Ask Susan,
Your Personal Travel Counselor
Tell me how you really feel about steeps and trees. How about cliffs? I see. Do you need a gourmet dinner every night? Does your exhausted body require a comfy bed? Do you long to disappear into the wilderness to commune with the mountain? Are you an adrenaline junkie waiting to come out of the closet? Or are you perfectly content playing on the groomers all day? Lie back on your couch with a glass of wine and let me help you solve your trip planning problems.
I am a journalist with 17 years of experience researching and writing about travel, with special emphasis on “soft” adventure travel such as skiing, snowboarding, hiking and paddling. The Internet has made it infinitely easier to research and book travel, but with all the information resources out there, it’s difficult to sort through the conflicting messages and choose the right vacation. My "travel counseling" services can rescue you from the abyss.
Tree Well & Deep Snow Safety:
Why It Pays to Have Friends
on a Powder Day
Reports of two skiers dying in separate inbounds avalanches out West this month overshadow what is a more likely danger inbounds on powder days: falling into tree wells or deep snow drifts and suffocating before someone rescues you.
On a recent powder day, my husband, friends and I were traversing to an area of Jay Peak Resort, Vt., where we hoped to find untracked snow. I suddenly clipped my ski tip on a stump and went down. I found myself on the side of a large pine tree, clinging to the branches, my head pointed downhill and my legs uphill, still clicked into my bindings.
I floundered in the snow, trying to push myself up, but realized I would first need to remove my skis. I managed to find my...
AMC Opens LEED-Registered Lodge in Moosehead Lake Region
The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) has unveiled a new green destination for outdoor recreation in Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness region: the Gorman Chairback Lodge and Cabins, on Long Pond, between Greenville and Brownville. The new central lodge building is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-registered, making it the first sporting camp lodge in Maine, and one of only a handful of backcountry facilities in the nation, to be LEED-registered. Certification is anticipated later this year.
Overseen by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED provides a nationally recognized set of industry standards for evaluation and certification of environmentally sustainable construction and design.
The new lodge building at Gorman Chairback was designed by LDa Architecture and Design. The property is off the grid, and power is supplied by solar panels. Other environmentally...