Snow angels?
Weather permitting (there’s a new snowstorm bearing down on the Northeast today), I’m heading off to Colorado for a two-week swing that will take me to four family-friendly resorts in Colorado.
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Back to Bolton Valley with ABC and Chill
This quaint little ski area in the Green Mountains near Burlington, VT., is known for its hospitality and public service – hosting both the Burton’s great Chill Organization as well as the Vermont Adaptive Sports program
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Grabbing Some Time for Yourself
Such a tough decision! Should I stay stretched out on my lounge chair, waiting for the smiling beach boy named Ben Pierre to bring me a frothy concoction or make my way across the white sandy beach for a dip in the clear, turquoise water? Maybe I should go to the infinity pool — 7,000 square feet lined with blue mosaic — where the chairs are set right in the water.
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Vacationing with kids who have special challenges
The next time your kids are making you wonder why you left home with them, think of Terrie Easton. The Burlington, VT mom has eight-year-old twin boys one of whom has been diagnosed with autism; the other with a variety of cognitive and emotional disorders that present special challenges.
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Backyard Vacations | Destinations | Families & Groups | Food and Dining | Lodging | Parks & Outdoors | Snow Vacations | Travel Diaries
A Weekend Retreat to Northstar Resort, in Lake Tahoe
After braving the rain all week in San Francisco, my boyfriend, a friend, and I decided that a trip up to Lake Tahoe for the weekend would be a must—especially considering that the area had received 79” of snow in the last five days that we had been soaked in the rain. We left the city before dawn Saturday morning and made it to the mountain in time to ski some fresh powder in the first sunshine Tahoe had seen in a week.
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Snowsports change lives
This past weekend at Bolton Valley, VT I got to meet some dedicated volunteers from two terrific organizations who make snowsports part of kids’ lives who otherwise would never get to the slopes and in the process, change their lives forever.
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Getting Up-close and Personal with Olympians’ Parents
It’s cold, dark and the snow is dumping, but that doesn’t stop thousands of locals and their kids from turning out at Park City Mountain Resort to cheer on snowboarding superstars Shaun White and Hannah Teter, as well as other world-class athletes as they strut their stuff under the lights in their final competition before the 2010 Olympic U.S. snowboarding team was announced.
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LAST NIGHT IN PARK CITY — OLYMPIC TEAM FINALS!
It’s cold and the snow is dumping but that doesn’t stop hundreds of locals from turning out to cheer on the Snowboarders in their final comp before the U.S. Olympic Team is named. “It’s fun family time,” says Dan Kemp, with his wife and two young daughters.
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DAY FOUR — HOW MANY OLYMPIANS CAN YOU COUNT?
Eight-year-old Henry Silverman may be a little jaded—at least when it comes to Olympians, his mom Caroline admits.
You can’t really blame him since he’s growing up in Park City, Utah, a town that’s home to the U.S. Snowboarding Team and chock full of past and present Olympians. “We see Olympians every day,” she laughs.
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Day 3 in Park City — what recession?
I’m lying on a heated massage table in the spanking new spa at the St. Regis Deer Crest at Deer Valley. “We’ve been very busy,” the massage therapist tells me. It is a great massage complete with paraffin treatment to soften and help the blood flow in my tired feet and a scalp treatment. Great steam room! Another massive luxury hotel property is on line to open next year. The people checking in to the St Regis don’t seem concerned about the price of the rooms.
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Day 2 — so this is what it”s like to be numero uno
Deer Valley has been named the #1 ski resort in North America in 2008, 2009 and again this year in North America by the readers of SKI Magazine.
Add in 300 annual inches of famous Utah dry powder, 100 trails, six bowls, 21 chairlifts and a limited number of skiers allowed on the mountain each day; three day lodges glowing warm with firelight and gourmet food, the well respected Ski School and Children’s Center; and the sheer ease of the place — parking lot shuttles, complimentary ski storage, ski valets and more.
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A trip to park city — day one
A GIRL’S JUST GOTTA HAVE FUN! I’m sitting in one of ski country’s newest posh resorts—The St. Regis Deer Crest in Deer Valley. My room looks out over the groomers Deer Valley is known for and I can see the hotel’s hot tubs. There’s a fireplace and a marble bath and oh-so-comfy beds.
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Taking the Kids — To Patagonia
The locals in Chile’s famous Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia are rhea, small ostriches, the gray fox, and herds of guanaco — a kind of llama who totally ignore us as the males chase each other (only one male can be dominant in a herd of females) and the females nurse their oh-so-cute babies. More than a dozen condors fly overhead so close we can make out the white on their wings, which span nine feet across!
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LAST DAY IN CHILE — Llama kabob anyone?
We’ve stopped in a native village called Machucha Town –at over 12,000 feet where local Attacamas stay while herding their llama. Today we don’t see llamas—just tourists—and a local man dishing up llama shish kabab while a woman fries llama empanadas inside. In case you are wondering, llama tastes like lamb.
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Tierra Atacama, Toco Volcano
It is not easy to breathe the air up around 18,000 feet, especially when hiking straight to the top of a volcano. The Toco Volcano is the most difficult excursion offered by Tierra Atacama, one of San Pedro, Chile’s most luxurious and beautiful boutique hotels.
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To the hot springs
I’m not dreaming. The handsome, long-haired 29 year old Chilean is Max Vera, who is guiding us on a challenging hike uphill along the canyon floor, scrambling over big rocks, along a sandy trail, in between large “fox tails” that grow in this region and Cacti that are 12 feet high with needles so sharp that local Indian women use them as needles to sew and knit.
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Chaxa Lake
Day 10 — Welcome to Laguna de Chaxa (Chaxa Lake) and the National Reserve of Flamingoes that is about an hour from St. Pedro, Chile from where we’re staying at the lovely 32-room Tierra Atacama
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Who knows why glaciers are blue?
DAY 8 — We’re in Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, the largest in Chile with several hanging glaciers including Balmaceda and Serrano Glaciers. We’ve taken a small boat from Puerto Natales, about five minutes from Hotel Remota (www.remota.cl) where we are staying for a three-hour cruise—past a huge waterfall and condor nest! “You read about it in books and then you can look and see it,” says Sandy VanLandingham, from Arizona visiting here with extended family.
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Whoa Horsie!
DAY 7 in Chile — It is one of those vacation days I think I must be dreaming. I’m in the Patagonian hills of Chile riding a gentle horse named Chinosca as we climb higher and higher on a traditional estancia or ranch, past grazing sheep and cattle. The hills are dotted with stumps of the traditional Linca trees—cut down in the early 1900s, our guide Alvaro Jaime tells us, both for energy in the new settlement of Puerto Natales and to provide more grazing land in those days.
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To St. Lucia
Boiling mud pots, rain forests, and a drive-in Volcano. All that and spectacular beaches, too, on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, which promises a lot more than your typical resort getaway. With a culture that has borrowed from both the British and French — the small island midway between Martinique and St. Vincent changed hands some 14 times before finally gaining independence in 1979.
