Welcome to the great outdoors! These are images of the things I love to do on days off. My outdoor adventures started when I was a junior in high school. My friends from New Jersey, the Barnetts and Johnstones, invited me to go hiking with them one summer. We did some pretty hard hikes that made me cold, tired, hungry, nauseated and sore all over. And I went back. Since then I've learned just about everything the hard way; one cold winter night I realized that some sleeping bags are designed for cold weather and some aren't. I was in the one that wasn't. Nonetheless, I still enjoy working out in the great outdoors and all the evil foods that one is allowed to consume while doing those things. Before leaving the Ranger Station and heading out to the wilderness, make sure you check the weather information!

Adventure Territory Forests & Parks Division

Smokey Says... Only YOU can prevent forest fires! Stairs Falls, Falling Waters Trail, Franconia, NH Lonesome tree at Lonesome Lake, NH When it comes to forests my homeland is the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, though I spent a very nice night in July 2000 truck-camping on I-40 in Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, where a few herds of elk occasionally showed up. In December 1998 I went on a trip led by the New Hampshire Outing Club at UNH to the Green Mountain National Forest near Killington Peak, and spent a fun night with a good group in a 3-sided shelter, a wonderful time. I've been through many other forests and parks but have never spent any nights there. The first night I ever spent in White Mountain was with my friend Dan from New Jersey, when he taught me about backpacking on Mt. Isolation. We were the only people there, separated from state highway 16 by a ridge, unable to hear any noise except for the sound of the hissing gas stove we were cooking on. If you're in New Hampshire and you're looking to get away from it all, I highly reccomend this overnight jaunt. Mountaineering Winter mountaineering is one of my favorite outdoor activities. It's a great cure for the winter blahs. Come November when all the trees are leafless and the sky is gray, it feels really good to get up above it all, on the higher slopes of some mountain. As a winter mountaineer, you find yourself squinting against the bright sun over virgin snowfields on treeless high slopes, turning your back to the wind and working up a sweat in your quest for the summit. At left, I'm pictured on my favorite mountain, Mount Washington, New Hampshire, in February. My ambition, among all the other glaciated peaks of the world, is Denali in Alaska. Denali is a Native term meaning "the Great One" and the summit of Denali is the highest in North America. For more information on hiking or backpacking in New England, check out the New Hampshire Outing Club, the Appalachian Mountain Club or The Leisurely Backpacker.

Adventure Territory Regional Airport

"Above the planet, on a wing and a prayer My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air Above the clouds I see my shadow fly, out of the corner of my watering eye A dream unthreatened by the morning light Could've blown this soul right through the roof of the night..." -Pink Floyd, Learning To Fly

Ever since 4th grade I loved aviation. There are few things better than getting up to where the puffy clouds are and dancing among them in a single-engine plane at your command. I'm not licensed yet but am taking lessons as finances permit. It's expensive but I guess when you really love something you just don't care. Left is a photo of myself (l) and my instructor, Warren Patterson, approaching Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire at 2,000 feet. Pictured below is runway 02 at Moultonboro Airport where I've taken many of my lessons. It's a rough little airstrip on the border of the lakes and the White Mountains, a "class E" uncontrolled airfield where every pilot's for himself. Just the way I like it.

This is the cockpit of a Boeing 757 I was allowed to look over before one commercial flight I took. Yes, I painted the clouds out the windshield because the photo looks better that way. Jets this big can't land here at Adventure Territory Regional because the field's too short. The only way to get out to the bush is in a Cessna high-wing! If adventure is what you're after then you want a small plane with a wing above the cabin so you can land in fields, on beaches and of course, further north, the glaciers.