Outdoors Around New York

by Erik Olsen on

Found this nifty list of
outdoors stuff if you live in or around New York City. Covers everything from
kayaking the harbor to surfing
Montauk and diving New Jersey. They also recommend kiteboarding in Napeague Harbor, which is a new one to me.

With the weather as bad and brutal as it is here right now (I swear it’s the hottest I can remember…I just got back
from a run and genuinely feel dizzy from the heat and humidity) hitting the river for a little kayaking, or blowing
bubbles 100 feet under sounds pretty welcoming.

Lifelist Intro – New Feature

by Erik Olsen on

Are there things in life that you’ve always dreamed of doing, that you
told yourself with utter seriousness: I will do that someday? If so, then you have started your life list. It may be
just in your head for now, but the fact is, you’ve started a list of things that will make your life more fulfilling,
more adventuresome. That’s a good first step.

Now we want to help.

In the spirit of the grandfather of life-lists, John
Goddard, we are beginning a feature called Lifelist. Every week or so we’ll choose one great adventure and do some
of the research for you. We’ll help you discover new ideas, find outfitters, stories and everything else we can, to
help you build your own life list. Ever said you were going to climb
Aconcagua, scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef, learn
Arabic, BASE jump some high rocky place? So have we.

We hope too that this will be a collaborative effort, so if you have items on YOUR lifelist that you’d like us to
include, send us tips or post comments. Also, if you’ve ever done any of the things on the lifelist items we feature,
tell us. We’d love to hear about it, and to get some dialogue going.  As we progress, we hope you add these babies
to YOUR lifelist and start knocking them off, one by one.

Flatwater Sprint National Championships

by Erik Olsen on

Having lived in Seattle for six or so years, I always knew of Green Lake as the place to go for a nice run, maybe
play some volleyball and hang out and read. I had no idea that it was the staging point for a major paddling
competition.

The Flatwater Sprint National Championships began
earlier this week and continue through  Saturday at
Green Lake. The event is attracting major paddling athletes and fans from all over as they gather along the lakeside
and zoom over its glassy surface. One of the competitors is 19 year-old Lauren Austin, who actually grew up a block
from the lake. The paddlers will be going head to head to compete for the title of National Champion. You can catch
results here.

Paddler Magazine Celebrity Issue

by Erik Olsen on

A while back I was asked by Paddler Magazine (for whom I
wrote an earlier profile) to find out if David Lee Roth would do an interview with me about his paddling hobby. DLR (as
you might remember from those late 80s MTV videos of him roped in and running around a vertical face of rock) fancies
himself quite the outdoorsman. And he is. Apparently he takes his climbing and paddling and keeping fit thing very
seriously. (How else is he going to fit into those tiger-striped stretch pants?) I understand he is also training to be
a paramedic. So Dave is obviously a very busy guy, which
perhaps explains why he wouldn’t return my phone calls and emails.

Anyway, as we’ve now seen in a gazillion different places, what celebrities do off screen is apparently of great
interest to the general public. So much so that even the afore-mentioned
Paddler Magazine is getting into the act. This month
Paddler is running its celebrity paddling issue. While they don’t post much online, I glean from the cover that such
celestials as Kevin Costner, Meryl Streep and Marilyn Monroe were/are all paddling fans. Now, I wish Dave would have
returned my call…if just to hear him rip on Sammy Hagar…but I do have to wonder when all this will stop? Will it? Ever?
Someone please tell me it will.

Wish I Was Paddling Fiji

by Erik Olsen on

Well there are several things I can think of that I’d rather be doing right now than sitting down at my desk on a Monday and writing. Let’s see…hmm…Jacuzzi party at Hef’s mansion…diving the Well there are several things I can think of that I’d rather be doing right now than sitting down at my desk on a Monday and writing. Let’s see…hmm…Jacuzzi party at Hef’s mansion…diving the Galapagos…wine tasting in Napa…oh, and how about paddling Fiji. Yes, that would be nice. Waking up and having nothing to do all day but draw quiet strokes across the cerulean surface of the South Pacific. I could do that.

Well, that’s what Robin Stanton got to do recently. Her adventure trip included not just paddling, but hiking, mountain biking and lots of good South Pacific grub. They visited local villages like Malake Village, where they hung out with the locals and dined on fish, chicken, taro leaves, and cassava (sorry, I’ve had both taro and cassava…yuck).

Anyway, as I stumbled in this morning from a searing weekend, I pondered momentarily where I might rather be, and as I say, paddling in Fiji is right up there. And Hef’s place would be cool too.