Take three buddies, mix well with a couple rounds of beer and a splash of middle-aged discontent and next thing you know you have a trio of reluctant cowpokes on the hard high prairie of Wyoming. Wait, they make movies about that, don’t they? Who can forget the reductive cattle drive in which they face off with their shortcomings and hopes? Not incidentally, they were on a vacation.

The great themes in life are played out in an adventure vacation. Man versus himself; man versus a reality show. In fact, it may be reality TV that’s to be credited with the surge in adventure vacation options. Even if you weren’t a fan of “Survivor: Borneo” in 2004, it’s likely you’ve heard of Richard and his proclivity for nudity. The others were kicked off the island while Richard went on to have his own website and a speaking career.

The thing about an adventure vacation, whether it’s a weekend or weeks on end, is that it offers takers a chance to see their world differently. Often with a dose of frustration. Followed by a splash of rejuvenation.

TOP 10 ADVENTURE
VACATION DESTINATIONS
The birthplace of American sport climbing, Smith Rock State Park in Oregon offers terrain for all levels of climbers, beginner through advanced, 40 to 400 ft. www.smithrockclimbingguides.com

Take five days to float 82 miles from McCall to Salmon, Idaho on state-of-the-art rafts. Sleep in a tent, enjoy
catered meals, and even your hunting dog is welcome on some float trips. www.adventureswild.com

Hike New Mexico in the footsteps of Georgia O’Keefe including a day at O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch and explore
Santa Fe, the nation’s oldest capital and a center of southwestern art. www.thewayfarers.com

Spend 24 hours traveling 142 kilometers through Costa Rica with an overnight stay in a cabin in the
rainforest and a visit to the beaches of Hermosa, each person riding an ATV. www.ricaventura.com

Travel through the Sonoran Desert in Arizona in a powerful Hummer, visiting Native American ruins
and deserted turquoise mines plus learn the history of the Stage Coach Trail. www.azhummertours.com
Hang 15 stories in the air over Lost Canyon in Sedalia, Colorado on a 275-foot-long zipline tour overlooking
1890’s lime kiln ruins and 300-million-year-old limestone formations. www.captainzipline.com

Get behind the wheel of a NASCAR-style stock car and learn the secrets of race car driving at five eastern
U.S. locations. Helmets and fire suits are provided to course participants.www.fasttrackracing.com

Honor your adventuresome side while still being the conservative you are with indoor skydiving at one of only
eight wind tunnels in the country. You’ll suit up in protective gear and attend ground school before flying as high as 42 ft. above ground. www.skyventurecolorado.com

The Sandou Circus School is the only school for the circus arts in Las Vegas, and one of the very few in America. Its new facility has a 30 ft. ceiling and 7,000 square feet to juggle and jump in. www.sandoucircusschool.com

If you’ve always wanted to be an astronaut, but went into accounting instead, spend a day training at the
Kennedy Space Center and learn what weightlessness and velocity really mean. www.kennedyspacecenter.com

Two Tales of Adventure

Remember: the point in taking an adventure trip is that you will come back from it validated, a changed person, as these adventure memoirs attest.

HUGGING A TREE

“How do you actually go about hugging a tree?” I inquire of a cynical British friend before visiting Meares Island, a tract of untouched towering timber off Canada’s Vancouver Island.

His eyes glinted playfully, lips twisting into a mocking smirk. “You just sneak up on it quietly, hug the damn thing and walk off. Just make sure its husband isn’t watching. Cedars can get pretty jealous.” I knew I’d
asked the wrong person.

First I have to kayak to the trees. Our guide, Candice Stevenson, holds up a nautical chart of Clayoquot
(pronounced Klak-wot) Sound. Our objective: Meares Island, an hour’s paddling away across the Browning
Passage. Meares is 98 percent untouched by man, virtually in the same pristine state it was in when
Commander John Meares sailed through the area in 1788 to develop fur trade.

Each of us snags a paddle, a life vest and a spray skirt, a kind of rubberized tutu that fits over the cockpit
of the kayak to keep out water droplets. Candice instructs us to pull a yellow tab on the skirt in case we find
ourselves suddenly inverted, chatting with salmon. Our departure is delayed because I jump into my kayak while the water is too shallow and bottom out—something Candice told us specifically not to do. In the end, Candice stabilizes my kayak while I flop in like a sack of halibut. “That’s it. You’re doing fine.” I was already her favorite pupil.

The 2,300-foot forested slopes of Meares bulge ahead. As we skirt the rocky shore, shallow crystal-clear water reveals a gaudy festival of sea life. Tofino residents cleared the Big Cedar Trail in 1981 to swell public support for preservation of the island’s titanic trees. In 1993, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations Indians erected a beautiful boardwalk, a circuit that takes hikers past some of the most ancient and enormous life forms on the planet. The hanging Garden Cedar, for instance, is more than 2,000 years old, 60 feet around and 20 feet across. It shoots 140-feet into the sky.

I meander a few meters and am gob-smacked, as the British say. This is one of those much-talked-about, spirit-filling, eye-opening once-in-a-lifetime episodes. At Poster Tree, I’m smitten. There’s something about the comfortable shape of the trunk, the sweep of the boughs that tells me this is the one.

“Would it be alright if I hugged this cedar?” I ask Candice. I feel as though mine is not an everyday request.

My cheek scrapes painfully across its rough wet bark. Completely unresponsive, it’s like cuddling up to an axe handle or a telephone pole. I dab at the long scratch across my cheek. Next time I think we’ll just talk. I hear trees are good listeners. –Michael Skorulski

SEEKING THE VORTEX

I’m hiking in Boynton Canyon near Sedona, Arizona, and the woman behind me is berating her husband for not warning her to wear hiking boots, speaking to him in a voice which tells of ongoing bitterness. Yesterday, the owner of Sedona’s Center for the New Age—a shop full of crystals, tarot cards, flute music and dreamy-eyed patrons—enlightened me on the various energy vortexes around Sedona. “There are two types of energies coming from the rocks: magnetic (female) and electric (male). Boynton Canyon has both,” she said. “It’s balanced, so you’ll notice people there are calm. There’s no male-female tension in Boynton Canyon.”

Wow, I’d said. It could save a lot on lawyer fees.

The vortex woman said that the best way to feel the vortex energy was to go on a guided trek. At $250, I figured Rob and I could find the vortexes on our own and maybe eavesdrop on a guided tour, letting leftover sacred energy spill onto us.

We discover that Boynton Canyon’s vortex is just 50 yards from the parking lot, conveniently. All I feel is the midday sun burning my face. But I’m not deterred. We decide to watch the sunset from Airport Vortex. It’s a short but steep climb to the top of the vortex and on my way up I pass a middle-aged woman huffing and puffing coming down. “I didn’t feel anything,” she says to her husband. At the top, I stare out across the dizzying grandeur of the high desert landscape and a feeling gradually starts to come over me: starvation. I could go for a super burrito right now.

The next day we go to Cathedral Rock and try seriously to sense the surges of energy. I close my eyes. Then I hear something stirring—low murmurs drifting up through the funnels of the red ground straight to
my heart. Hallelujah. I open my eyes to see a group of people sitting in a circle across the creek. They’re chanting. They’re also dressed funny, wearing black capes and wide-brimmed mauve hats. A moment before, I’d thought I’d just felt God, or somebody like him, and now I just feel crummy.

By Laurie Gough