Montreal for the Aquatically Inclined

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s not so often that one finds a world class adventure river splicing through a world class city of
culture.  But, as Eve Glasberg reports in The New York Times, Montreal is one amazing place that is blessed
with both.

Visitors to this French Canadian city can not only indulge in fine museums, galleries and outstanding restaurants,
but they can also don wet suits and enjoy either the wild St. Lawrence River or the tamer Lachine Canal. 

A number of tour operators, such as Les Descentes sur le St.-Laurent,
offer white water aficionados both rafting and jet boat tours of some gnarly rapids (anyone know the French word for
gnarly?).  Water lovers who prefer the more prosaic, can opt for kayaks and
pedal boats on the smooth waters of the nearby Lachine Canal. The nine-mile canal
was constructed in 1825 with the sole purpose of detouring ships around the aforementioned rapids that have now become
such a tourist attraction.  The canal was closed in 1970 (after the St. Lawrence Seaway opened) and then converted
into a recreational boating park in 2004. 

As an added bonus, the canal is lined with a bounty of parks and bike trails.  In fact, Montreal has over 200
miles of bike trails.  This is why, as Glasberg points out, Bicycling Magazine has awarded it the very
best bicycling city in North America. 

Peddle or paddle, Montreal is definitely worth a visit.

Adventure Tours

by Neil Woodburn on

The centerpiece of this year’s Men’s Journal Adventure Issue is the adventures
themselves.  The May issue highlights a great selection of
“Classic Adventure Trips” and tells
us how to do them right.  Although I’m always a little skeptical when such articles point us directly to
tour outfitters who will help us do such things, the writers have at least included enough information to whet
appetites and get the old adventure spirit pumping.

While some of the Classic Adventures can be accomplished easily enough on your own—diving the Great Barrier
Reef, cycling through Tuscany, and surfing Scorpion Bay in Mexico—others are far more involved and you might do
well to consider some of the tour operators even if you hate this type of organized travel as much as I do. 
Let’s face it; you’re never going to raft the Zambezi River or race a sailboat across the Atlantic on your
own. 

LandRover Adventures in Moab

by Erik Olsen on

It seems like every old movie
showing a vehicle moving across the yawning African landscape features one kind of vehicle: a Land Rover. Am I right?
OK, maybe you’ll see a Jeep now and again, but if the characters in the film are at all wealthy, colonial or scientific
types, it’s ALWAYS a Land Rover. The fact is the Land Rover is synonymous with
driving across forbidding territory. And they seem to know this. And more, they want you to learn more about it. Land
Rover in fact, offers courses in how to drive on tough terrain, and you don’t even have to go very far to try it.

For example, the Land Rover folks are offering an off-road driver training program in Moab, Utah this summer.
Moab, as you know, is probably better known as a mountain-0biking Mecca, but the off-roading must be great there too,
providing an excellent backdrop for the Land Rover Adventure. During the
four-day trip, you’ll drive with a professional Land Rover instructor and cruise some of the most picturesque trails in
Moab. Here are some more details:

Duration: 4 days, 3 nights, Thursday to Sunday

Dates to
Choose From:
May 11-14, 2006
May 18-21, 2006

Biking Cross Country

by Erik Olsen on

So you want to ride your bicycle across country. OK. Nice idea. But are you really
ready for it? Do you know what you’re up against and what a trip like that is going to cost? Well, writer/rider Calvin
Woodard is here to help. Woodard did the trip already, and has advice that he is more than happy to share. So how much WILL it cost to ride across country? Plan on $4,000
to $5,000, Woodard says, assuming that you will rest your weary legs after a day of pedal pushing in cheapo hotels.

One of your biggest expenses, perhaps no surprise, is your bike. Woodard advises you go for one of the hard-core
touring models, which will set you back as much as $1200. Which direction should you ride? Woodard says it doesn’t
really matter, but that West to East is probably more popular. Perhaps that’s because people like to end up in a place
like New York where they can blow it out at the end of such an expedition. Other concerns? He says theft is not a big
deal, presuming you’re not riding in the inner cities. Also, bring a light, a cell phone and a strong will.

Cycling Moab

by Erik Olsen on

Moab. Even though I cannot say I’ve ever biked
there, I am a massive fan of the IDEA of biking there. Now, I’ve posted here about mountain biking in Utah many times,
and have talked up Moab and several other great places in Utah to ride out your fat tire fantasies. And there’s no harm
in repetition, so I am going to do it again.

First, check out this piece over at (of all places) ABC News, that takes you to the arid basin where
the rocks are slick and the riding is said to be superb. Then hustle over to Outside, which has got nice
recommendation from an earlier month on biking in Utah. In fact, they call out the Telluride-to-Moab mountain-bike
route, a 215-mile pedal that takes you from 14,000-foot peaks and tree-carpeted slopes down to the twisting canyons of
Utah’s red-rock country.  The ride and trail is apparently run San Juan Hut
Systems, and seems to me the way to go.