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Stowe’s Topnotch Resort Teams Up With Local Guides

I’ll be discussing my favorite fall foliage activities next month. But this just came across my desk, so you might want to lock in your lodging before it sells out. Topnotch’s new Experience Center has joined forces with some of the best guides in Vermont to offer unparalleled adventure during foliage season. Mansfield Cycle Bike Tours will take you on a guided loop on backcountry roads or serious singletrack–the mileage based on your experience. Sunrise Mountain Guides is offering guided hikes, runs, rock climbing, and bouldering. This is in addition to the Tennis Center and its four indoor and six outdoor courts, which gave Topntoch its reputation as one of the finest tennis resorts in America. Toast your accomplishment with the Topnotch Guided Brewery Tour, which visits a handful of microbrews like The Crop Brewery, The Rock Art Brewery, The Lost Nation and the von Trapp Brewery. 

 

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Checking Out Chihuly’s Studio and Bainbridge Island

Guest Post and Photo by Amy Perry Basseches

Our trip ended in Seattle, where my husband, Josh, had a conference with the Association of Art Museum Directors. Our hotel was a step up from where my daughter, Sophie, and I had spent the last many nights: the Fairmont Olympic, built in 1924 and beautifully renovated, well located within walking distance of the waterfront. Our two favorite activities in Seattle were visiting Bainbridge Island and getting an inside tour of Dale Chihuly’s private studio. We took the commuter ferry over to Bainbridge, got an island map, shopped, wine tasted, and visited the truly lush Bloedel Reserve on the north end of Bainbridge. Steve had recommended that we bike Bainbridge, but we couldn’t figure out how to fit that in. In terms of the Chihuly private studio tour, all I can say is "WOW." We’ve done glassblowing a number of times, but, trust me, we never created anything like this. Chihuly was born in 1941 in Tacoma, WA, and resides nearby. His studio is full of collections of items which inspire him—indigenous baskets to blankets to vintage bathing suits to old children’s books. My only regret is the road trip ended and I didn’t get to see Mt. Rainier up close. Next time!

Thanks again for following along this week. It was a pleasure to discuss the highlights of my trip. If you need any help with your travels out West, please contact me at ActiveTravels.

 
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Additional Adventures Led by Mountain Travel Sobek in 2012

I’d be remiss to only discuss Mountain Travel Sobek’s intriguing trip to North Korea in September. MTS has a slew of other phenomenal trips scheduled this year including their first-ever trans-Himalayan trek in Nar & Phu: The Forbidden Valleys of Nepal, for dedicated high altitude trekkers. Other new adventures they’re launching in 2012 include a 28-day trek that stretches from coast to coast across Iceland, hiking in the Swiss Alps and staying at classic Swiss lodges for the more moderate hiker, and a 9-day rafting and trekking adventure in the Annapurna Range. Also, don’t steer away from their more traditional rafting adventures, especially on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River and Alaska’s Tatshenshini, two of the most adrenalin-pumping multi-day river outings in North America. 
 
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Peru Week with Abercrombie and Kent: Our Day in Machu Picchu

Few sights I’ve seen are as majestic as Machu Picchu. After a 2-hour train ride from Ollantaytambo, you arrive at the town of Aguas Calientes and switch to a bus for a 20-minute drive on a series of switchbacks up to the base of Machu Picchu. When you arrive, you better have one of the coveted timed tickets to enter these late 15th-century Incan ruins that miraculously the Spaniards never found. Row after row of stone walls lead up the steep hillsides creating a far more vast archaeological wonder than one can imagine on that quintessential photograph from above Machu Picchu. We arrived a little after 2:30 pm, when the crowds were already thinning, to feel the smooth rocks of the temple, see the maze of aqueducts, and find the sun dial that was used to predict summer solstice. The tightly knit stone structures are impressive, but to be honest pale in comparison to the surrounding landscape, a panorama of jagged peaks that lead to the snow-capped Andes in the distance. This includes Huayna Picchu, the striking peak you see behind every photo of Machu Picchu. We had the opportunity hike this peak the next morning at 7 am, but I chose to hike part of the Inca Trail rising above Machu Picchu to the Sun Gate. Every step you took on the 3-hour round-trip trek was another mesmerizing view of Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains. Fantastic! 

Abercrombie and Kent really earn their money on this portion of the trip. We have all heard of the overcrowding at Machu Picchu and by the time I arrived back from my hike on the Inca Trail around 10:30 am, there were hundreds of people on the Machu Picchu grounds. But the past day, we really saw the site in relative quietude. We arrived mid-afternoon the day prior when the crowds were less (after having a memorable lunch aboard our train), stayed at the base of Machu Picchu at the only hotel on the grounds, the Belmond Sanctuary (only 31 rooms, booked a year in advance by Abercrombie and Kent), and then received one of the few tickets the following morning to enter the grounds at 6 am, when there were few if any people around. Walking above Machu Picchu as the sun rose and the clouds cleared was an unforgettable experience. 
 
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Top 5 Dream Days of 2018, A Rejuvenating Stay at Gorman Chairback Lodge

My cabin at AMC’s Gorman Chairback Lodge overlooked Long Pond, a serene 4-mile-long body of water surrounded by the ridges of the nearby Appalachian Trail. As soon as we plopped down our luggage, we heard the first of many loon calls, that unmistakable yodel echoing across the lake. All was bliss from this point onward. Smelling the sweet pine and peering at mountains with few, if any signs of civilization. It’s no surprise that this locale in Maine’s North Woods has been hosting guests since 1867. We jumped in an Old Town canoe and followed families of loons and mergansers, before spotting a bald eagle atop a dead hemlock tree. The waters of Long Pond were like glass, reflecting the surrounding mountains atop the surface. All you could hear was that mesmerizing call of the loon and there was no other traffic on the pond. No boats, no canoes, nothing. Nothing but serenity.

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Austin Adventures Joins Forces with Life Is Good

Next week, we’ll be heading to an event in Boston to announce the launch of the new Austin Adventures partnership with Life Is Good. “Life is Good Vacations will allow us to combine our love and respect for the outdoors with Life is Good’s mission to approach each day with positivity. We will work together to design multi-sport itineraries, with activities including hiking, biking, kayaking, horseback riding and mountain top yoga, infused with expressions of gratitude and optimism,” says Austin Adventures founder, Dan Austin. I’ve traveled twice with Austin Adventures, on a family multisport to the Canadian Rockies and with Dan Austin and his daughter, Kasey, on a relatively new outing to the Broadmoor Wilderness Camps on the outskirts of Colorado Springs. Both trips were memorable. So much, in fact, that we have no qualms about placing our ActiveTravels members on any of their itineraries. They always come back with glowing reviews from their experience. But I’m excited to hear about this new venture. In 2018, Austin plans to offer six family and adult Life Is Good Vacations in Montana, Utah, the Canadian Rockies and Costa Rica. 

 
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Following in the Footsteps of Canada’s Group of Seven Artists

Guest Post by Amy Perry Basseches

While vacationing last summer in the Georgian Bay area of Ontario, a few hours north of Toronto, my husband Josh and I ventured to the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound. Many Americans are not familiar with the famous painters in the “Group of Seven,” but in Canada they are revered. Also known as the Algonquin School, these Canadian landscape artists worked from 1920 to 1933. The most famous name associated with the Group of Seven is likely Lawren Harris (1885 – 1970), who actor/comedian/art collector Steve Martin brought to the US via exhibits in Los Angeles and the MFA in Boston. One of Harris’ paintings sold for more than $3 million last November. Tom Thomson predated but seriously influenced the Group of Seven. He died before its official formation, mysteriously drowning in 1917 in Canoe Lake in Algonquin National Park, Ontario. Thomson grew up just outside of Owen Sound, an inlet on Georgian Bay, and the small museum there pays homage to his work and impact. I particularly enjoyed the early photography of the Group of Seven painters as they fished, swam, and camped, before setting up their easels “plein air.” If you are interested in seeing more paintings from the Group of Seven, visit the wonderful McMichael Canadian Art Collection, just outside of Toronto in the town of Kleinburg on your next trip to Ontario. 
 
Tom Thomson, sketch for The West Wind, Spring 1916, oil on wood. Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

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