If you’ve decided to test out Canada’s Powder Highway, this is your chance to get really close to it. Red Mountain Resort has 1,500 hectares of pristine skiing, with 119 gloriously uncrowded marked trails and plenty of backcountry if you’re looking for some extreme action. There’s even cat skiing – where you get a lift up Mt Kirkup on a snowcat to test new trails not accessible by chairlift – for those who want to try something different.
There’s a range of accommodation on offer, including hostels, apartments, lodges and boutique hotel The Josie, but new for the 2020/2021 season is Constella, a collection of six cabins in Paradise Basin. Book one for the night and you can wake at dawn and get straight on the slopes before the crowds arrive.
Each of the cosy cabins sleeps five and is serviced by the central Clubhouse, where you can have a meal, hang out in the bar by the fire and make plans with whoever else is there. You might also want to spend some time staring at the stars, which are so clear in the Kootenay sky.
The next morning, a light breakfast is served before you step straight out onto the snow and jump on the chairlift.
For a New York-style night out with the guys, the girls, a date or solo-dolo, visit the Blind Barber. Located across the street from Tompkins Square Park, it’s unlike anywhere else in the Lower East Side. The barbershop, featuring two chairs, is a front for a secret bar behind door number six. Entering this door transports you back to the Prohibition era and will have guests disappearing for a few hours into a true Manhattan nightlife experience.
Is it a place to get your beard groomed and your hair trimmed or is it a place to enjoy a cheeky beverage? It’s both! Kill two birds with one stone and look your best while indulging in one of Blind Barber’s cocktails. Try the Heathers, a blend of tequila, pineapple cordial, grapefruit cordial, saline, lime and soda. There are also delicious pizzas on the menu to complete the hip East Village experience.
At 65 years young this grand dame of a watering hole still courts plenty of attention. The only revolving bar in the city, Carousel purveys carefully crafted cocktails from its short but sweet (and sometimes sour) cocktail list. Local classic the Sazerac – featuring rye whiskey blended with bitters and lemon peel – has been Nola’s official cocktail since 2008 and is the obvious first port of call. But it’s not just the drinks that people flock here for: Carousel is a whimsical cross between fairground attraction and chic bar that has attracted literary legends such as Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and even features in their works.
Just 25 seats perch under the ornate, mirrored roof, so eager punters will need to hotfoot it to this popular French Quarter haunt early. And once you’ve staked your place at the bar and settled in for a long night of drams and chats there are (thankfully) bar bites on offer. Local favourites po’ boys, gumbo and beignets all line the menu, and later your stomach.
Planted in one of the country’s most conservative states it’s a wonder this downtown whiskey saloon ever came to be. Not only does High West pour a mean Old Fashioned, but it also produces the very Rendezvous Rye that goes into it. Yet there’s more: unsatisfied with merely flying in the face of draconian local liquor laws and winning numerous awards, High West also holds the mantle as the globe’s only ski-in distillery.
Pass under the original Wild West wooden facade with your cheeks still cold from the breath of the mountains, and emerge later among the snow-clad streets warm with the glow of aged Yippee Ki-Yay whiskey and its cinnamon spice notes. Or settle in for the night with a homemade chicken pot pie and a High West 101 whiskey flight, watching the snow flutter past the windows.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono: this twentieth-century rock star-peace power couple have never ceased to amaze the world. In 1969, the pyjama-clad newlyweds spent eight days in a peaceful bed-in protest against the Vietnam War in Suite 1742 of the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. It was here that Give Peace a Chance was also recorded. While the couple’s first bed-in – a room at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam – can still be visited, Suite 1742 in Montreal’s Fairmont has been reactualised for a truly immersive experience.
The two-bedder has the iconic song lyrics splashed across the walls, as well as an interactive cabinet installation packed with videos, images, podcasts, and a virtual reality experience which allows guests to view the room as Lennon and Ono did nearly 50 years ago. For those keen to bed down in a slice of rock star history, the suite will set you back a cool US$1650 per night.
Deep in the heart of Texas two Spanish engineers have delivered a venue that combines two of our greatest loves: beer and books. By day you can get a coffee here, but by night this cute bookstore bungalow turns into a bar. Browse the shelves, where you can find the work of plenty of local authors, order a tosta (a Spanish-style bruschetta topped with prosciutto or salmon) and a pint.
Local breweries Texas Ale Project, Peticolas and Four Corners are all represented. Then either flip through some pages or eye what the person sitting opposite is reading. On many evenings, you might also stumble across an event – movie screenings, readings, wine tastings, DJ sets and book signings are all on the agenda.
Trek around the edges of the prehistoric ice sheet that dominates the interior of Greenland – in fact more than 80 per cent of the country. Ice sheet is perhaps misleading: there are many ice mountains, frozen freshwater formations and fauna. This ice sheet represents 10 per cent of the world’s fresh water supplies and is 14 times the size of the UK. While in Greenland, be sure to see the Ilulissat Icefjord, an incredible natural sight. Sermeq Kujalleq is the largest glacier outside of Antarctica and the whole area has been listed as UNESCO World Heritage.
Now is the perfect time to trek around the glacier or see Ilulissat as a Nature Climate Change study has shown that the North Greenland Ice Sheet is melting at a rate of 10 billion tons of water per year since 2003 and shows no signs of letting up. What’s more, as the popularity of Greenland grows, you can see the Icefjord from many different ways – by boat, helicopter or foot, hiking around the edge of the glacier with experienced guides.
The New York Theatre Workshop is an intimate performing arts theatre noted for its quality production of new works by several now well-known playwrights and located on funky East 4th Street.
Jonathan Larson’s Rent was developed and first performed here. It’s part of Downtown’s Theater Row and offers neighbourhood and cultural events throughout the year. The theatre is an excellent opportunity to see raw talent at its best or you may even be lucky enough to see a real celebrity honing their craft. James Bond’s Daniel Craig appeared in Othello at the NYTW to rave reviews.
NYTW also has an impressive selection of masterclasses, workshops, artist residencies and fellowships. You could do a lot worse than attending an artists’ summer residency in NYC.
Located on the hip Lower East Side that’s bustling with bars and restaurants it would make perfect sense to have a bite before a show or finish with a nightcap.
Don’t let the name fool you – there’s no way you’ll be smiling once this headache-inducing contraption is done with you. The Smiler is the world’s first 14-loop roller coaster, and while it may not be the tallest (its highest point is 30 metres) it does manage to reach a maximum speed of 85 kilometres an hour. Now that’s uncomfortably fast, especially when The Smiler lasts for a torturous three minutes. But the terror doesn’t just begin the moment the over-shoulder restraints lock into place. Oh no. While lining up in the queue, which begins outside and moves into a darkened room, riders are subjected to projections, special effects, strobe lighting and optical illusions specifically designed to play tricks on your eyes and mind. It’s certainly disorientating enough to make you feel queasy about what’s to come. Located at Alton Towers, the largest theme park in the UK, The Smiler has got enough sneaky tricks and loop-the-loops up its sleeve to guarantee you’ll be left sufficiently shaken. altontowers.com
Swings are for kids, right? Not this one. The Giant Canyon Swing at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park is big enough and mean enough to strike fear into the hearts of seasoned adrenaline junkies. Perched precariously on the edge of a frighteningly sheer cliff, 400 metres above the Colorado River, the Giant Canyon Swing is not your average piece of playground equipment. For just on 60 seconds it hurtles four passengers at a time, back and forth, to a near vertical angle. It also rockets to a top speed of 80 kilometres an hour, which is enough to create negative G-forces. That’s kinda like having butterflies in your tummy, only a hundred times worse, and with the added fear of vomiting or passing out. Or both. It’s so scary, riders must sign a liability waiver, and anyone under the age of 18 must have a parent’s or guardian’s signature. Even owner Steve Beckley has only ever ridden the Giant Canyon Swing once. Now if that’s not an indicator of how petrifying the experience is, we’re not sure what is. glenwoodcaverns.com
You’ve got to question the state of mind of whoever conjured up the nightmarish, stomach-churning situation that is Insanity the Ride. Positioned atop the tallest structure in Las Vegas, The STRAT Hotel, Casino and Skypod, this terrifying centrifuge ride uses an enormous mechanical arm to dangle passengers 265 metres in the air. As if that wasn’t enough to have you murmuring a couple of Hail Marys under your breath, all trapped thrill-seekers are then tilted to an angle of 70 degrees (in other words: you’re staring directly at the ground below) and spun around at speeds of up to 64 kilometres an hour. Apparently Insanity is also programmable with various different motion sequences, which means no two rides feel the same. We want to suggest downing a couple of strong, oversized, Vegas-style cocktails before allowing yourself to be strapped into this sky-high monstrosity, but that could end badly for everyone involved. Instead, all you can really do is sit back, admire the view and hope your seatbelt is done up. thestrat.com
There are normal roller coasters, then there’s the X2. This mechanical beast, which you can find by following the howl of deathly screams all the way to California’s Six Flags Magic Mountain, is in a league of its own – so much so, it’s considered the very first 4D coaster. That means riders are placed in extra-wide 360-degree rotating seats that twist and flip independent of how the main train navigates the tracks. It also runs on four rails, instead of the usual two. Sound distressing? That’s not the end of it. While you’re spiralling through the air headfirst and facedown, the X2 is also accelerating to speeds of 122 kilometres an hour and climbing to an elevation of 60 metres. Oh, and your feet are dangling weightlessly in the air too, which any frequent ride-goer will know is a truly awful sensation. Chuck in a couple of inversions (corkscrew-like manoeuvres), two ultra-rare raven turns (half loops that turn into sheer drops), a backflip and the added drama of a pair of flamethrowers, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a heart-thumping ride. sixflags.com
When it comes to roller coaster construction, surely the general rule of thumb is that the track should be fully complete – with no obvious gaps – before it gets the green light for real-life human passengers? Apparently not, according to the crazy people behind the Gravity Max at Taiwan’s Lihpao Land theme park. The thrill (if you can even call it that) of this ride is that it ascends dizzyingly fast to the very edge of a seemingly track-less horizontal platform, before tilting forward to a 90-degree angle – pausing for dramatic effect and maximum scares, of course – and magically reconnecting to the downward track. It then proceeds to shoot through a pitch-black tunnel and straight into a 360-degree vertical loop, reaching a max speed of 90 kilometres an hour and 3.5 Gs of force. The Gravity Max is the world’s only tilting roller coaster, is the first with a true 90-degree drop, and it goes for a blood-curdling two minutes and 26 seconds. Ride at your own peril. lihpaoresort.com
It’s easy to find superb food in Canada’s coolest city, but eating like a Montrealer is another experience altogether. Local pals Danny and Anne-Marie have stitched together a small-group tour of their favourite tastes in Little Italy and the up-and-coming Mile-Ex neighbourhood. At Marché Jean-Talon you’ll wander aisles of lovingly arranged produce and meet owners of artisan dairy stalls and creative charcuteries who will ply you with ice cream and cured meats.
Your guides will share the history of the region over fresh coffee, brief you on the influence of immigration as you pile pickles onto Salvadoran pupusas (thick savoury pancakes packed with fillings) and introduce you to sour beer at a craft brewery decked out in blush tones, wood and marble. The final touch is a picnic in a park, where old men play cards beneath the trees. We won’t divulge the complete menu, but it’s a finger-licking affair. Make Montreal home, at least for a day.
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