“When we stepped outside to get ready for bed in the cottage’s bathroom, a stone’s throw from the tepee and shared with other guests, we realized what the canines’ fuss was about. It was the new moon and a milky fan of shockingly bright stars hung in the desert sky. The coyotes had been celebrating.”  In the Los Angeles Times,  Jessica Gelt writes about her tour of Death Valley desert towns, including a stay in a tepee on the grounds of China Ranch, a date farm in the tiny town of Tecopa just outside the Park.

Melanie Nayer lists five top treehouse lodges, ranging from the Parrot Nest Lodge on the Mopan River in Belize to the Tranquil Resort in Wayanad, Kerala, India, where you wake “up to the smells of vanilla wafting through the air and coffee beans roasting in the sun. The 500-square-foot treehouse at Tranquil Resort is set on a private 400-acre estate complete with a working coffee and vanilla plantation, meant to relax and rejuvenate.”

One of the dangers of polar expeditions are the violent storms (pitoraqs) that can appear suddenly and without warning. The only way to survive such a storm is to tie down the tent really well, sit inside, leaning against the tent poles for extra support, and pray…

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Tawoche Base Camp in the Khumbu region of the Nepalese Himalaya: Climbers Renan Ozturk and Cory Richards attempt to scale and survive the south central “buttress” of Tawoche…

“We have never actually been accused of being the sharpest bowling balls on the shelf… Tawoche in all her glory rises above us another 5,000 ft. With the view, comes the all to familiar rollercoaster of emotions that precede any alpine endeavor. Balancing fear and intuition, angst and energy, the action vs. the idea… they all flow into your already pounding cranial vault, leaving you exhausted before you’ve left the ground.”

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Dwell magazine explores The Airstream Life: “Tucked under couch cushions and linoleum panels, I found artifacts—mix tapes, scrawled recipes, and wrinkled photographs—that chronicled the lives of those who had dwelt within the Airstream since some stranger first purchased it in 1959 from Pacific Railroad Sales in Salinas, California.”

Cliff Kuang of Fast Company writes about Western Scotland’s Ecopod–a “self-contained geodesic dome.”

“There’s no exterior plumbing or cast foundation–the pod sits on the land, with as minimal an impact as possible. The high-end appliances inside–which include a cooking range, a TV, and a stereo–are all ultra-energy efficient. Waste water, meanwhile, is stored and recycled, and the furniture is either all vintage or made from renewable resources, and the wood used in the construction–which includes a hot tub–was all locally sourced.”

Inside The Timberline Lodge

Built in 1937 as a Depression-era “jobs project” for nearly $1 million dollars, Oregon’s Timberline Lodge at the base of Mount Hood has been a site for iconic movie sets–like The Shining and All the Young Men, remains an epicenter for skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts (spawning the popular High Cascade Snowboard Camp), and has been home for the Kohnstamm family for nearly a half century.

“‘There are museum aspects of this place, and I suppose the government could say, ‘let’s make it into a museum and have ropes and glass and charge admission,’ but we’d rather it be a ski lodge than a museum,’” owner Jeff Kohnstamm tells Thom Patterson of CNN.

“Since its birth in the late 1930s as a New Deal project to create hundreds of jobs for Portland workers, craftsmen and artisans, Timberline has dug out its own place in American culture.”

photo credit: K. Kendall