Mountains | Hole In The Donut Cultural Travel

Measuring Wealth in the Himalayas

Published July 12, 2012 | By Barbara Weibel

I stood on the stairway leading to the Buddhist Monastery in the Himalayan town of Marpha, holding onto the railing for dear life as as gale force gusts shredded the gauzy Tibetan prayer flags cascading down from the hilltop. Like every other day in Nepal‘s Lower Mustang Valley, ferocious winds had begun roaring down from the mountaintops in mid-morning and would continue until early evening. Struggling to keep from being blown over, I perused the tiny village that spread beneath me.

Incessant winds rip down from the mountains every afternoon in Lower Mustang, shredding prayer flags on the hilltop monastery

Marpha is notable for it’s many-storied old stone houses, built by hand without benefit of mud or mortar, and for the delicious apples grown in the lush valley that snakes between the Nilgiri and Dahlugiri Himalayan ranges. While I found those facts intriguing, what most caught my attention were the stacks of split firewood that lined the edges of the flat roofs of every home in town. Continue reading →

Posted in Asia travel |

Tagged blogsherpa, cultural travel, culture, Himalayas, lower mustang, marpha, mountains, Nepal, Pokhara, Travel |

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An Adirondack Water Wonderland

Published September 11, 2011 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Adirondack Park, NY

The weather-rounded mountains of upstate New York undulate between hundreds of lakes that dot Adirondack Park like an enormous sea serpent. Anchoring its dusky blue-black tail on the horizon, the creature dips its shimmering green coils into one cobalt pool of water after another as it slithers down the mountains. I followed its serpentine route to the village of Tupper Lake where I dipped my toes into the lake of the same name and stopped to visit The Wild Center, a natural history museum that focuses on one of the world’s critical issues: the coexistence of people and nature.

Fascinated by trouts in the Living River at The Wild Center, Tupper Lake, Adirondack Park

Clear-cut by loggers in the mid-19th century, the Adirondack Mountains may be the nation’s prime example of the negative impact that man can have on the natural world, as well as a rare example of human actions that have helped nature stage a comeback over the past 100 years. The Wild Center encourages that relationship with interactive exhibits like its Living River Trail, a trout stream that culminates in a waterfall where river otters cavort. One young boy knelt on the floor and pressed his nose to the glass, laughing with delight each time a trout darted by. A giant mound of ice at the Glacial Wall demonstrated how glaciers carved out the Adirondacks at the end of the last ice age. The icy stalagmite was pitted where visitors had pressed their fingers into it; I touched an unblemished area, assuming I could easily leave an impression of my fingertips. Sixty seconds later I withdrew my numb fingers without having made the slightest dent, giving me new perspective on those two-mile thick sheets of ice that disappeared from the face of the earth.

Lake Flower in the village of Saranac Lake

Later that afternoon I drove down the serpent’s spine, past Lower Saranac Lake, Lake Flower, and Lake Placid, emerging at the city of Plattsburgh and the crown jewel of the Adirondacks, Lake Champlain. I dipped down into the Champlain Valley and pulled into Point au Roche Lodge as the setting sun was igniting clouds in shades of pink and mauve. Because I’d arrived at the B&B after normal business hours, owners Karen and Creston Billings had left a note with directions to my suite and a reminder about their gourmet breakfasts. Tired from a long day of traveling, I dragged my luggage to the end of the hall and stopped dead in my tracks. Continue reading →

Posted in Northeast US travel |

Tagged Adirondack Park, Adirondacks, AuSable Chasm, blogsherpa, cultural travel, culture, hiking, Lake Champlain, mountains, New York, new york state, NY, Plattsburgh, Point au Roche Lodge, the adirondacks, Travel, USA, waterfalls |

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Keeping Adirondack Park Forever Wild is a Delicate Balancing Act

Published August 28, 2011 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Adirondack Park, NY

From the view deck at Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake sparkled like a dazzling sapphire surrounded by emerald forests. I contemplated the distant dusky blue mountains and tried grasp that every bit of the vista spread before me had at one time been covered by a shallow inland sea.

View deck at Adirondaack Museum overlooks Blue Mountain Lake

The Adirondack Mountains began to take their current shape about 10,000 years ago during the last ice age, when lake waters froze into glaciers and exposed the seafloor. Erosion gradually removed the soft sediments, uncovering slightly tilted crustal rock that had been contorted and folded by eons of plate tectonics. Glaciers transformed this exposed Adirondack dome, wearing away bedrock and gouging river valleys as they melted, leaving behind more than 30,000 miles of streams and brooks, 1,500 miles of rivers, and 2,759 lakes and ponds. In a final act of whimsy, the receding glaciers deposited isolated boulders that today dot the mountains like giant marbles cast aside by a long-lost race of giants.

These mountains may be some of the oldest in the world but the human history within them is remarkably young. Though Indians hunted in the Adirondacks they developed no settlements. Even homesteaders heading for the American west skipped over the forbidding, rugged terrain with its brutal winters. Just getting there required a monumental effort; it took a minimum of 15 days to travel by sloop, keelboat and horse from New York City to the Old Forge area. By 1800, there were only 11,000 permanent residents in the area, most of whom worked at 17 sawmills and three iron mines.

Can’t view the above slide show about the Adirondack Museum and The Wild Center? Click here.

I wandered through the Adirondack Museum, learning about the life of the loggers, miners, and naturalists who finally brought the area to the attention to the general public in the mid 1850’s. As stagecoaches, trains, and cars made the Adirondacks more accessible, it became fashionable to spend time in the wilderness. Hotels sprung up, tourists flocked to the area, and wealthy east coast families built elaborate lakefront summer camps. Continue reading →

Posted in Northeast US travel |

Tagged Adirondack Museum, Adirondack Park, Adirondacks, blogsherpa, cultural travel, culture, forever wild, mountains, New York, new york state, NY, the adirondacks, Travel, USA |

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Adirondack Park – Land of No Locks

Published August 22, 2011 | By Barbara Weibel

This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series Adirondack Park, NY

I swung the door wide and surveyed the rustic room that would be my home for the next three days. Rich leaf green walls topped pine wainscoting and a red and black checked quilt was deftly tucked into the sides of the heavy wooden cradle bed. Anxious to dive in for a late afternoon nap, I held my hand out for the key.

“There’s no locks on any of our doors,” the caretaker explained. Paranoia took over. How would I secure my laptop and other electronic equipment when I was out of the room? Seeing my alarmed expression, he assured me that they had never had a problem and promptly left.

Bedroom in the main lodge of Great Camp Sagamore

The lack of locks at Great Camp Sagamore is a holdover from the days when the facility had been the private summer home of the Vanderbilt family. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt purchased Sagamore in 1901 from railroad tycoon William West Durant, who had completed the “camp” just four years earlier in the tradition of grand family compounds built in the latter half of the nineteenth century in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Alfred’s wife preferred the comfort of their glitzy Newport, Rhode Island mansion to Sagamore. Alfred, however, spent a great deal of time at Sagamore, which was soon expanded to include a casino and the “Wigwam,” a separate lodge constructed a discreet distance from the main lodge, where male guests could enjoy the company of ladies of ill repute. The latter was likely a factor in the couples’ scandalous divorce in 1908.

In 1911 Alfred married Margaret Emerson McKim who, unlike his previous wife, shared his enthusiasm for the outdoor life. Though Alfred died in 1915 when he sailed on the ill-fated Lusitania cruise ship, Margaret continued to entertain at the camp for many more years, earning it the nickname “playground of millionaires.” After World War II Margaret’s use became infrequent and she donated it to Syracuse University. Eventually, it was purchased by the State of New York, which transferred the property to a not-for-profit institution that now operates the historic property as a lodge.

Ground floor common room in main lodge, Great Camp Sagamore

Today Great Camp Sagamore looks much as it did back in the Vanderbilt days. In the main lodge a regal fireplace constructed from local stone soars to the ceiling, where it meets enormous burnished pine vigas that glow in the soft yellow lamplight. Bedrooms line the second and third floor halls, punctuated by a series of bathrooms shared by guests, just as they would have been when the house was full of Vanderbilt summer guests. Scattered around the grounds are smaller cottages that were built for specific family members, a communal dining room, conference centers, and even a private bowling alley, which was all the rage in the early 20th century.

My stay at Great Camp Sagamore coincided with their “Grands Camp.” Grandparents, with their grandchildren in tow, participated in a week long program of music, canoeing, swimming, hiking, crafts, singing, campfires, talent shows and workshops with Dan Duggan, one of the country’s finest hammer dulcimer musicians. The kids were in their glory, jumping into canoes each morning for a paddle on Sagamore Lake, while the grandparents cheerfully struggled to keep up. But when the kids were forced to sit through a performance of Romeo and Juliet on the front lawn one afternoon one little girl grouched, “I didn’t understand a word they were saying.” The adults smiled secretly; revenge was sweet.

Romeo and Juliet performed on the lawn at Great Camp Sagamore

For a better view of some of the most famous “camps” in the Adirondacks, one evening I hopped aboard the WW Durant for a dinner cruise on Raquette Lake. We sailed past great camps built for Governor Phinneas Lounsbury of Connecticut, the Robert Collier publishing family and the Carnegie family, as Captain Dean Pohl narrated the history of this golden age of the Adirondacks. Continue reading →

Posted in Northeast US travel |

Tagged Adirondack Park, Adirondacks, blogsherpa, cultural travel, culture, Great Camp Sagamore, mountains, New York, new york state, NY, the adirondacks, Travel, USA, White Pine Camp |

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PHOTO: Tea house at White Pine Camp in Paul Smiths, Adirondack Park, Upstate NY

Published August 17, 2011 | By Barbara Weibel

Tea house on a spit of land at White Pine Camp in Paul Smiths, Adirondacks, NY

Posted in Daily Photo |

Tagged Adirondack Park, Adirondacks, cultural travel, culture, mountains, New York, NY, Paul Smiths, photography, tea house, Travel, White Pine Camp |

4 Comments

Puma’s Mother Group Bids Me Farewell

Published November 30, 2010 | By Barbara Weibel

Puma’s Mother Group is normally on hand to greet the few visitors who make it to this remote mountaintop but on the day I arrived they were performing traditional songs and dances of the Gurung caste in southern Nepal. Instead, on the morning of my departure the mothers trickled into Aama’s compound and climbed over the garden walls to pick flowers. Laden with blossoms, they gathered back on Aama’s porch and began stringing together marigolds, daisies, and bright red flowers into long chains. Focused on gathering my luggage in time to catch the four-wheel drive jeep down the mountain, I paid little heed to what they were doing, as I was by this time used to neighbors coming and going throughout the day.

I was about to say my goodbyes to Aama, Didi, and Prakash when the mothers gathered around me. One-by-one they expressed gratitude that I had chosen to visit Puma, garlanded me with flower leis and silk scarves, and bowed to me with a Namaste, the word traditionally used for hello and goodbye. Instead of a formal welcome, I got a grand send-off, which touched me to the core. I saved the scarves and dried a selection of the flowers; both will always remind me of the love and caring that I experienced in this rare mountaintop Shangri-La.

Aama ties silk scarf around my neck

Another Mother Group member presents me with a flower lei

Puma's Mother Group gives me a warm sendoff

Giri Gurung, managing director of Nepal Tourism Travels & Adventures, organized a portion of my travels in and around Nepal, including my trips to Nagarkot, Changu Narayan, Chitwan National Park, and this amazing four-day home stay with his family in Puma. Nepal Tourism Travels & Adventures office is in Kathmandu, conveniently located in the Thamel backpacker district. Their website is www.nepaltourismtravels.com.np, and Giri’s email is giri99grg@yahoo.com or contact@nepaltourismtravels.com.np.