Marquette to the surrounding towns, I’ve heard people

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Atop Sugarloaf Mountain on a windy spring day.

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make comments like “They live in the big city” and they point at me, and I just laugh. But in their eyes this is the cultural hub of the Upper Peninsula, with the largest population density. There is a central uniting factor for us Marquette folk, however, and that is the immense beauty that surrounds the area and incredible forestry.

Each house has its own unique character; wooden turrets, some with scales, and pink, purple, green, and sometimes blue painted accents. Large porches are found everywhere.

Sometimes you’ll spot a dog hanging out on the roof on a brisk fall day. The orange, yellow, and red leaves have their own scent that fills the air, and makes the trek up a mile long steep hill worth it. Once you drive past the houses and into winding roads with trees engulfing you, you’ll find scattered along the narrow highway some dirt road trails. Mostly unmarked, they lead either to private houses (mansions or trailers, you never know), or to gorgeous hiking paths.

The North Coast Trail travels throughout the tiny mountains outside of Marquette. A short hike to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, you can overlook the city, Lake Superior, and the surrounding hiking destinations. Hogsback Mountain is close, yet a much longer trek.

Buried deep in the woods, hikers come across old dilapidated cabins from a hundred years ago, and many burnt out campsites. Instead of going to frat parties, the university students in town spend their weekends hiking and camping, bringing their dogs and some music along.

It’s arguably the best way to escape the frustrations of every day life and pause for a little bit to take in the amazing scenery and breathe the fresh, brisk air.

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Hidden Beach on Lake Superior at sunrise.

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The best part about this place is the water “Gitche Gumee,” meaning Great Water in the native language of the Ojibwe tribe. Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area and it is by far an ocean.

People don’t understand her beauty and power; it’s always an extremely sad day to hear a fellow peer was swept into her current, but it’s also a very powerful reminder of why the Ojibwe gave the water its name. Lake Superior is definitely an inspiration to the people who inhabit the great north of Michigan. It’s that place you go to when anything is wrong or anything is right in your life. Just take a walk down from your home or the city center to Lakeshore Drive, and see and stare. The answers are lying in the water and the current.

Deep blue trenches of water are holding the mysteries of this land. This water is uniting the people of Marquette and all those who surround the shores. Every year more and more people are finding out about the beauty and strength of Lake Superior, continuously drawing in more visitors and avid hikers. I will never be able to fully leave this area because there is the water beckoning me back. I don’t want to merely see the water, I want to swim and be one with the current. 

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Waterfalls are in abundance in the Upper Peninsula.

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summer days MICHIGAN’S UPPER PENINSULA IS THE BEST PLACE TO SPEND YOUR SUMMER DAYS: SLOW HIKES, A DIP OR TWO IN THE LAKE, AND SUNBATHING ON THE ROCKS. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT? PHOTOS BY CARI HUME

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a morning on

presque A SUNRISE HIKE AROUND PRESQUE ISLE IN MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN, BRINGS A WHOLE NEW MEANING TO THE WORD “TRANQUILITY.” PHOTOS BY CARI HUME

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KAYAKING LAKE TAHOE IN WINTER WRIT TEN BY R ACHEL LE VIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, FEBRUARY 2011 PHOTOGR APHY BY MA X WHIT TAKER

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umping along a freshly plowed road in Lake Tahoe, Calif., I felt oddly unburdened. No skis were locked on top of my car, no clunky boots rattled in the trunk. After more than a decade of ski trips to the region, I kept feeling as if I were missing something. Sure, it was sunny, but also a biting 17 degrees — and I was going kayaking.

“You’re going what?” asked my friend when she heard I wasn’t joining her for another powder day at Squaw Valley. “Seriously?”

Seriously. It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day — the most crowded week of the season at one of America’s most visited ski destinations. Thanks to a record-setting December snowfall, the actual skiing had been phenomenal. But I was sick of struggling to find a parking spot, tired of waiting in all those lift lines that were as congested as the bumper-tobumper traffic that led to them.

Of course, Tahoe offers more than just downhill skiing: snowshoeing and cross-country are the go-to alternative snow sports for most crowd-dodgers. But kayaking? In the dead of winter?

Not so much. Not even on the largest alpine lake in the United

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States, and the second deepest in the country. A lake that never freezes over, where the surface appears so placid and the snowcapped scene so screen-saver-serene that it makes you want to leap off the chairlift into the hallowed blue water. For most, though, the primary function of Lake Tahoe in winter is as a breathtaking backdrop.

But for a small but growing band of adventurers, the lake itself is the star of the Sierra Nevada — and actually more so in the cold-weather months than in summer, when an even greater number of seasonal visitors descend on the area and afternoon thermal winds swoosh in daily, making the water choppy and the paddling iffy.

In the winter, however, the lake is glassy and calm. And, of course, cold. “Thirty-four degrees” read the scrawl on the white board behind the register at Tahoe Eco-Sports, the kayak shop where I equipped myself — and the only one on the lake that rents boats in winter.

“The risk of hypothermia is high,” said Harry King, the shop’s owner, handing me a dry suit.

(The difference between a dry suit and a wetsuit is that the rubber-lined dry suit is designed to prevent even a drop of water from entering, and therefore provides better thermal insulation.) “Fall in without this, and you’d have maybe a minute.”

Mr. King helped me wriggle into it, making me feel a bit like my 2-year-old getting into her pajamas.

Zippers, sealed with rubber, were zipped, booties were Velcroed, a spray-skirt was strapped on, and pogies (oversize neoprene mitts) were snapped to my paddle to protect my hands from the splash.

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A lake that never freezes over, where the surface appears so placid and the snowcapped scene so screen-saverserene that it makes you want to leap off the chairlift into the hallowed blue water.

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“Ready to swim?” asked Mr. Freedman as I climbed into my single kayak. I laughed — hoping he was kidding.

Our small group of six walked behind the shop to a rainbow of snow-covered kayaks, and, with minimal effort, dragged our boats through the snow, down to Kings Beach, one of the best entry points on the lake’s 72-mile perimeter. “Another perk to winter kayaking,” Mr. King said.

“We’d have to carry these babies in July.”

“You’d also have to dodge drunk wakeboarders and 14-year-old jet skiers who don’t know what the heck they’re doing,” said Richard Gorbet, a semiretired rock-crusher from Reno, Nev., with six kayaks in his garage (and just two pairs of skis), and an e-mail alias of “kayakaholic.” He likes to go out for full-moon paddles on the lake with friends like Chuck Freedman, a k a “tsunamichuck,” a nurse, also from Reno, with a collection of seven kayaks and an addiction to “surfing the waves” during winter storms.

“Ready to swim?” asked Mr. Freedman as I climbed into my single kayak. I laughed — hoping he was kidding — and shimmied off through a bunch of mini-icebergs floating around the shoreline.

It took only a few paddles and then, much sooner than I expected it: serenity. A kind of quiet, otherworldly solitude I’d never before experienced in Tahoe. Immediately, I felt the difference between being on the water and gazing down at it. I felt like we had cheated the system: it appeared that we had the giant, much loved lake all to ourselves.

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“Someone has to be out here,” Mr. King said, as he paddled beside me. “It’s so spectacular.” After 15 years, the novelty had not worn off for him.

The lake below us was amazingly clear; as we paddled out, I stared about 70 feet down to hole-pocked rocks and rippling sand, before the bottom dropped to 1,600 feet and went black.

The water lapped around us, hypnotically. The sun twinkled on the surface like a million fireflies. Slowing down, I cupped water with my hand and took a sip. It tasted cold and crisp.

Surrounded, 360 degrees, by soaring peaks frosted white and pine forests that looked as if they were dusted with confectioners’ sugar, I felt a bit like I was inside a snow globe. The distant runs looked devoid of people, and for a split second, I wished I were skiing. Then my focus settled on the merganser ducks dawdling around us and I wanted to be them. I also realized I was as close as I was going to get.

We pushed past creaky cabins teetering on cliffs and a few condo communities that would typically make me cringe. But out here, in the middle of the lake, it was easy to imagine what Tahoe was like before the influx of fancy all-wheel-drive cars and fake Bavarian villages. Soon, we pulled up to the lake’s only hot springs — a few steaming rock pools accessible only by water (unless you happened to own one of the condos behind it) — and dipped in our booties.

Later, we crossed into Nevada — the state line bisects the lake — and paddled up to Stateline Point in Crystal Bay. It’s also known as the

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boulder-strewn belt where mountain lions like to sunbathe and bears are rumored to hibernate — and, on apparently every day this winter but the one I was out, Lake Tahoe’s increasing population of bald eagles balance in the treetops.

“This reminds me of Glacier Bay,” said my friend Anne Krumme, a former Alaska-based kayak guide, as she weaved between boulders rising from the water and caked in ice. “I mean, serious National Geographic stuff! It’s got to be the only similar experience in the lower 48.” Apart from breaching whales and calving glaciers, I had to agree.

As we paddled on and the sun beat down, I realized that not only was I sweating under my dry suit, but Mr. Freedman’s comment wasn’t a joke: I was ready to swim. We pulled into Speedboat Beach on the north shore — typically booked with weddings all summer long, but now totally empty except for swaths of snow and a few frighteningly fresh prints from prowling mountain lions. I stepped out of the boat and into the bracing water. Hooray for dry suits! I was neck deep in Lake Tahoe in December! I used my personal flotation device to do a little Dead Sea-style float, made myself a false promise to never ski again, and then joined the group on the woolly blanket for a beach picnic.

We sipped cups of coffee brewed over a propane tank and spiked with Baileys. Clouds swooped in. The descending sun cast a lateday glow, illuminating the peaks across the lake. And for the first time since we’d set out, I started to feel a little cold. 

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MOVING TO ALASKA WRIT TEN & PHOTOGR APHED

BY GR ACE HARCZ

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hen most people heard I was moving to Alaska they didn’t seem to know what to think. Alaska? Why Alaska? Isn’t it always dark up there? To be honest, I didn’t really know.

My mom wasn’t thrilled as I packed the Subaru, strapped the two sea kayaks to the roof and my bike to the back. I had no plans other than a NOLS course, the last class I needed before graduating college. My dad on the other hand, was ecstatic!

I had been working as a graphic design intern at a small computer company in Marquette, Michigan, finishing up my last year of college when I decided to make the move. I had been going to school for graphics, found a decent job with a great company using my degree, but I wasn’t happy. Sitting inside behind a computer screen all day, every day, was not healthy for me. Also, the relationship with my guyfriend at the time was crumbling in around me. I had to make a move.

Leaving was not easy. Marquette had been my life for the past five years. It was home. On May 1, I left my beloved little town, my friends, my job, my cat, and headed to Mackinaw City to work my summer job.

Mackinaw was second home and a job where I was

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able to spend my days outside on the water or socializing with guests. I worked 60 hour weeks and lived with my friend and her family trying to save enough money to get me to Alaska. I worked up until the day James and I left.

James was graduating with the same Outdoor Leadership and Recreation minor as me and needed to take a course through NOLS as well. We had both set our minds on Alaska, two separate courses, a month apart, so we decided to carpool.

James, a 21 year old from the suburbs of Detroit, and I had met two years prior, carpooling home from school with mutual friends.

We hit it off and became friends. Eventually I developed a little crush on him, things didn’t work out though and I moved on. I didn’t really take that into consideration as we started our three week journey together. The second day in he confessed he had feelings for me. I was blindsided and uninterested.

Things suddenly got a lot more difficult. We worked hard to stay a team but getting along was not easy and a few times I wondered if the trip was still even possible. Once, in rural British Columbia, I was sure our trip was doomed. However we were 3,000 miles from home and 1,500 from our destination, the only way to go was forward.

The further North we drove, the bigger the mountains around us grew and the longer the days got, until the days consumed the nights completely and everywhere we looked were frosted peaks.

Everything was alive in those nights, it felt like early morning all night long, with the birds chirping and dancing, trying to soak up every bit of their 3 month summer.

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I questioned myself out there in those nights. What I was doing so far from home with a person who’s company was so hard to keep. Why had I left my friends, families, and jobs? It’s an opportunity I kept telling myself, and I am an Opportunist.

Maybe this life is what I was searching for.

Finally, after two weeks of driving, we made it to Anchorage. Dirty and exhausted, after having not showered the entire length of British Columbia, and half the trip, we went directly to REI. In moments like these, James and I were the same.

They survived off the salmon they caught in the local streams and the small game that ran through the forest around them.

Living in a tent at first, the family began building a small log cabin. They lived this way, building and gathering food by summer, and hunkering down enjoying each others company by winter for three years before getting electricity when oil was discovered near their property.

The following week was a whirlwind. We stayed with a few of James’s distant relatives. One family, lived on a homestead in the small community of Nikiski on the upper West corner of the Kenai Peninsula.

Tucked away from civilization, the homestead has slowly grown since 1958 when the family first uprooted from Detroit in search of a new life in Alaska. They found their new home for their five children next to a small lake three miles from the nearest road and thirty miles from the closest village.

Today the homestead still grows, pieced together, filled with history and anything one could possibly need to survive. Nearly sustainable, with a sauna, spruce house for guests, and an outhouse adorned with a chandelier. It’s a palace. A place for friends and family to gather and feel welcomed. A dream home for those who want to center

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their lives around loved ones rather than the chaos of civilization. Maybe this life is what I was searching for.

A few days at the homestead healed the wounds between James and I and we grew closer than ever. Then it was time to move on, his journey in the mountains was about to start and I was looking at a blank slate. I knew no one other than his family, had no job, and had spent most of my money on gas to get there. I was terrified and excited.

James was gone so fast it hit me like a whirlwind. I was temporarily lost, disorientated.

I I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. I knew I was being over dramatic and I would be fine after some sleep, but where to sleep? I had an acquaintance in Anchorage who offered me to tent in her back yard, but I was too tired and mentally drained to be a strangers guest.

I ended up staying there, having no real other options. All went well and in the morning I connected with Rachael, a girl from couch surfing. She had no plans either and we decided to head South to Homer where I planned to walk the docks in search of a deck handing job on a fishing boat.

However, before we had the chance to leave Anchorage, I received a game changing phone call. The manager of a restaurant at Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge was offering me a job and wanted me to start the next day. I looked at Rachael apologetically and she told me, “Lets do it!” So instead of South we headed North toward Danali. We spent the night camping off the side of the road and by the next day Rachel was on her way to Denali and I was being trained for my new job as a server at the 20320 Alaskan Grill.

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We would paddle in the lake surrounded by mountains and sunbathe on the far shore until late in the night. Each new day was exciting and I barely had time to think about what was happening.

I made new friends and great money. We all worked intense hours but on our rare days off we could hop a shuttle to nearby Talkeetna for a change of scenery, beer and food. Mostly on my free time a friend and I would drive up to Byers Lake with the kayaks and fishing poles. We would paddle in the lake surrounded by mountains and sunbathe on the far shore until late in the night. Each new day was exciting and I barely had time to think about what was happening.

End of July came and it was my turn to head into the mountains. My course was an Outdoor Educator course designed to teach us skills in both backpacking and sea kayaking.

When I arrived at the NOLS headquarters, located in Palmer, about 50 miles East of Anchorage, there were groups of people setting up and drying out tents, washing and organizing gear. I noticed the cooporation of the groups right off the bat and was excited to meet my group.

I was greeted warmly and directed to where I could park my car. I was told to meet under the pavilion with the rest of instructors and students for the course. We were separated into two sister courses. One group would kayak first and the other backpack. I was happy to have the backpacking section first and I had a good feeling about the people in my group and my new instructors. There were nine students, five girls and four guys and three instructors, all males. We did a quick orientation and got right into preparing for the trip. There were lessons on gear and bear safety. Then we distributed rations and were issued our gear. The most time consuming part for most of us was packing our backpacks. Each student was responsible for carrying a third of their cook groups food and group gear, that only left a small amount of personal gear. I narrowed my gear to two water bottles, two pairs of socks, puffy jacket, wool sports bra, two pairs of wool under-

wear, wool t-shirt, pair of hiking pants, fleece jacket, hat, headband, sunglasses, journal, camera and toiletries. We also packed a second “boat bag” for the kayaking section of the course where I threw in some extra food and warmer clothes. With food, water, group gear and personal gear, my backpack weighed a whopping 53lbs, almost half my body weight.

The next morning we gathered our gear, strapped it to the top of a school bus and headed to the Chugach Mountains a few hours north of Valdez AK. We passed the Matanuska glacier and drove right into the middle of no where. There, the driver let us out, we filled up our water bottles and stepped out into a wave of muggy heat and ferocious mosquitoes.

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Not knowing when my next shower would be, I applied my bug repellant conservatively and attempted to will the bugs away. We gathered in the dirt pit next to a trail that would lead us above tree line into the mountains. We split into three groups, one instructor and three students each. It was important we stay in groups of four, as we were in grizzly territory and there were no reports of a bear every attacking a group larger than four or more.

Each of us were also issued a can of bear spray that was to be strapped to our chests for the next two weeks. While hiking we were to take turns making bear calls, to verbally clear an area and let a bear know we were coming as to not spook it.

Once in our groups, we began our short hike a few hundred yards up the trail where we would be camping for the first night. it was already late and we needed practice setting up camp and learning to backcountry cook. There were nine students in our group and only Madden, a 23 year old from Minnesota, Hannes, 25 from Switzerland and I, had ever cooked anything in the backcountry or set up a tent. If I hadn’t been so hungry, hot and bitten, the whole first evening would have been pretty entertaining. Trying to get the megamids set up, and lighting the stove and cooking.

My first tent cook group was Jabari and Abby, a 27 year old server from Bend Oregon. I was with the whitest and blackest members of the group. We got through dinner learning a little about kitchen hygiene, and to my relief, sump holes. We

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practice Leave No Trace in the backcountry and some backpacking expeditions participants are expected to drink even the dish water and the left over scraps.

Here thankfully we were allowed to pack out the chunks and bury the water.

After dinner we had a lesson that would set the tone and bond us together for the rest of the trip, how to poop in the woods.

Pooping in the backcountry turned into being a big deal. Ed, one of our instructors from Brazil led it. He ran over to us exclaiming, “ohh phew! can you smell that?” we couldn’t, he went on and on about how bad it smelled and insisted we come look at it. We all followed not really knowing what to think. When we reached the spot, he pointed out where he had gone and asked us where we thought good places to go were. 200 yards from camp, water and the kitchen, not in wet areas, how to dig a 6in catholl and mix it up when your done, I mean, lots of things about pooping, also, how we could NEVER go alone, if you had to go, you needed to take three friends with you, always in groups of four, this was the birth of our poop parties.

The next morning we woke at 6:30 to pack up camp and begin our tedious hike up the trail. it was easy going on the hard packed dirt, but we would be hiking 6 miles and gaining 3,000 feet of elevation.

We took periodic breaks to eat, drink and address hot spots. More than half the group was was not prepared for the physical aspect of the course and it made the going slow. 

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alaskan air AVID EXPLORER GRACE HARCZ DOCUMENTS HER TRIP AROUND THE CHUGACH MOUNTAINS. PHOTOS BY GR ACE HARCZ

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YOUR OWN PRIVATE IDAHO WRIT TEN BY R ACHEL LE VIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 7, 2013 PHOTOGR APHY BY JOE JASZEWSKI

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he “Entering Stanley, Idaho” sign seemed more like a friendly warning than a welcome. “Population 63,” it read, as if to say: Congratulations, you’ve made it to the middle of nowhere.

Stanley is the entry point to the Sawtooth Valley, a time warp of a place with four saloons, five mountain ranges and not much else. My husband, Josh, our two children and I had driven three hours from Boise along an empty, winding two-lane scenic byway for a week of summer adventure. Still, as we strolled down deserted, dusty Wall Street looking for a lunch spot, it was hard not to wonder: Where is everyone?

They certainly weren’t on Highway 75, which we followed nine miles south from Stanley along the Salmon River, until we spied our home base, the historic Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch, hidden in the foothills of the White Cloud Mountains, with a bull’s-eye view of the Sawtooth Range. After we checked into our rustic-luxe log cabin — on a little prairie, it was one Ma and Pa Ingalls would have envied — the first people we saw not wearing cowboy boots were my East Coast family: Mom and Dad, sister, brother-in-law and their children. They rolled in as we rocked on the front porch, captivated by the view: 10,000-foot snow-frosted peaks towering behind a trout-filled pond; bright white clouds suspended in a big, blue sky; buck fences lining fields of happy little sagebrush.

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The first words out of my brother-in-law’s mouth: “I feel like I’m in a Bob Ross painting.”

Various national parks had been tossed around as potential destinations for this family trip: Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton. But I was hoping for something different. Can we please skip the parks? I begged. I love them in Ansel Adams photographs, but as a place to spend a weeklong summer vacation, the parks — and the bus tours and traffic, high-heel-teetering tourists and standardized cafeterias that come with them — are not my idea of good family fun.

I know a place that’s just as pretty, I’d promised, but without all those people.

Established by Congress in 1972 and managed by the federal Forest Service, the 756,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area, which includes the 217,000-acre Sawtooth Wilderness, is arguably more rugged and wild than any national park — in large part because it’s not one.

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Even the easiest, most accessible trails in the recreation area still feel like the backcountry.

Annual visitation at each of the brand-name parks we had considered hovers around three and four million. (Great Smoky Mountains, in Tennessee, attracts the most, at about nine million a year.) Though equal in size to Yosemite, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area estimates just 1.5 million visitors. And since there are no welcome gates or entrance fees, Ed Cannady, the Forest Service recreation manager for the recreation area, said that figure is probably inflated, as it includes cars just passing through; he estimated the actual number of annual visitors is closer to around 700,000.

With 700 miles of trails and only a fraction of the annual visitors actually hiking them (exact statistics are not compiled), even the easiest, most accessible trails in the recreation area still feel like the backcountry compared with Yosemite’s valley floor. It came close, but the Sawtooths dodged the national park designation decades ago. And that’s a lucky thing, say locals, who proudly tout its unofficial slogan: “The Tetons, without the handrails.”

Indeed, the next day I could have used one, as I clung to the side of a boulder with one hand and sheepishly reached for my hiking guide’s arm with the other.

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We were en route to a nameless high-alpine lake tucked beneath 10,751-foot Thompson Peak.

The initial approach followed a sun-drenched trail through aspen groves and fields of balsam root, past views of snowy spires, until we climbed a couple of thousand feet and the trail all but disappeared, turning into a dirt-andboulder-strewn slope, and it was time to scramble.

On the heels of our guide, Bill Leavell, a longtime local who regaled me with tales like the one about watching a wolf pack take down an elk outside his living room window, I made it across the scree, over a rocky bowl and up to the lake. It was still frozen and — with the jagged peak of the Sawtooths’ tallest mountain looming behind it — worth every step. I took a seat on an icy rock, pulled out my lodge-made turkey-prosciutto sandwich, and picnicked in the falling snow. Save for a scurrying rabbitlike pika and some well-camouflaged mountain goats, we were totally alone, as we were for almost the entire trek.

The next day, we left grandparents and kids behind (again), to hike to Goat Lake, another off-trail “attraction” in the area, still floating with chunks of ice. As we crossed creeks on slippery logs and inched along rock slabs, our new guide, Drew Daly, in his seventh season in the area, summed up what I was thinking: “If the Sawtooths were a national park this would be a paved road to a vista point; one of those 10-mile drives for a three-minute walk.” Instead, once again, on this late-June day, our foursome was the only group on a half-blazed trail.

And that’s how it was the entire week: virtual solitude in America’s great outdoors, all

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Backed by the same soaring peaks that seem to follow you everywhere in the Sawtooths, it was campy and fun and might as well have been 1970. without having to pitch a tent (or pay fivestar prices). This is what I like best about the Sawtooths: it gets the ratio of nature to creature comforts right. Chic spas and celebrity chefs? No. Natural riverside hot springs and grass-fed steak? Yes. On a drift boat down the Salmon, we were the only anglers on our stretch of river. (I can call myself an angler, having landed a 16-inch cutthroat trout that day, right?)

On a horseback ride up a hilltop, it was just us city slickers having a cultural exchange with a 20-year-old cowgirl leading the way.

“What’s Twitter?” she asked, reigning in her horse, Jasper, who was feisty and, apparently, not used to groups. “What’s that?” countered my sister, pointing to a petrified mound on the ground. Cow pie, we were informed.

Back in Stanley, I was cautioned by a longhaired resident named Reno Spear at Peaks & Perks, the town coffee cart, where he’d been sitting on a milk crate for the past four hours, he admitted, admiring the mountains: “Just wait till July. It’s insane then.”

Busier, yes. But I’d been here once before in July, and Stanley doesn’t know insane.

“Last summer, I worked in Yellowstone,” one ranch employee said. “It was a constant stream of people asking me questions like ‘When do you release the animals from their cages?’ ”

Eventually, we found the crowds. They were at Redfish Lake Lodge, a classic family-run resort about five miles south of Stanley. “The Cabo of the Sawtooths,” Drew, our guide, had warned. Not quite, though it does have sandy beaches and all sorts of activity: tweens licked soft serve cones; couples paddle-boarded; children and dogs frolicked in the clear water, seemingly unbothered by its frigid temperature; families set up lawn chairs in preparation for a late afternoon folk singer. Backed by the same soaring peaks that seem to follow you everywhere in the Sawtooths, it was campy and fun and might as well have been 1970. Josh and I went back to Redfish the next morning to hop the boat shuttle that leaves on demand from the dock. Zipping across the lake, we left the cabins and campgrounds and RVs far behind for an easy three-mile hike up to Bench Lakes — supposedly one of the Sawtooths’ more popular, accessible spots. But on this sunny day we had it, no longer surprisingly, all to ourselves.

Josh peeled off his socks and shoes and waded knee-deep with his fly rod, casting (unsuccessfully) for trout, while I sidled up against a shaded boulder and cracked open my book. With warbling swallows as backdrop, I nodded off before I’d even turned a page. 

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wild north west

the

THE WEST COAST HAS MUCH TO OFFER, AND WASHINGTON STATE OFFERS EVERYTHING AND MORE THAT THE OUTDOORSMAN CRAVES. A PHOTO SERIES ACROSS THE STATE SHOWS THE PEACE AND QUIET OF THE WILD NORTHWEST. PHOTOS BY CARI HUME

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Opposite page: the Olympic Game Farm, located in Sequim, Washington, is home to native and endangered animals. Also the backdrop to a number of wildlife films, a drive through the mountains leads to observing nature’s finest creatures in a large roaming atmosphere, allowing visitors to experience wildlife up close.

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a taste of the city SEATTLE IS THE BEST PLACE FOR A CITY GETAWAY, YET WITHOUT THE BUSTLE OF THE TYPICAL CITY LIFE. PERFECT FOR OVERLOOKING THE LANDSCAPE AND ARCHITECTURE, ENGULFED BY FOG ON A DREARY DAY, IT’S A DESTINATION NOT TO MISS.

PHOTOS BY CARI HUME

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vermont ON THE BORDER OF VERMONT AND NEW YORK,A VEIN OF MOUNTAINS ARE SPECKLED WITH HOMEY TOWNS AND BEAUTIFUL VIEWS THAT ONLY PHOTOS COULD DESCRIBE. PHOTOS BY CARI HUME

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a look behind the canvas ERIN LYNN WELSH’S PAINTINGS ARE INSPIRED ORGANICALLY: THE USE OF HER OWN PHOTOGRAPHY FROM TRAVELS MIXED WITH AGRESSIVE BRUSHSTROKES CREATE HER EMOTIONAL ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES. PHOTOS BY CARI HUME

PSST... VIEW MORE PHOTOS OF ERIN LYNN AND HER STUDIO IN OUR IPAD EDITION!

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E

rin Lynn Welsh’s work is centered around motion and natural movements of landscapes. Having studied photography throughout her undergraduate years at Pratt, Erin Lynn uses her own polaroids from travels as inspiration. She uses aggressive brush strokes and bold colors to create her large oil paintings, concentrating most of all on color, gesture, and light. “Art isn’t something I want to rush,” she says of her process. “I don’t want to burn out.” Welsh works on three paintings at a time, so as to keep fresh during her eight- to twelve-hour days in her Greenpoint studio.

How exactly did she get into painting? Though she’s been painting throughout her life, “photography was my major because I listened to everyone else,” Erin Lynn explains. While in college, she worked specifically with c-prints, and only used natural light; this has further influenced her color palette choices in her paintings as well. On a whim, she took an abstract painting class, and a professor encouraged her to continue with it.

After college, she worked for a few commercial photographers, yet hated working with the equipment; while waitressing to make ends meet, she decided to make painting her focus. In addition to painting, Erin Lynn works as a set designer for various companies, and her artwork has been sold through a variety of stores from the likes of Anthropologie to local New York galleries. 

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“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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