< July-August 2008

Features

Why Aren't You Here?

You might have it good where you live, but joining the lucky residents of these 13 towns could be the best decision of your life. Start packing

Port Townsend, WA

The Town: Dave Grimmer sits in his office at Pygmy Kayaks and has to grin when he hears the weather forecast on NPR’s Seattle affiliate—“Raining here on the University of Washington campus.” Forty miles to the northwest, where Port Townsend is protected by the Olympic Mountains rain shadow, it’s another sunny day. A good day to walk into the historic downtown and get lunch at one of the numerous restaurants serving Japanese, Thai, seafood, Italian. After work, he has the choice of two pubs—Waterstreet Brewing and Port Townsend Brewing—that pour IPAs as bitter as any in this beer-savvy state.

“Along the way, I’ll see four or five people I know and stop and chat with them,” Grimmer says. “That doesn’t happen in a larger town.”

Port Townsend is located on the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula, an hour west of Olympic National Park and its highly acclaimed coastal hiking, Hoh Rainforest backpacking, and full-on multi-day mountaineering. The town has an artsy feel and consists of low-key, educated residents with a taste for jazz, indie rock, and Morning Edition. Many Port Townsenders live in Victorian homes just minutes from the saltwater of Admiralty Inlet.

Port Townsend’s maritime heritage dates back to 1792 when Captain George Vancouver explored the Pacific Northwest. Numerous small businesses, including the wooden boat- and shipbuilding trade, have kept the local economy stable. Sea kayakers also have a presence in town, so much that when the Port of Port Townsend recently renovated the large-boat dock, it also made a smaller one for paddlers.

The Paddling: In town, you can put in at Fort Worden State Park—home of the annual West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium—paddle along the shoreline in either direction, and catch views of glacier-clad Mount Baker across the water to the northwest. Some paddlers load their kayaks on a Puget Sound Expeditions whale watching boat bound for Friday Harbor. “You’ve parked in Port Townsend, and the next thing you know, you’re in the San Juan Islands,” says Grimmer.

Surf kayakers head west to Neah Bay and La Push to ride two- to 12-foot sets on the Pacific Ocean. Between those two spots is the more protected water of

the national park’s 18-mile-long Ozette Lake, which Grimmer calls “entirely underutilized.”

“More often than not, I paddle out to an island, set up camp, and I’m the only one there.”

The Olympic Peninsula also contains excellent whitewater: the Quilcene and Dosewallips Rivers, and the Grand Canyon of the Elwha, a hallowed and oft-overlooked Class V connoisseur’s expedition-style run.

—Mike Kord

Grass Valley/Nevada City, CA

The Town: These neighboring towns have basically morphed into one conglomeration of best scenarios. They are both small enough to find parking downtown, quirky enough to catch a (way) off-broadway theatre performance of Urinetown: the Musical, and close enough to indulge in any of the many fantastic outdoor playgrounds nearby.

Resting barely on the snowline of the Sierras, Grass Valley/Nevada City is centered in the raw beauty of the mountain range and offers the best in mountain sports like skiing, trail running, and mountain biking without all of the driveway shoveling. Its aesthetically pleasing backdrop and proximity to the Bay Area has brought yuppies, hippies—and the Frisco hybrid, huppies—along with their love of culture.

For quality classical, jazz, and varied concerts, you can check out one of the 32 shows in Grass Valley’s annual outdoor Music in the Mountains Series that sells more than 12,000 tickets per show. There’s even good dancing.

Chris Shackleton, who created and maintains Californian’s go-to website for river levels, www.dreamflows.com, speaks excitedly about the area’s goldmine of classic kayaking, but doesn’t lose much enthusiasm when talking about the dancing in town. “I do a lot of salsa and a little swing, and there’s lots of that stuff here,” says Shackleton. “There isn’t that much [dancing classes] between here and Sacramento.”

The Paddling: Half a dozen world-class whitewater runs are within a half-hour drive of town.

“It’s kind of like living on the coast if you are a surfer,” says Pete Arpin, a self-proclaimed “everyman’s paddler” who puts in river gauges for the army corps of engineers. When Arpin moved to Nevada City five years ago he cut travel mileage on his river rig from 40,000 miles per year to 10,000.

You’d be hard pressed to find a paddler who has run the 49 to Bridgeport section of the Yuba—an after-work spot in May—and doesn’t put it in his top 10 favorite stretches. You can also find wide variety of alpine and sub-alpine lakes ranging in elevations from 800 to 9,000 feet close to town.

“People enjoy driving four-wheel-drive vehicles and getting lost on forest service roads and finding remote alpine lakes,” says Danny Childs, owner of Wolfcreek Outdoor, Grass Valley’s premier paddling and outdoor sports shop. If you’re a less-adventurous flatwater enthusiast, the Lake Valley Reservoir is 40 minutes from Grass Valley. It is easy to access, clean, and the only motors you will encounter will be on small fishing boats. The cobalt waters of Lake Tahoe are just 90 minutes away, too.

—Joe Jackson

Fayetteville, WV

The Town: Monday night is wing night at Class VI Rafting Company. Tuesday night is all-you-can-eat night at Pies and Pints, and Wednesday is open-mic night. Thursday is the Songer open-mic night, and on Friday you have to rest, because there’s work on the weekend. This is the Fayetteville “circuit” in the peak of summer as described by life-long local Brian Jennings, a manager at North American River Runners—one of the 10, consolidated from 18—outfitters in the area. Most of the nightlife in Fayetteville revolves around the rafting season, which also brings a majority of jobs into the area.

“In the rafting industry there are some pretty sharp folks so there is always work in the outdoors industry,” says David Hughes, founder of the New River Academy, an exclusive high school with a strong kayaking and traveling focus. Hughes chose Fayetteville for the nationally renowned play spots, its proximity to the East Coast competition circuit, and affordable real estate.

If you don’t like the current water level, the rock climbing in the New River Gorge is as top shelf as the paddling, and locals don’t have to drive far for excellent mountain biking and hiking trails.

The Paddling: The New River is a backyard run with a remote feel that’s often called the Grand Canyon of the East. “The New is so lush, you feel like you’re out there,” says former professional kayaker and self-proclaimed wannabe local, Tanya Shuman. The oldest river in the world offers runs with the world-class play of the New River Dries and enough whitewater to supply your gradient fix. When the flood sirens blare, local boaters are usually on the water fired up to score the Dries, and out-of-towners start googleing airfare to Yeager Airport in nearby Charleston.

In the fall, when much of the nation is dried out, guides from all over converge on the Gauley for six weeks of dam-released, runnable Class V—and a few paychecks. It also brings Gualey Fest, the annual paddling fete that started as a grassroots protest of hydropower and now draws international acclaim. In ’06 it boasted more than 5,000 attendees. Fayetteville’s boating isn’t just for Class V boaters and freestyle junkies.

Class II-III boaters moving there can join a very active community of novice and intermediate river-runners, too.

—Joe Jackson

Bangor, ME

The Town: Bangor is where the country’s oldest symphony orchestra first began playing music. It’s also where, for three days in August every year, thousands gather on the shores of the Penobscot to witness the American Folk Festival—a free festival featuring 20 different musical groups on six different stages.

Bangor was, in the 1800s, the lumber capital of the world. Today, it’s the site of an international airport, birthplace of Paul Bunyan, and home to Stephen King, Husson College, and a campus of the University of Maine. Maine’s third-largest city offers more than 40 bars and restaurants where blue and white collars mingle with flannel and fleece.

Four distinct seasons keep your love for the outdoors keen. Long winters make for great snow sports, such as cross-country and downhill skiing and snowmobiling. You can access 13,000 miles of Maine’s interconnecting snowmobile trails from within the city limits. Sugarloaf is a couple of hours drive northwest. Our 66 inches of average annual snowfall heightens appreciation for spring runoff and summer hiking and water sports—from mile-high Mount Katahdin (northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail a couple of hours drive north) to the ragged coast and Acadia National Park. The brilliant reds, yellows, and oranges of autumn are forerunners of the stark whites and evergreens of the coming winter.

The Paddling: Kenduskeag Stream, which bisects the city, is fourth on the state’s spring canoe/kayak race circuit. It attracts 700 racers and thousands of spectators. Drop into your favorite hole after work. The state’s largest river, the Penobscot, connects the city to the sea some 20 miles south (Penobscot Bay offers world-class sailing). Surfers recently tuned into awesome standing waves at the site of the old Bangor Dam. Drive north a few hours and hook up with the 90-mile Allagash Wilderness Waterway or the 700-plus mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail or the St. John River. Drive a half-hour southeast and connect with the coast and the 320-mile Maine Island Trail, the nation’s first water trail. Should you feel the urge, there are more than 3,500 miles of coast and 2,000-plus islands to explore (lobsters everywhere!). If flatwater’s your gig, pick any of a dozen lakes and ponds with names like Pushaw, Lucerne, Green, Branch, Davis, or Chimo within a 30-minute drive. Expand your driving horizons and 6,000 lakes and ponds and 32,000 miles of rivers and streams await.

—Jeff Strout

Bryson City, NC

The Town: As soon as you walk into the Paddler’s Pub upstairs from Relia’s Garden Restaurant, the William Nealy decor makes it clear you’re in a place where you wake up in the morning, throw a dart at the map, and pick a classic river to run—before work. Then run another after.

“It all just depends on how big you make your circle,” says Jason McClure, a 29-year-old transplant from the Ozarks who moved to Bryson City eight years ago and is now a lead instructor at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.

Bryson City is a small mountain town with an earthy bluegrass vibe located at the southern entrance to Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

As stellar as the boating is, it’s not the only game in town that will draw you here. The 12-mile Tsali Left Loop in the Nantahala National Forest is revered nationwide for its greasy-fast single track. Mountain bikers alternate trail days with hikers and horseback riders. All this will prepare you for the Tsali Challenge, a bike/paddle/run adventure race in September, or at least help you burn off the slices of My Big Fat Greek Pizza now served at NOC’s Rivers’ End Restaurant.

Before moving, urbanites, heed this advice: “If you like to go to the movies,” says McClure, “bring a bunch of DVDs. There are no movies [shown] here.”

If you miss the city, Asheville’s music and arts scene is just 65 miles east.

The Paddling: Within 30 minutes of your home, you’ll be able to put on the Nantahala River. But since you’re so close, you’ll be off before every other intermediate boater in the state shows up. Also nearby are: the Class IV-V Nantahala Cascades, a short, roadside creeking spot for yo-yoing; the proving ground of the Raven Fork; and the Eternity Hole play spot on the East Fork of the Tuckasegee. Even the Ocoee is only 90 minutes away. And after American Whitewater’s negotiations with FERC in 2005, 18 dam releases per year fill up the formerly dewatered Cheoah River.

During stretches of low water, or when you desire to scale back your survival paddling, go canoe camping. The crooked, 29-mile-long Fontana Lake abuts the national park. Put in at the Tsali Recreation Area. A little farther from home, the Wild and Scenic South Fork of the New River is one of the state’s best mellow canoeing rivers.

—Mike Kord

McCall, ID

The Town: Many call it Boise’s playground, and those who call it home enjoy a lifelong recess. On top of wrapping around idyllic Lake Payette and being less than an hour from two of America’s best whitewater destinations, McCall is squeezed between two of Idaho’s finest ski resorts and a locally owned ski hill. Brundage Mountain, seven-and-a-half miles northwest of downtown, averages over 300 inches of snow per year. Tamarack, with 2,800 feet of vertical drop, is 21 miles southwest. For those of you who don’t like driving more than five minutes to ski, Little Ski Hill is two and a half miles west of downtown.

Beyond your proximity to the goods, you won’t have to worry about the daily grind ruining your sport because socially, McCall puts a high value on outdoor recreation.

“The town is set up to do [outdoor] sports even if you have work or school,” says Devon Barker, freestyle kayak world champion and McCall local who regularly teaches upwards of 30 students basic kayak skills for a local DARE program. In McCall, this type of program is standard. Kids can also buy discounted gear and ski passes nab a free bus ride to Little Ski Hill.

If McCall’s snowy winters make you a little stir crazy in the middle of January, Winter Carnival offers a perfect way to shake out those antsy pants. You can critique elaborate snow sculptures or, if you are feeling particularly brave, hirsute, and exhibitionistic, you can compete in Winter Carnival’s hairy beard and sexy/hairy leg contest. “It’s exactly what it sounds like,” says Joel Hellerman, event organizer.

The Paddling: The shores of the 5,330-acre, glacial Lake Payette make the cutoff line for much of the town. The calm morning waters offer an idyllic playground for all flatwater enthusiasts and some of the best kayak fishing in Idaho. Half of the lake is considered Ponderosa State Park, which has more than 1,000 acres of parkland with pristine wilderness and hiking trails to enjoy. McCall is at the top of the watershed for both the Main Salmon and the Payette Rivers, two absolute whitewater classics. Both can be accessed within an hour, depending on the run, and offer the entire spectrum of skill levels at different put-ins and take-outs. There are runs even closer to downtown McCall.

“The beauty of McCall is being able to get off work and play on the [Little] Salmon,” says Jeff Halligan, owner of McCall boat and outdoor store Gravity Sports. The play boating is year round and not as flow specific as most play boaters—who have to be saintly in their patience and genius in their water level skills to get maximum days playing—are used to. “There has never been a flow that play has not been in, and there can be up to six [nearby play] spots at any given time,” says Barker.

—Joe Jackson

Hood River, OR

The Town: Three decades ago, the windows of those downtown brick buildings were boarded with plywood. Steady wind gusts funneling through the Columbia River Gorge and into Oak Street kept tourists in Portland. And the pear and apple crops were failing.

Because of this, you could get a two-story Victorian with a northward view of Mount Adams and the National Scenic Gorge for less than $30,000. You could have a view of Mount Hood for a little less. But few chose to live in a place with so little to do—where the winters were wet, the summers were windy, and poison oak grew up and down every hillside.

Today, that two-story Victorian would cost you $500,000. But, it’d be worth it. Windsurfers, skiers, kayakers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders have transformed Hood River from that rolling tumbleweed kind of town into one that is more reminiscent of your college years—without all the drama. Try taking that evening stroll without bumping into a block-party, whose host just happens to have an extra plate and lawn chair for you. It’s maybe the only place, where wander-lusting high schoolers aren’t lamenting their town, anxious to just get away.

May is the beginning of First Fridays, a Downtown Business Association-sponsored street party consuming most of Oak and Cascade Streets. In 2005, the police department had to move the wine and beer tastings—courtesy of the local wineries and breweries—inside the businesses because the party tended to get a bit out of control.

Thursdays are for “Families in the Park.” Music and snow cones, you know. Friday nights are for walk-in movies at Jackson Park: Something like Goonies or maybe Star Wars on the inflatable silver screen beneath the stars. And every fall, on the day before the parks and recreation district drains and cleans its community pool, the district invites all the neighbors’ dogs for a swim. It’s like Mayberry. Only for adventurers.

The Paddling: For Class V kayakers, the Little White Salmon River would be convincing enough. But if not, the waterfall classic Green Truss section of the White Salmon is an equal distance away and it pretty much runs year-round. So does the Class IV Farmlands section just upstream and the Class III section and a Class II sections downstream.

Even closer to town, the West Fork of the Hood can challenge Class III-IV kayakers and terrify Class V boaters, depending on the water level. The Columbia River Gorge that divides Washington from Oregon is majestic, with erratic winds, heavenly sunsets, and some islands well worth exploring.

The Achilles heel of Hood River’s paddling opportunities is its play boating. Rattlesnake on the lower section of the White Salmon looks perfect but is quite finicky. Hood River is where freestyle kayakers go when they retire.

—Christian Knight

San Marcos, TX

The Town: Remember that scene in the 1932 version of Tarzan the Apeman in which Johnny Weissmuler swings from a vine down to a quiet jungle river and takes a drink from it? The Internet Movie Data Base (www.imdb.com) says it was filmed in Southern California. But San Marcos locals will tell it was on their beloved, geo-thermally heated river. In Texas. True, most people don’t think of a tropical river when they think of the Lone Star State, but in many ways the San Marcos River is just that, to the extent that some are convinced their backyard river once passed for the deep African wild.

On Valentine’s Day, you can comfortably dine at night on the outdoor patio of the San Marcos River Bar and Grill and watch boaters play in the whitewater park, beautified thanks to $2 million city dollars, below. After dessert, you can join them for a quick late-night session lit up 24 hours by security lights.

San Marcos is home to Texas State University, which brings jobs, arts, and culture to the town, yet most of the Animal Housers take their party to Austin. Its proximity (about 30 miles) between the state capital and San Antonio gives locals the opportunity to get a big city-fix, like discovering new music at world-renowned Austin music festival South by Southwest, but come home to a slower pace.

The Paddling: The San Marcos River is the only watershed in Texas that has never dried out. As a result, it is one of the oldest human-inhabited spots in the Northern Hemisphere. “Ancient civilizations found water [in San Marcos] and stayed, kind of like we did,” says Michelle Kvanli co-owner of the Power Olympic Outdoor Training Center for seven years, which sits on the banks of the San Marcos River just below the play park. The city allowed them to put slalom gates on the section of river that is basically their backyard. She and her husband, 1996 whitewater slalom Olympian Ben Kvanli, chose the sight for its convenience and the ability to train all year. Think about that next time you’re scraping ice off your PFD.

Regardless of your paddling discipline, you can run the San Marcos year round. You won’t have to deal with a hierarchy because all disciplines are well represented. Ben Kvanli compares the paddling scene to the era when Natives were the only inhabitants. “None of the tribes could dominate the river. It’s like that today, there are so many facets and everyone is so passionate about it.” One of those facets for you to enjoy, if you want to do things with that larger than life Texan style, is the 256-mile Texas Safari ultra marathon, which starts in town.

—Joe Jackson

Wausau, WI

The Town: If there’s a piece of advice for paddlers moving to Wausau, it would be this: take your pogies. Winter hits hard early, and then lingers on when other parts of the country are already smelling cherry blossoms. But the payoff is found on River Drive, where about 100 paddlers strip down to splash tops and flip, roll, and loop in the Class II-III Wausau Whitewater Park during summertime dam releases.

Wausau is located just north of the smack-dab middle of Wisconsin. It’s about a three-hour drive to Minneapolis-St. Paul to the west, and an hour to Green Bay to the east. It’s small enough to feel homey and family-friendly, yet large enough to have an identity of its own. As part of a late-’90s redevelopment plan, the city acquired the 400 Block in downtown and made it into a public open square where residents come together for a series of festivals and weekly concerts, including B.B. King’s show last year.

When the rivers freeze over, so does Lake Wausau, where you can auger through the ice to catch large northern pike, and there is both cross-country and downhill skiing just outside of town.

The Paddling: Paddlers from 17 states and Canada regularly make long road trips to Wausau for the whitewater park on the Wisconsin River. ACA members pay $10 for the reliable weekend flows, while the general public pays $20. Wausau also hosts the Midwest Freestyle Championships August 16-17. The Wolf River and its acclaimed Section 4 is just an hour away, too.

While the kids are on summer vacation, the Boundary Waters are about six hours to the northwest, and the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is just a five-hour drive.

Creek boaters can also make the early-morning drive to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for the Upper and Lower Silver and still be back home for dinner.

“If [the Silver] was in the southeast, it’d be as well known as the Green,” says Wausau OC-1 and C-1 virtuoso Craig Smerda. “It doesn’t have a waterfall, but it has the Silver Bullet. The creek starts out at about 20- to 30-feet wide, then narrows to about three and a half feet at the Silver Bullet. You slide into a hole. It’s like getting flushed down the toilet. I either walk it, or run it and tell people to have their ropes ready."

—Mike Kord

Kernville, CA

The Town: “The Gateway to the Southern Sierra” isn’t just a slogan here, it’s a lifestyle. With more than 100 miles of boatable whitewater on the Kern River, stretching from the headwaters draining Mount Whitney to the Central Valley in Bakersfield, you might think that this would be a boater’s paradise; the only problem is that there is always some other outdoor adventure calling your name. 

Surrounded by a vast and accessible high country, Kernville has epic mountain bike rides, secluded backpacking, world-class climbing, and more trout than you can shake a fly rod at. Once the snow comes, that same area becomes a winter wonderland with miles of groomed trail and enough backcountry terrain to keep even the most driven free-heelers entertained. Even while the surrounding mountains are piling up snowpack, the mild temperatures in town mean that the river and low-elevation trails can be used all year-round, providing loads of options for your quick outdoor fix before work.

During the summertime, Kernville begins to bustle with tourism; whitewater rafting, camping, and fishing are the main attractions, but the town puts on lots of other events such as old car shows, art and nature festivals, and, of course, the old west celebration—Whiskey Flats Days. The cultural options are limited in a town this size, but there is a museum in town with a surprisingly interesting history of the Kern Valley from its roots as a mining and ranching town to its “Hollywood” days in old westerns. Of course, no weekend is complete without a trip to the kayaker-owned brewpub—Kern River Brewing Company—for some libations and a good time.

The Paddling: If you do find time to jump in your boat between all the other outdoor activities, you won’t be disappointed. Beginners can learn on the lake or brave the Powerhouse run, a short Class II stretch culminating in the Class III Ewing’s Rapid before ending in Riverside Park in the middle of town. For the advanced boater, there are miles of Class III-IV sections—Chemise Gorge, Cables, and the Democrat—to name just a few.

Finally, for expert boaters who really want to challenge themselves, classic steep runs like Brush Creek and Dry Meadow Creek provide a fix for the gravity-starved, and the rowdy “Cataracts of the Kern” can induce puckering in even the most seasoned Class-V river-runner.

One of the truly unique experiences on the Kern is an overnight trip on the Wild and Scenic Forks of the Kern—17 miles of great whitewater and breathtaking scenery. The two-mile hike in to where the Little Kern meets its larger sibling is just the beginning of the adventure. Between the numerous Class IV and V rapids, you’ll admire the towering granite spires of the Needles and creeks cascading down granite walls. Sleeping under the stars with the sound of the river singing you to sleep is as close to heaven as it gets for a whitewater paddler.

—Eric Giddens

Bozeman, Montana

The Town: Nestled between mountain ranges in the Gallatin Valley, scenic Bozeman is strategically placed to take advantage of a variety of sports in every season. Bridger Bowl and Big Sky Resort offer world-class skiing less than an hour from home. A bevy of blue-ribbon fishing streams are in easy reach. Yellowstone National Park lies 90 miles to the south. What else? What about first-rate mountain biking on trails and dirt roads, road bike tours, backcountry skiing, no end of skin-and-turn tele slopes, ice-boating or skating on Canyon Ferry Reservoir, and damn near endless backpacking trails throughout the Gallatin National Forest.

On the social/cultural scene, locals have their pick of several hot springs in the area and restaurants to get together with friends, like Montana Ale Works or The Bistro, both on Main Street. Montana State University adds diversity to the town, along with the world-renown Museum of the Rockies. Bozeman even has an eye toward sustainability; its new public library is a state-of-the-art, LEED-certified green building. And the Emerson Cultural Center, near downtown, offers galleries and events throughout the year. Finally, there’s the annual Sweet Pea Festival every August, which brings thousands to town to enjoy the weekend of arts, performance, and music.

The Paddling: Within a 100-mile radius, you can have just about any level and description of paddling experience except ocean surfing. For whitewater, there’s House Rock and the Mad Mile on the Gallatin, or Bear Trap Canyon on the Madison, with Class IV-V rapids, as well as bouncy rapids on the Boulder River and pushy rafting whitewater in Yankee Jim Canyon of the Yellowstone. Any of the three forks of the Missouri (Gallatin, Madison, Jefferson) offer stretches of nice touring, wildlife viewing, and up to Class II turbulence. For flatwater canoeing or sea kayaking, try some of the lakes in Yellowstone Park. Long-distance touring is available on the Yellowstone, the Smith, the Missouri, and several smaller streams. And every July the Whitewater Festival stokes up on the Gallatin.

—Alan S. Kesselheim

Sitka, Alaska

The Town: Sitka is home to roughly 80 humpback whales, 1,000 sea otters, and 1,500 sea lions, hundreds of seals, eagles, and seabirds. Oh, and about 8,700 people. Many of us get from here to there with the use of our own

renewable resources: Muscle. Cycling is the more popular of these forms of transportation. But we aren’t the type to squeeze on spandex, shave our legs, and clip $200 shoes into $100 pedals for exercise. We ride to get from home to work. Our means of transport are the garage-sale-variety of mountain bike—sometimes with a milk crate bungeed to the rear. Instead of cycling shoes, some of us prefer knee-high rubber boots. Still, we’re proud to be the first city in Alaska to earn bike-friendly-town status.

The other form of transportation here is by sea kayak. Sitka is spread out along 14 miles of Sitka Sound. Many of the town’s residents live on their own tiny islands. So we paddle to work and then we paddle home. May through October brings races of all kinds: a triathlon, mountain and road bike races, mountain races, and Sitka Sound Ocean Adventure kayak race. Music is either world-class—Sitka Summer Music Festival—or down home. Most Sundays you can find a group of locals jamming at one of the many fine coffee shops around town.

This is a great community to live and raise a family, but you do sacrifice some things. It is isolated and expensive to travel. There are a limited number of jobs. Weather and daylight can limit recreational options. Roads don’t go any place. Lots of rain.

The Paddling: The mountains here jut right out of the sea. And one of them, Mount Edgecumbe, helps form Sitka Sound, one of the premier kayaking spots in all of Alaska.

Located in the heart of the Alexander Archipelago, Sitka Sound harbors hundreds of islands to explore. You can paddle two hours or 20 hours and never see the same scenery. It makes little difference what you are looking for: sea mammals, sea birds, or just the sea.

With a stable kayak and a rod, you could reel in a 30-pound King Salmon. Or explore some WWII bunkers right on the beach. Maybe, just go 30 miles west of Sitka Sound and kayak West Chichagof, wilderness in the most primitive sense of the word. You’d need some skills or a knowledgeable guide before you try this trip, but it is a trip of a lifetime. The fiords of South Baranof, where the waterways are narrow and the cliffs rise up to meet the sky, is another option.

All I can say is, you can’t see it all on one trip. Sitka Sound Ocean Adventures has groups coming back three, four, and five years just to paddle different routes or to see what lies just beyond the next island. Oh, did I mention we have brown bear on these islands?

—John DeLong

Glenwood Springs, CO

The Town: You know you live in an authentic boater’s town when the city council says, “Enough is enough! Let’s build a whitewater park!” For the last 15 or so years, paddlers had tried to get some kind of artificial park built, but the effort appeared doomed last year when their Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) grant application was rejected.

Perhaps it was pity, or the prospect of drawing more tourists to this small I-70 town that motivated council members. Or maybe they just wanted a place to throw down. In the end the city fronted about 80 percent of the cost, and last spring, the town had its own two-feature park.

Although the sprawl of affluence decanting down valley from Aspen—where a million bucks gets you a fixer-upper—has resulted in skyrocketing home prices in recent years, Glenwood Springs remains a significantly more affordable town—a festivus for the rest of us—compared to the opulence of nearby municipalities. Residents are a combination of born-and-raised Coloradoans a bit chagrined at the morphing demographic, and newcomers who have found their niche in the outdoor world. They both, however, can justifiably boast of living amongst some of the nation’s best outdoor recreation: paddling, skiing, rock climbing, backpacking, mountain biking, and cycling cathedrals practically pour to your backdoor. Want to leave all this for a day? You can ride your slicks in Moab or see a Flight of the Concords concert in Denver; both are just two and a half hours away.

The Paddling: Locals take advantage of optimal backyard and daylong runs near home. If you buy inside the town’s limits, about 10 minutes east of your driveway you’ll find the Class III Shoshone run through the sandstone- and Cambrian-walled Glenwood Canyon going year-round—if paddling in 15-degree weather is your thing. For some, it is, as locals put on the roadside Shoshone run every New Year’s Day.

“It’s fun because of the novelty of it,” says Brian Wright, a 25-year-old manager at Glenwood Canyon Kayak who moved here with his family 11 years ago. “I mean, you’re paddling with icebergs. I ask myself, ‘OK, what am I doing out here?’ ”

Graduate from the Slaughterhouse on the Roaring Fork—one of the top Class-V runs in a state loaded with classics—before moving on to the Upper Fryingpan or Crystal River. After work, you’ll session on the whitewater park’s forgiving “boat chute wave” on river-right, and the sometimes-sticky main hole middle-left. Then it’s on to Glenwood Canyon Brewing Company on 7th Street for a pint of Shoshone Stout.

—Mike Kord

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