Although this 3-day weekend of live music and great microbrews from the southwest and beyond is not technically at the resort, the town of Telluride, Colorado wouldn't be much more than a tumbleweed museum and billy goat hang out without the mountain destination.
You can expect lots of great blues and roots bands at the Telluride Blues and Brews Festival starting September 12, including Canned Heat, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, G. Love and Special Sauce and Gov't Mule. The list of brewers is 56 strong and will include heavy hitters and little-knowns alike from as far way as Georgia. Big names to look for include Sierra Nevada, Moab Brewery and Santa Fe Brewing Company.
There are lots of hotel options available in town and there is camping available for $40. Entrance to the festival can be purchased day-to-day or you can go for the full monty for $155. Birkenstocks, patchouli and dreadlocks will not get you any discounts either, hippies!
While we sweat it out here in the States, going to cook outs, forming relationships that won't last past Labor Day and crashing on our friends' couch at their beach house, life in the deep Southern hemisphere is in full-on winter mode. Argentina has been having a moment the last couple years with lots of coverage about super-cool Buenos Aires. But a lesser known feather in the old Argentine cap is the Las Leñas ski area.
Located just 90 minutes by air from Buenos Aires, the Las Leñas Valley is a hot spot for South American ski nuts as well as North Americans looking for the perfect year-round snow buzz. The base area of the resort is pretty much the whole town, where you'll find cheap-to-five-star dining options and lodging, as well as clubs and bars that go off all night.
For people from North America, the mountain definitely has a much different look and feel: This stretch of the Andes has craggy, cathedral-esque formations full of open snowfields and tight, steep chutes. So whether you're headed down to experience a different culture or the rush of your life, Las Leñas has you covered.
The Food & Wine Classic, takes place this weekend in the swellest mountain town in the USA, Aspen, Colorado. It's the Art Basel of American cuisine, a place where you can sample some of the country's finest wines, attend a "Future of Flavor" seasoning seminar by high cuisine juggernaut McCormick and steal away to the US Open viewing lounge to gripe to other dudes about how all you want to do is play some golf and get away from your wife and her drunk friends.
Beginning this Friday afternoon, there are some really quality events such as the Sam Adams beer pairing with food and a documentary about Spanish wine country held at the Aspen Opera House. (We're pretty sure Aspen is the only ski town with an opera house.)
Bromley Mountain is having quite the political summer. Vermont's senior senator, Democrat Patrick Leahy, snuck a provision into a recent farm bill that would have had the federal government sell some national forest land to the ski resort in his state. But President Bush--or more likely one of his aides--caught the earmark; Bush specifically cited the proposed sale as one reason he vetoed the farm bill.
Congress didn't care for that, and they overrode the veto--only to find out that a paperwork mistake will force a re-vote on the entire thing. So Bush may have yet another chance to stick it to Leahy and Bromley Mountain.
In the meantime, the resort has plenty of summer activities on its current property. A three-track alpine slide is the main draw, but the zip line, "space bikes" and water slide also look pretty decent. If they ever get that extra land from the national forest, who knows what might be added... Maybe a statue of a senator?
There's great hope for agoraphobic water slide enthusiasts this summer at Silver Mountain in Kellogg, Idaho. The Silver Rapids indoor water park has thrills for everyone from toddlers to those taller than 42" inches that want to get their butts handed to them via the FlowRider, an artificial wave that moves at 35 mph.
We like this faux-wave not only for its overall water park bar-raising but also for its resemblance in name to one of our current favorite hip hop stars, FloRida. There's tons of great footage on YouTube of people getting absolutely wrecked on this "ride," but there's also some cool footage of pro surfers killing it.
For those of us that don't want to risk bodily injury, the 315-foot North Fork Lazy River is an option, and there's a variety of traditional water slides to try. And we couldn't help but notice Trestles Surfside Grill & Hot Tubs: Nothing speaks to us like the potential for enjoying a cold one while sitting in 105 degree bubbling water with some strangers from Idaho.
The water park in an airplane hanger costs nothing if you're staying at The Morning Star Lodge at Silver Mountain, otherwise it's $27. Rain, shine or crippling fear of the outdoors, it's time to slide.
We love that scene in "The Great Outdoors" when John Candy takes the kids to the dump to watch the bears feed off garbage. Things start getting a little out hand after the bears mount the hood of their car, remember? Funny, sure, but it's not necessarily the way we'd go about bear watching. Luckily the folks at Whistler/Blackcomb resort have come up with a better way to do some wildlife spotting.
Bear expert Michael Allen has been studying the animals in British Columbia for the last 15 years. His work with bears has been internationally recognized, and he's the host of the BBC's Natural World program "In the Company of Bears." For $190, Mike will take you out at sunset--in a 4x4 and on foot--to see bears in their natural habitat without having to worry about being disemboweled or otherwise maimed.
You'll drive and walk through old growth Hemlock forests and high-alpine meadows to see bear dens, bear daybeds and--if you're lucky--a mother and cub playing together. Something this precious is usually only reserved for the fronts of Hallmark sympathy cards, so steel your nerves to fend off the tears.
We've always been curious about bobsledding and the Olympians who make up the US team. The entire sport seems to be shrouded in mystery: Who are these people that become Olympic-level bobsledders? Seems like a serious boarding school sport, up there with fencing, badminton and sneering.
For us non-blue bloods, the Park City Mountain Resort offers a moderately daring and inexpensive alternative with the summertime Alpine Slide. For $11, you can select one of four different courses to race down on your own sled. Unlike bobsledding no helmets are required and if it gets too scary, you can pull the brake.
The 3,000 foot course down the banked concrete track is not exactly like racing 90 degrees up an ice wall at 60 mph, but for a casual summer afternoon, it does the trick. As long as you're over four feet tall, you can be the captain of your alpine slide ship.
We recommend arranging a four-person race with your friends, adding a fifth to stand on the side mid-course somewhere and wildly ring a cowbell for that Olympic rush. After about 27 of those 3.2 Utah beers, you'll be raising the stars and stripes and belting out the national anthem in no time.
Going to a ski resort in the summer sounds like a half-baked idea that your dad comes up with to save a couple bucks while getting some fresh air. Can't you just imagine standing at the base of a mountain while dear old dad waxes on about how beautiful it must be all covered in snow? Next year, kids!
But what if your old man was craftier than that and took you to the new 3,100-foot Heavenly Flyer zip line at Heavenly Mountain Resort? It's the longest zip line in the lower 48 and hits speeds of 50 mph on the way down. It would be a lot cooler if you had to hold on for dear life like on the zip lines you grew up with, but insurance companies get kind of grouchy about stuff like that: You'll have to settle for being strapped into a seat.
For $30 a ride, this is a unique way to experience some of the best views of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding mountains. No doubt taking in the sights from 50 feet up at 50 mph will make for unforgettable daddy issues for decades to come.
(Btw, the Flyer doesn't re-open for the summer season until Friday, June 13.)
0 Comments - Add Yours
by DanielR
