My Page: Ted Alvarez

The West Less Traveled

Many Rocky Mountain travelers will tell you nothing out west compares to the majesty of the Grand Tetons, and they have a sound case. From Jackson Lake, the famous profile of those peaks is etched into our consciousness -- they've been enshrined in magazines, postcards, and (thanks to Brokeback Mountain) film posters.

But Grand Teton National Park is a park with problems -- overcrowding and preservation issues kept it from breaking the top half of America's best national parks in National Geographic Traveler's 2005 survey. In the summer, these problems can worsen exponentially. But in lieu of the National Parks, where can ramblers turn to find equivalent scenery and experience, but without the itinerant hassles involved in sharing hiking space with the No-Nameski's from Schenectady?

May I humbly suggest the Wind River Range: If you detour Southeast of the Tetons, you'll find yourself in the heart of Wyoming's impenetrable Winds, home to the state's tallest point (Gannett Peak) and the largest glaciers left in the U.S. Rockies. [more]

The West Less Traveled: The Rockies, Canadian Style Part II

We awoke to cold, gray clouds suffusing the sky outside our window, rendering the sun a dull, pale orb through the patina. On the edges of the clouds to the Northwest, we saw crystalline fringes pulling away to fall into the valley of our destination. That meant snow, which was bad news.

We jumped in the car and took a few final photos, hoping to beat the snow and squeeze a little success out of a potential washout. But after a few minutes the sun began a daylong struggle for dominance, pouring out welcome yellow light on the Parkway. Just a few miles beyond the Lodge, we began to see glaciers from the Waputik Icefield spill over the peaks to the west. Of the largest, one was cradled in a couloir and appeared to be near a hundred feet thick, while the other looked as if it had been poured over the top of a ragged peak like a slushie and flash-frozen in place. Both of them were bright aquamarine -- like toothpaste--and they glowed from underneath a wrap of snow. These ancient Ice-Age remnants seemed eerily alive, sitting heavy on their ledges in barren terrain during a dead season; they had survived even as their brethren receded and disappeared. Even with my hands on the wheel, I couldn't look away. [more]

The West Less Traveled: The Rockies, Canadian Style Part I

After driving almost 1,200 miles straight from Denver, CO to Lake Louise, Alberta on our way to the Icefields Parkway of Canada, a vicious snowstorm struck not ten miles from the entrance. Slush flooded the road and dove-sized flakes clogged our windshield wipers, and we saw car after car turn around -- perhaps most disconcertingly of all, nearly all of them bore Alberta or B.C. plates.

When we stopped at a gas station in Lake Louise, the storm had broken but the roads still looked awful. I asked the rotund and bored-looking Esso attendant whether she thought the Parkway would be opened, and she replied with a nonplussed "yes" -- as if I'd asked her whether Canadians liked Tim Horton's. Briefly Rob and I considered that she might be trying to lead us to our frozen American doom. But to turn back would be defeat, and we hadn't time to wait a day and attempt this again. Sure enough, Highway 93 was open for business its entire length, from Lake Louise to Jasper, Alberta. It was on. [more]

Part III: Paradise without a PR Agent, The San Luis Valley

This is the third installment of "The West Less Traveled" writer Ted Alvarez's exploration of Colorado's storied San Luis Valley. To read the first installment, click here and for the second, click here. To hear about the valley's fare, spirituality and resident UFOs, read on:

At 4:30 on our second day in Colorado's San Luis Valley, we barely had time to toast our summit of Blanca Peak or feel the ache in our legs -- we were racing a late-summer sun to Emma's Hacienda, a legendary Mexican-food joint in San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado. [more]

Part II: Paradise Without a PR Agent, The San Luis Valley

This is the second installment of "The West Less Traveled" writer Ted Alvarez's exploration of Colorado's storied San Luis Valley. To read the first section, click here. To go blow-by-blow with Ted as he summits Mt. Blanca, which some locals believe houses an intergalactic spaceport, read on:

After such phenomenal success at Colorado Gators (gators seen: hundreds; fingers lost: zero), it's probably too much to ask for the rest of our trip in south-central Colorado's San Luis Valley to go as smoothly. Mother nature concurs, and the storm we saw engulfing the Blanca Peak massif earlier blooms out and over the whole of Great Sand Dunes National Park, which sidle right up against the Sangre De Christo range. While we drive north towards the park on Highway 150, we can only watch as our view of the brownish-yellow humps fades behind an angry violet-gray curtain. [more]

Part 1: Paradise without a PR Agent

South-central Colorado’s San Luis Valley is a perennial best-kept secret. But that could change: on the western fringes, Texas billionaire Red McCombs seeks to turn the mom-and-pop ski resort Wolf Creek into a Vail-dwarfing behemoth. However, Mr. McCombs will have more to contend with than courts battles should he or anyone else decide to take on the whole valley. Alligators, extraterrestrials, and Eastern mystics of all doctrines lie in wait, ready to spring on the unsuspecting traveler. You can find the most potent Mexican food for hundreds of miles here, as well as stellar sport climbing in an eerie canyon once frequented by a shadowy religious sect. I barely survived -- what chance does a billionaire have?

Editor's Note: This is the first installment of "The West Less Traveled", writer Ted Alvarez's exploration of Colorado's storied San Luis Valley. Stay tuned for Part II: Midnight Treks across the Dunes, Blanca’s challenge, and mexican food miracles. [more]

The West Less Traveled

Visitors to the proposed Ojito Wilderness Area in New Mexico will find no comfort in arched gateways, trail signs, or wooden park map kiosks huddled across from restroom facilities. In fact, in these rugged desert badlands where the best directions consist of "once your odometer hits 11 miles, look for the faded two-track just past the second cattle guard," you'll be lucky to find a trail at all. [more]