This birthday treat was one of my most heart-filled and memorable experience to date. The timing was more than right, as that summer was one of the most challenging, engaging, yet rewarding one of my career.

The short 10 minutes helicopter trip was breathtaking, especially while crossing over the mountain ridge and hovering above the Punchbowl glacier. The sight of snow and ice all around the training canine camp was surreal, especially since this trip happened in June. While my trip to the camp was in a 3-passenger seat helicopter and felt a bit choppy, the return trip to Girdwood airport was in a 4-passenger seater, and was a lot more stable, and I felt the powerful turbine not budge when the air curents intensified over the ridge.

What impressed me the most was the interaction with the uber-friendly Alpine Air crew, the experienced and gritty mushers, and (above-all) the canine crew. Witnessing the excitement of the Alaskan huskies as they were taken out and from kennels and assembled for each sled, the eagerness to be part of the adventure and the energy while they were sprinting ahead made for a an unforgettable adventure.

At the end of the trip I felt that my heart was full, my mind was clear and that my body was energized again. I ended up the day in style with dinner at the Double Musky (one of the true local dining institutions) with a fab Negroni and a juicy Pepper-steak.

This was a 3 night stay at a lodge in Island Park, Idaho, about 45 minute drive to the West Entrance of the Yellowstone National Park. This trip also marked my visit to the 21st and 22nd US state as it was the first time being in Montana and Idaho. Wyoming was also relatively new by a couple of months, since my recent visit to Jackson Hole, WY.

I am happy that I chose the lodge, despite the adventure of finding it and the quirky owners. I remember being bombarded with messages about the many rules needed to be obeyed, which reminded me of my university years in post-communist Romania when I used the student accommodations. All in-all the lodge was a quiet and clean limited service bed and breakfast. Once I found it, it was the ideal spot, since it was well isolated from tourist traps, as well as from the beaten track.

I found that allocating 2 full days of visiting the Park was the bare minimum, as long you plan it well and you don’t get distracted. September was a good time to visit and I lucked out with a decent weather and I avoided the tourist hordes (at least for the most part). Starting my visit at 8am also made a difference and gave my a chance to still find parking spots.

This was a unique experience which involved all the senses (including an assault on your nostrils 🙂 ). I started with the Fountain Paint Pots and its red muddy terrain, continued with the various geyser craters and basins (for the most part, this is a small circuit with attractions grouped in relative close proximity), and ended up admiring the spectacle of the Old Faithful. The predictability on the timing of its eruptions is awesome, and the clocks displaying the estimated time remaining was so convenient! After witnessing 2 decent size eruptions I drove to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and was happy to see a beautiful rainbow near the bottom of the canyon. This was also the best photo op all day.

On day two I started my visit with the Fairy Falls hike, so I can take decent pictures of the iconic Grand Prismatic Spring. One day I’ve seen (and smelled) the spring up close, but I could not take proper pictures given the close proximity and the water vapors. The vantage point at the end of the hike was much better for admiring its colors.The last stop for the day was the West Thumb Geyser Basin. The 30ish minutes drive to it was well worth it. I spent an hour taking pictures of the various geysers, while enjoying the short boardwalk trail in the company of far less tourists.

When it comes to raw nature and outdoor adventures, Colorado is one of my top favorites, as the Rocky Mountains are such an amazing backdrop for pictures and playground for exploring. Hiking in Colorado is simply put, world class!

My adventures in Colorado started in the winter of 2021, and I could rarely spend anytime outdoors given the cold winter, but also the furiously busy winter season at the ski resort. This post-pandemic tourist season was one of the most challenging that I’ve seen to date. While restrictions were still technically into place and COVID was coming at us in waves, this did not deter (quite the contrary) the tourists. I remember having my assistant manager informing be he was infected right around Christmas, so Festive season was even more hectic at work. I had my bout with the C virus on January 1.

Going hiking was my true medicine for the soul. Once I heard about the 58 peaks above 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) in Colorado, I made it a mission to hike at least a couple, especially since I did not have a car at that time. 

The DeCaLiBron hike loop (Mt Democrat, Mt Cameron, Mt Lincoln, and Mt Bross) seemed like the low hanging fruit, due the proximity of the 4 peaks. The trailhead for this 7.5 mile hike in the Mosquito Range is close to the small town of Alma, and only about 16 miles from the famous and buzzing resort of Breckenridge. The climb starts at 12,000 feet and the summit is at 14, 293 feet.

I was very fortunate to find a hike companion the evening before the hike. I was welcoming a colleague from a previous hotel that I worked for in Calgary and while chatting with her husband, we realized we had the same plan for the next day. He already had rented a 4Runner, so transportation was also arranged.

We started our hike right before 6am on a cold and windy day. The weather forecast called for scattered showers, which were the norm for the area during that time of the year. The wind was the biggest challenge, especially where we were walking on the ridges between the peaks, and I remember having to lean into the wind and walking almost diagonally at times.

The terrain was very rugged, and the sensation was that we were walking on arid alien planets, with each of the 4 peaks being so different in terms of soil and rock composition. The hike is overall a moderate one, but there are challenging spots, where the trail gets steep and slippery or where you would have to walk on fields made of small moving rocks. We were rained on 2 or 3 times and the wind rarely ceased. The view on the peaks was simply breathtaking, especially where the mist and clouds where present.The most challenging part of the hike was the descent back to the parking lot, due to treacherous and wet switchbacks and due to near exhaustion. We managed to finish the hike injury free, in good spirits and very happy with the experience, at around noon.

This visit to Hawai’i was a “short” 7-day island hopping between Oahu, Maui and back to Oahu for the flight back to (then homebase) Colorado.

The trip was meant to cure my (not so self-inflicted) post-COVID post winter season restaurant managing burnout, while working for a furiously busy high end winter resort. In my multi city vacations, I usually choose a quiet destination first to decompress, but in this case I was able to find comp nights at sister hotels (one of the best perks ever while working in hospitality) at a busy detination first. In this case it was Waikiki, on the O’ahu island of Hawai’i.

My arrival was far from the peace and quiet that I really wanted, as the trip from the airport to the hotel was one hour long (also because I chose to travel via bus 20) during the rush hour. The Hyatt Regency is also located in a busy district, albeit right across from Waikiki beach. Checking in a hotel with 2 huge towers also meant that navigating inside the hotel was like going through an airport terminal. Anyways, the arrival adventures ended when I was checked in before regular check-in time and was given a top floor room with a decent view of the beach and of the city.

The one quirky and funny thing that stood out for me while having breakfast in the huge hotel restaurant was that one of the restaurant employee’s main task was to “shoo away” the tropical bird who took a liking of the sugar packets on the tables. The highlights while on O’ahu were the North shore trip taken with an organized group (with tourist trap stops like the Dole plantation, movie set locations for Lost, Jurassic Park and other famous movies), the self guided tour on the East shore (with the more quiet and raw nature beaches), and the visit to Pearl Harbor. What did really filled my heart after the bitter sweet visit to the Pearl Harbor airbase historic site was seeing the Lei Day celebration, as part of a free local festival with soul soothing music and dancing in the beautiful setting of the Kapiʻolani Regional Park, minutes away from the hotel.

Maui was far more generous when it came to the welcoming and scenic raw nature. Transportation to the hotel was almost an hour long as the Hyatt Regency is located in the resort dense Lahaina, which is 28 miles away from the Kahului airport. Thanks to the last minute efforts of the concierge team, I was still able to book a couple of tours, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The first was the Road to Hana tour, which brought us through luscious forests, near majestic waterfalls and also offered glimpses of amazing ocean views. The tour guide Damien, the “local boy” offered a candid, no-filter introspection of the locals’ view of how tourism and the economy shaped the island. On the next day, I went on a tour which included a hike on the Haleakalā volcano, which impressed me with the majestic view which resembled to the volcano being an island surrounded by water, when in fact we were on the peak of the volcano, above the cloud line. After all, the islands of Hawai’i are volcanoes perching above the ocean waters. 

Being able to gaze in the distance from a top of a volcano and above the clouds which resemble an ocean on top of another ocean was simply breathtaking. Admiring sunsets and sunrises near or on the beach, came in as close seconds as highlights of my visit on the beautiful Maui island.