New Mexico’s turquoise trail; Banff’s ‘frost flowers’; romance in Utah; Namibia’s Skeleton Coast; and finding the most vaccinated areas of the U.S.
|  | Friday, February 4, 2022 | | | | |
| In today’s newsletter, discover New Mexico’s turquoise trail, Banff’s ‘frost flowers,’ romance in Utah, Namibia’s Skeleton Coast … and the most vaccinated areas of the U.S. | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY SKIP NOVAK | | By George Stone, TRAVEL Executive Editor
Thunder, lightning, and blinding snow swirled like a sinister halo around Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. Filmmaker and Nat Geo Explorer Max Lowe was on an expedition with three of the world’s most famous mountaineers when they were caught in the cataclysm‚ wedged between a blizzard and a high-altitude electrical storm.
As his metallic equipment pulsated in the tempest, Lowe and crew had to decide whether to stay put or forge ahead. “When you’re in situations like that, your brain just goes into full survival mode, the adrenaline is just pumping, and you’re just like razor-focused on what is your next step going to be to survive?”
Such is “The Price of Adventure”—the latest episode of Nat Geo’s Overheard podcast. Navigating the variables of nature atop one of the planet’s most forbidding peaks is only of part of this story. It’s the variables of human nature—including the lethal allure of extreme expeditions and the healing balms of love and family—that make this tale so riveting.
Host and Nat Geo editor at large Peter Gwin investigates the legacy of one of mountaineering’s great tragedies—the 1999 death of Max’s father, Alex Lowe (pictured above on Mount Scott), just a few months after he was featured in National Geographic as “one of the world’s finest all-around climbers,” Alex was killed in an avalanche in Tibet. Max’s documentary, Torn (available now in theaters and on Disney+) examines the impact his dad had on the climbing world, the risks of mountaineering, and the resilience of his family in the aftermath of tragedy. (Pictured below, Alex Lowe, left, summiting Evans Peak in Antarctica with climbing partner Conrad Anker, two years before the fatal avalanche.)
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY GORDON WILTSIE | | Some 16 years after Alex’s death, his body was discovered, “still curled in the protective crouch climbers are trained to assume to protect themselves from avalanches,” Gwin notes. The recovery brought closure, says Anker, who survived the snowslide. For some climbers, says Anker, also a Nat Geo Explorer, there’s “no Plan B, and that is sort of life’s gift.” Anker, shaken and haunted by the incident, kept climbing.
But why do people dare to climb? “People tend to focus on the danger or the spectacular aspects of adventure stories, but the strongest ones reveal humans in their best and worst moments,” Gwin told me. “Stories like these are the kinds we hold on to and remember in our own best and worst moments.”
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| Watch your language: Travelers sometimes use words like “exotic,” “impoverished,” or “colonial” to describe a new place. Consider ditching them, pros advise. Fodor’s Travel convened a diverse group of travel writers who shared alternative words and phrases to help us all do better. Think twice before using the phrase “spirit animal,” but don’t beat yourself up for using those words in the past; the experts acknowledge that they had, too.
“The end of the Earth”: That’s what Namibia’s Skeleton Coast is often called. Take a look at Genna Martin’s photo essay in the New York Times, and the moniker makes sense. The three-week road trip was perfect for a pandemic, “a combination of cultures, landscapes and species unlike anywhere else on Earth, at times evoking a post-apocalyptic wasteland.”
Most vaccinated places: Nearly 64 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (as of Thursday), but some states and territories have higher inoculation rates. The rates don’t mean you won’t catch the coronavirus, but they might help with deciding where to go next. The Washington Post has rounded up some of the most vaccinated places in the U.S. to visit, as well as some low-risk activities.
Most romantic hotel in the world? Well, one source calls it the Amangiri, a 600-acre “remote hideaway” that offers views of Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It also offers “yoga on the rocks” and side trips to Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon national parks, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Last we checked, there was still availability for Valentine’s Day weekend—but it’ll cost you. Room rates are $2,800 to $5,600 a night, which is why, for now, it’ll remain on our bucket lists.
The best pizza in Trento: The Italian town is now home to one of the top 50 pizzerias in the world. IDRIS is run by a man who immigrated from Burkina Faso at age 12, who originally disliked pizza—and who overcame prejudice to succeed, NPR reports. | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY WENDY MCEAHERN, SHIPROCK SANTA FE | | | On the Turquoise Trail: How did one stone and one color come to dominate New Mexico—on buses, light posts, wooden doors of adobe houses, handmade jewelry (pictured above), ballgowns, and ceremonial Hopi dresses? The Ancient Puebloan people began mining turquoise—technically solidified hydrated copper aluminum phosphate—more than 1,500 years ago, Jennifer Barger writes. “People come to New Mexico and see how natural things are interwoven into our culture,” says Navajo jewelry artist Morris Muskett, “and they want a piece of that.” | | | |
| | Frost flowers: That’s the term for these beautiful ice formations along the shore of Bow Lake, in Canada’s Banff National Park. With the rising sun illuminating the intricate, leaflike details of the “flowers,” Kahli Hindmarsh captured this image when it was 40 degrees below zero. “Thank goodness for hand warmers,” she told us Thursday. More than 100,000 people have liked this photograph since it was posted a week ago on our Instagram page. Up for more winter adventures? Here are six from Alberta. | | | |
 | | No matter if stores, schools, places of worship, restaurants are closing, nature never closes. Turning to nature during this pandemic has made me so thankful. … Giving ourselves the gift of time in nature helps us to remember how to slow down, how to pace ourselves, and how to connect with each other and really see and be with each other. | | | | Rue Mapp | | Founder of Outdoor Afro; Nat Geo Explorer | | |
| Finding a shipwreck isn’t easy: Tara Roberts quit her job to follow a group of Black divers, archaeologists, and historians documenting slave trade shipwrecks worldwide. In episode two of the six-part Nat Geo podcast series Into the Depths, the Nat Geo Explorer tells the story of the Guerrero, a Spanish pirate vessel that wrecked off the coast of Florida in 1827. Moved by the nonprofit Diving with a Purpose’s 20-year search for the ship, she trains to join their search, learning how to be an underwater archaeology “advocate” and imagining the journey of the hundreds of enslaved Africans aboard the vessel. (Pictured above, DWP dive instructor Jay Haigler cradles a stone from a ballast pile in Coral Bay, St. John, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The stones have been key to identifying slave ships; they often were used to balance the weight of captives in a ship’s cargo hold.)
Stick around: Want more on this adventure? Debra Adams Simmons writes about the search for these sunken ships in Monday’s newsletter. Sign up to get it here. | | | |
| This newsletter has been curated and edited by Monica Williams, Jen Tse, and David Beard. We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. | | | |
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