Category: Activities

17 Articles

I found a tantalizing icon on a map of the Jemez Mountains with the label “Ice Cave,” so we recently made a winter adventure out of reaching it. It’s been quite dry so far this winter, but the Jemez gets more snow that here in town so we went with

I hate National Parks for all the right reasons, and I love National Parks for all the wrong reasons. I hate them because they’re overcrowded, super regulated, all paved; they take out all the adventure, leaving no room for figuring things out on your own. I LOVE National Parks because

It was great to get out of town and enjoy the limited snowfall so far this year. The snowshoe to the yurt is a little over 2 miles. On the way in, there was maybe a foot of snow total, quite old and crusty. Fortunately, for us, a storm moved

Here are some pictures from Friday’s xmas tree hunt, a la Chevy Chase’s classic. It snowed on us just the right amount to improve the experience, coating the forest roads with a few inches, but not so much that we got stranded way out in the middle of nowhere. This

I know, just what you need, right? Yet another activity for your already-overwhelmed kids to do while you are all quarantined due to CoVid-19. This one is so easy, though, I promise. Zero prep! And it could have some extended educational returns, depending on how your kids respond to it.

We got our permit and wandered the National Forest again last weekend to find ourselves a Christmas tree from the woods. I have already written about the tradition in another post, so I won’t repeat all of the background info (be sure to visit that post for the Chevy Chase

The whole family visited the Spruce Hole Yurt this past March (2019), achieving a milestone that I have been looking forward to since we first had kids. Getting there as a family is doable. Spruce Hole yurt is located north of Chama, NM just over the border into Colorado. It’s

When I was a kid, I was infatuated with topo maps. My generation was on the cusp of the mapping technology: before I went to college, the only source for maps for adventure planning were paper copies from the USGS (US geological survey). I fondly recall ordering from the USGS

During our October trip back to the family farm to visit the grandparents, my mom bought this rocket kit for the boys.  It was a timely gift, as the boys have been enjoying youtube videos of SpaceX Falcon launches.  Building and launching model rockets with the boys brought back fond

It’s a tradition now – mark your calendar!  The weekend after New Year’s, we all bring our dead, dry trees up to a spot in the National Forest, just off the road, halfway up to the Pajarito ski area.  The location might vary just a bit (closer or farther up

Bodie and I put together an Altoid survival kit for each of us about a year ago (when he turned six).  It turned out to be a wonderful father-son activity, and Bodie stayed excited about it for many months.  It was really fun, for him and for me.  Even now,

The Las Conchas fire was the largest in New Mexico history, and left 154,000 acres burned. There is an unbelievable amount of firewood available up there; the forest service sells permits.