Hard & Soft

SanJuan

11/25/02

11:13 AM

Traveler Condé Nast

Page 3

SAN JUAN REV SHIPPED 11/18

While biking, hiking, and kayaking in the San Juan Islands, Tracy Young tries to keep her balance between extreme activity and extreme indolence

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

STORY EDITOR DESIGNER COPY EDITOR PHOTO EDITOR



0103-TR-WE21

SanJuan

11/25/02

11:13 AM

Page 4

Traveler Condé Nast

SAN JUAN SHIPPED 11/15

warm-up ride: a seventeen-mile loop, then back to the dock, ferry to Lopez Island, and another five or so miles to our B&B. But the fit and fabulous riders among my trip mates, whom I’ve already heard chatting knowledgeably about which obscure European just won that day’s stage in the Tour de France, have long since dropped me. Well, the hell with them. I shift into a granny gear and grind up yet another hill. By the time we’ve ferried across to Lopez and begun cruising along its comparatively flat west coast, I’m already half in love. In the early evening, the light has that quality you find only in places where farmland abuts the ocean and cows outnumber cars. The cars I do spot are old, albeit perfectly maintained—testaments to either the benign climate or some native frugality. Or maybe I’ve pedaled into a time warp. Truth be told, the old fishermen and farmers, seafarers and smugglers are gone; the software millionaires are at the gates: Perhaps the beauty of this place is enhanced by foreboding. But I digress. Riding a bicycle will do that: free one’s mind to spin its own circles within circles while the landscape unreels, a bright, flickering ribbon, like an afterthought. As we swoop down the last stretch SO HERE I AM, HUFFING UPof road into tiny Lopez Village, just hill on Guemes Island and trying not a handful of shops scattered along to curse myself for leaving my own the water, my heart leaps. The Edenbike at home and riding a rental. I wild is a gabled cottage with stained admit it: I’m an equipment geek. I love my titanium. I wish I could replace a few disks in my glass in the upper windows, a broad front lawn surrounded back with it. I also wish I hadn’t been so arrogant as to think by a white picket fence, and huge sprays of flowers whose that I could forgo training and pedal blithely into the July bright shrieks of color keep the overall effect from being exsunset, which, here in the incredibly picturesque and sur- cessively tidy. Inside, it’s charming, despite too many images of the Virgin Mary hanging over the piano for me to prisingly hilly San Juans, comes at about ten o’clock. I need to calm down and pace myself. I’m still jet- feel entirely comfortable. In my room, a big bay window overlooks the water, and a decanter of sherry and a plate of lagged. Luckily, this is just a chocolates rest on a side table, as inviting as Communion. ORCAS Eastsound Now this is living, I think, as I treat my aching muscles to Mt. Constitution Deer Harbor a cascade of hot water, then wrap myself in a fluffy towel Resort and loll on my queen-size bed, leafing through a copy of Orcas GUEMES Vogue and looking for perfume inserts. This is how any sane person travels by bicycle. Friday Harbor N M Y FA N TA S Y L I F E , I A M T H E

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

Sebastian Junger of leisure travel. I crave anything that smacks of athletic derringdo. If I knew I’d be reincarnated as a fourteen-year-old boy, I’d happily die right now. Don’t send me solicitations from AARP. I’d rather leaf through outfitters’ brochures and surf their Web sites, reveling in fresh-air pornography as I imagine myself in an orgy of activities that promise to push my limits and massage my ego while somebody else—I’m thinking of a tour guide as a really buff geisha—does the scut work. Dazzled by possibilities, I’ve finally chosen eight days of cycling, hiking, and sea kayaking in the San Juan Islands and Victoria, British Columbia, with Bicycle Adventures. I’m attracted to the Northwest, with its astringent cleanliness and brawny topography that make you want to go out and chop wood; I enjoy cycling; and Bicycle Adventures has a great rep. My only concern is that the trip is billed as “suitable for all levels.” I’m worried that it won’t be tough enough.

I loll on my queensize bed, leafing through “Vogue.” This is how any sane person travels by bicycle

Guemes

VANCOUVER ISL A ND Laurel Pine Inn

Victoria STRA IT

ADA CAN .S. U

STORY EDITOR

SAN JUAN

OF JU AN D E FUC

Anacortes

ANACORTES LOPEZ WHIDBEY ISL A ND

A BRITISH COLUMBIA Area of detail

5 miles

DESIGNER

Port Angeles Red Lion Inn

COPY EDITOR PHOTO EDITOR Hu

rr i c an

eR

idg e

OL M YMP TS IC .

WASHINGTON

Pacific Ocean

CANADA U Seattle .S. WASHINGTON

OREGON

IDAHO

LATER THAT NIGHT, AT THE BAY CAFE, BILL

and I are trying to decide whether to opt for a vegetarian dish and then blow it all on strawberry pie, or to drop the pretense and gorge on meat. Bill is a hardbody from Florida. He’s ridden across the country a few times, swims every day, and has acquired the nickname Downhill Bill because he hates brakes. Bill is also somewhere in his sixties, I am astonished to learn; before we were beset by the more pressing problem of what to eat, we were talking about what happened to the spirit of ’68. This is what you call a bonding experience, or at the very least an icebreaker, because if hell is other people, the biggest risk you take on an adventure tour is spending 24/7 with a group of strangers. Fortunately, our crew of fourC O N D É N A S T T R AV E L E R / c n t r a v e l e r. c o m

0103-TR-WE22

Map by Joyce Pendola

Edenwild

SanJuan

11/25/02

11:13 AM

Traveler Condé Nast

Page 5

SAN JUAN SHIPPED 11/15

Awaiting the swells on Orcas; ready kayaks (left) on Lopez; spoils of the sea (right) at Orcas’s Inn at Ship Bay. Milkshakes for muscles at the Lopez Pharmacy; heading out from the Edenwild Inn (left); sweet mussels (far left) at Sean Paul’s on Orcas.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

STORY EDITOR Exploring Lopez Reef Park; flavorful tidbits (right) at Sean Paul’s; bird-watching off Orcas (far right).

DESIGNER COPY EDITOR PHOTO EDITOR



0103-TR-WE23

SanJuan

11/25/02

11:13 AM

Page 6

Traveler Condé Nast

SAN JUAN SHIPPED 11/15

Places&Prices Multisport trips offer at least three ways to experience superb landscapes. For trips that also combine rigorous days with plush nights, turn to page 213.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

QUAD darken highlites behind P&P to read teen has everything from soup to nuts. (Jack, the head guide, is a former dairy farmer and helicopter pilot who was strafing villages in Vietnam while I was being teargassed in DuPont Circle.) If there is a common denominator, it’s the willingness to appear in public wearing Lycra shorts. As for the spirit of the sixties, it’s morphed into something not unlike a yin and yang of hard and soft, sin and redemption. Or, as Jack says, “Some people eat to ride. I ride to eat.” “What amazes people is how you can bike all day and still gain weight,” adds Jack, as we amble back to the Edenwild through the twilight, waterskiers and tube riders cutting dark swaths on the surface of the bay. I’m not surprised, I say. “They should just call this tour ‘Pedal and Pork.’” STORY EDITOR AFTER TWO POSTCARD-PERFECT DAYS ON LOPEZ,

DESIGNER

we ferry to Orcas Island, thirty minutes away. Lying in the lee of the Olympic Range, the San Juans enjoy a more felicitous climate than other parts of the Northwest; the sun has already warmed the air enough that I can watch from

COPY EDITOR PHOTO EDITOR

the bow as we steam through what looks like a broken necklace of enormous evergreen pearls. The 172 islands that poke up out of the brilliant waters of Puget Sound are, in fact, the lost peaks of a receding continent. And by now, our group has pretty much split into two camps according to how each of us feels about climbing them. Bill has ditched me to hook up with Karen, a young mountain biking–buffed technology reporter from Colorado, and Perry, a mild-mannered lawyer who turns into Superman when he gets on his bike. I too have found my soul mates: two teenage sisters from Houston. Lindsy and Lauren have been schlepped along by their parents, whom they regard with some amusement. Ron and Ellis are hard-core. They ride more miles in a week than most people do in a year. This trip, the girls tell me, is just a chance to shape up before they leave later in the summer for cycling camp in Italy. When we regroup for lunch at the base of Mount Constitution, the highest point in the San Juans, Ron and Ellis join the others of their ilk to sprint up



0103-TR-WE24

SanJuan

11/25/02

11:13 AM

Traveler Condé Nast

Page 7

SAN JUAN SHIPPED 11/15

From a perch atop Orcas, the vista encompasses the islands of the Northwest; Bicycle Adventures’ fleet (below left).

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

the 2,200-foot “hill.” The teenagers and I fill our pockets with M&Ms and set out on foot. The trail we have chosen—six circuitous miles—is steep and rocky enough that we clamber on all fours and then stop to rest. But it’s beautiful in the forest, the sun slanting down through huge ferns that grow like mutant sci-fi foliage among the stately pines, and preternaturally quiet except for the occasional breathless expletive. “What was that?” says Lindsy, whirling around. The underbrush rustles like in the soundtrack of The Blair Witch Project; then Goose and Mike heave into view. A nice laid-back couple from Florida, they are not hard-core. At least Goose isn’t; I’m not so sure about Mike. What they are for certain is wildly compatible: Goose allows Mike to urge her up the hills; Mike allows Goose to drag him along shopping. And Goose can shop anywhere. One day she collected an armful of driftwood, which the teenagers and I decided were “pirate sex toys.”

“Ooosh!” says Goose and collapses on a large boulder. We’re just a few miles from the top, where the road crosses the trail, but Goose is cooked. Then Lauren sits down and refuses to budge. I soldier on with Lindsy and Mike. This is supposed to be a multisport trip, and I intend to vary my routine even though it might have been easier to ride up: On a bicycle, you feel weightless; walking uphill, every extra pound is a reproach. With each step I take, a demon’s voice (part Lance Armstrong, part Anna Wintour) whispers in my ear: “Fatso.” Three hours crawl by before we come out from the trees and perch on a ridge that hangs like a balcony off the side of the mountain. Sitting on the edge of the drop-off, surrounded by wildflowers, I feel as if I’m flying. I definitely feel ten pounds lighter. I can see snowcapped Mount Baker miles away, and Vancouver Island, where we will be three days hence. Scattered at a vertiginous distance from my feet are islands, for all their apparent uniformity(Continued on page 228)

After two miles, I’m sweating so profusely that I pull over to strip off my jacket. This is a big mistake

STORY EDITOR DESIGNER COPY EDITOR PHOTO EDITOR



0103-TR-WE25

SanJuanRO

11/25/02

4:45 PM

Page 2

Traveler Condé Nast

SAN JUAN RO SHIPPED 11/19

SAN JUAN ISLANDS (Continued from page 113) as distinctly different as siblings.

U

NLIKE LOPEZ, WHICH IS BUCO-

STORY EDITOR

lic and serene, Orcas bustles with ambitious restaurants and shoppers. The Deer Harbor Resort is so spanking new that the landscaping hasn’t yet grown in. From the hot tub on my deck I can watch the seaplanes as they buzz in and out, shuttling tech millionaires from their offices in Redmond to their weekend island retreats. Orcas is also a jock’s paradise. Sports cars, roof racks bristling with equipment, career around hairpin turns; outfitters are on every corner; and lures include five thousand acres of Moran State Park and fishing, scuba diving, and kayaking in Puget Sound. Lauren has decided that she wants me to be her kayaking partner—much to the chagrin of her parents, who are more or less my age and seem vaguely perturbed by my rapport with their children, even though I have switched from Marlboro Lights to American Spirits in deference to the rigors of the week. After we strap on our life jackets and get a brief introduction to the rudiments of paddling, we give the dock a good shove. I struggle to steer us past the yachts moored nearby without banging into Lauren’s paddle—or her head. But what we’re doing is far from strenuous. A sea kayak is designed to slice through the waves like a hot knife through butter, and it’s buoyant enough that despite our lack of finesse, even I feel graceful as we glide across the water. Deer Harbor is a lot like a pond. There are no waves, no current, and no appreciable threat except from the occasional powerboat—or from Perry and Bob attempting to ram us. We meander along the shoreline past ropes of kelp as thick as my waist, then out the mouth of the harbor. We’re greeted by a seal poking its sleek head out of the water, twitching its whiskers, and staring with quizzical black eyes. The hardest part of this whole exercise is that I’m doing all the work. Lauren sits up in the bow like Cleopatra on her barge, indolently dipping her paddle in the water. This, I realize, is the secret of youth. I’m trying to stave off middle age by pushing my physical limits, but being young is all about oversleeping and never lifting a finger.

DESIGNER

S E L F - C O N TA I N M E N T, I NAC C E S S I -

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

COPY EDITOR PHOTO EDITOR

and we zigzag from island to island, we see die-hard hippies and refugees from Silicon Valley rubbing shoulders with born-again Christians. On Shaw Island, a Franciscan nun named Sister Dorothy runs the ferry. And Victoria, on Vancouver Island, is a heady brew of cultures—part British pomp, part Pacific Rim exotic, part native Northwest indigence. We spend one morning clomping noisily along the brick paths of the world-famous Burtchardt Gardens, a former bauxite mine turned into a Disneyesque Eden by a wacky millionaire. In Victoria, the cushiness level of our accommodations rises precipitously: Sunk in the Jacuzzi of an enormous suite at the Laurel Point Inn, eating grapes from a basket of on-the-house fruit, I find the prospect of another gourmet meal almost more than I can bear. I resolve to eat only what Peggy eats: oatmeal at breakfast; peanut butter and jelly for lunch. Peggy is my idol. A retired third-grade teacher, she’s a little bit of a thing, probably five feet tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she churns up the hills like the Energizer Bunny. When everyone else heads into town to shop, Peggy goes hunting for a gym—a partial explanation for why she enjoyed Bicycle Adventures’ “Volcanoes of Washington” trip, which includes a ride up Mount Rainier. “The first time wasn’t so bad,” she said, “but we had to climb it twice.”

A seal pokes its sleek head out of the water, twitches its whiskers, and stares

bility . . . who knows exactly what psychogeographic alchemy makes an island so hospitable to eccentrics. Whatever it is, the San Juans have it in spades. As the week wears on 

O

UR LAST STOP, PORT ANGELES,

is a far cry from the European sophistication of Victoria and the pastoral charm of the San Juans. We shack up at a Red Lion Inn and eat bad pizza for dinner. It’s a blue-collar town, undistinguished except for one famously sharp-eyed customs agent who nabbed Ahmed Ressam en route to blowing up LAX in 1999. At the tip of the Olympic Peninsula, it is also the northern gateway to Olympic National Park, and that’s why we’re here, to ride up Hurricane Ridge, climbing 5,200 feet in eighteen miles. “You can do this ride,” Jack tells us over breakfast. “It’s not that steep, it’s just long. You just have to grind it out.” I stuff a pair of leg warmers in my jersey to wear on the freezing descent, and hurry out to catch up with Lindsy, whom I’ve encouraged to attempt this maniac feat. Jack had said that the first five miles are the toughest, but I try not to think about that. I just concentrate on breathing into my legs as the road angles up toward the park. After two miles, I’m sweating so profuse-

ly that I pull over to strip off my jacket and have a drink of water. This is a big mistake. I lose my momentum and struggle to get back up to speed. Peggy and Bobby, Bill and Karen, Ron and Ellis, Perry—even Goose’s boyfriend, Mike—have disappeared. I can still see Lindsy, so I keep spinning my wheels—three, four, five miles?— leaving the city far below as I climb. I crest the hill, and I see a big patch of grass in front of a cabin by the side of the road. Suddenly I am as sleepy as a character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. All I want to do is lie down in that soft grass. Which I do. Twenty minutes later, Jack comes pedaling steadily up the hill in his cycling sandals. “Everything okay?” “I’m fine,” I say. I have had an epiphany: Doing this for another ten miles is not only impossible, it’s absurd. I flag down the support van when it comes by.

R

EGARDLESS OF HOW YOU GET

there, the summit of Hurricane Ridge awards you with a prize: a panorama of snow-sheathed glaciers that plunge into dense green forest cut by rivers you can’t see but can only hear. I watch Peggy’s husband, Bobby, round the final bend, pipe cleaner legs pumping, a big grin plastered on his face. Next comes Peggy, shaking her head as if she can’t quite believe it. Then Bill and Karen . . . Perry! . . . Ellis and Ron, who dismounts and raises his bike over his head in a victory salute. Shortly after noon, while everyone gathers around the van to eat lunch and swap war stories, Mike comes laboring up the road, purple with exertion. Just before the top, he stops and gets off his bike. He staggers around, remounts, then seems to think better of it. Finally, he cranks his way up the last two hundred yards to the parking lot. It’s like watching Rocky. I could kick myself. I realize that I gave up without a fight. Had I pushed harder, I too could have enjoyed the uniquely sensual pleasure of suffering for a goal. It would have balanced the whole week, the yin and yang of hard and soft. But my biggest accomplishment was eating all that food. “How you feeling, Mike?”Lauren asks. “I think I’ve gone numb down below,” Mike drawls. “Well, I guess Goose will be taking home that piece of driftwood.” Meanwhile, the riders pull on their leg warmers and zip their jackets, ready for the long, freezing descent. “You can ride down too, if you want,”Jack says to me. I could, except I decide I’d rather postpone that thrill. I want another shot, another mountain. Same time, next year. ■ C O N D É N A S T T R AV E L E R / c n t r a v e l e r. c o m