Exploring Canada's Off Season

Expedia.ca asked me to share some of my favorite destinations in Canada. I tend to travel to “destinations” in the offseason because I get them all to myself, but I don’t mind sharing them with a few fellow adventurers, too. :)

Visibility outside my window is shrouded, filled with white flakes and low clouds. This scene pulls me into what most would consider an unlikely place — back to the road, exploring and traveling through Canada. Roughly half my Canadian tours happened in the winter months, a time many folks consider an off-season for the northland. But I’ve always considered winter prime time to travel.

That’s because I get the beauty all to myself.

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Photo: Chensiyuan

First to mind is Cape Breton’s famed Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia. It’s been recognized by magazines, including National Geographic and Travel & Leisure, used as the setting for car commercials, and recognized as one of the most scenic drives in North America, and by others, in the world. In the summer, visitors flood in. But in the dead of winter, the locals reclaim their land, living the quiet, short days along a frozen Atlantic ocean that absorbs the eye as much as its wild counterpart in the summer.

Cape Breton Highlands National Park, a tract that runs east and west across the northern end of the island, is made of forested land that rises abruptly from the ocean, sinks down into lakes, and is cut through by rivers running to the sea. In winter, it’s reminiscent of those old-fashioned Christmas cards; undulating land dotted with historic Acadian villages, Scottish fishing communities, and herds of wild horses — all blanketed with a layer of white.

One of those outposts is Ingonish. Its 1,900 people claim Ski Cape Smokey, Nova Scotia’s highest elevation ski area, as their local hill. And it’s as local-feeling as they come. Run completely through volunteer efforts, the locals who mill about the lodge and slopes make winter come alive with their vibrant smiles and deeply-accented conversations. And its snows can run deep and light, despite its position along the edge of the Atlantic.

It’s the combination of scenery and culture that make Ski Cape Smokey one of the most memorable ski areas I’ve visited in North America, and the quiet winter landscape of the larger Cape Breton region a favorite place to visit.

Gaspesie, Quebec

Photo: Ski Chic-Chocs

Traveling northwest from Nova Scotia, I found myself in another corner of the continent that juts into the ocean, another place that was remote and scenic and jovial, but this time it was Quebec, which — other than Montreal — feels like you’ve left the continent altogether and hopped the pond to Europe. Or, at least, old-fashioned Europe: tiny farmland towns deep in traditional ways, with church steeples cutting the skyline and neighbors who all know each other.

Mid-season in the Chic-Choc village I stayed in.

My destination was the Chic-Choc Mountains, inland from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and making up part of Gaspesie National Park. I was going to meet up with my Quebecois-speaking friends for a week in the backcountry, but up until then, I knew nothing of the place.

What I saw captivated me; western-like peaks with an average of 23 feet of soft snow each winter.

How had I, a traveling skier, not heard of the Chic-Chocs before now?

Simply put: because it was located in a remote corner of the east, rather than Colorado. But its terrain was very much up to par, just dropped a few thousand feet in elevation. It was steep, with chutes and bowls and above-treeline terrain covered in a base so deep that our avy probes sunk all the way in, then our arms — and still no hard layer or ground impact — just light, soft snow.

I love these kinds of personal discoveries. I spent the week communicating in super-broken French, 85% of the time not understanding anything but the laughter and shouts of joy erupting from untouched turns in an otherwise quiet backcountry. Nights were spent driving to St-Anne-des-Monts for the Auberge Festive Sea Shack, a decidedly under-25-and-very-Quebecois hostel and tiki bar on the coast.

“Festive” is precisely how the week-long experience plays out in my mind.

Jasper National Park, Alberta

And my first Canadian love. This is where I came face-to-face with the meaning of “grandeur”; it’s where I first laid eyes on the electric blue of rock-floured rivers, where my feet first touched a glacier, and where I realized that Canada was a land where humans were visitors in an otherwise wildlife-owned territory.

I revisited this place year after year. Sometimes when it was green and buzzing with life. Most times, it was the off-season and still. New snow added a brilliant new layer on top of summer-baked glaciers, waterfalls slowed in their rush, partially choked with ice or completely still. And the best part: no humans.

The entire western portion of Canada is like that. It’s bigger than anything I have the power to comprehend, and each region does “big” in its own spectacular way.

Western Kootenay Region, British Columbia

This is where I decided to call home. It’s riddled with miles-and-miles long lakes surrounded by glacier-smothered peaks. Their waters are deeply aqua, taking on the color after accumulating massive amounts of snowmelt and glacial runoff. Summiting any one of the mountains shows off a 360-degree sea of apexes, interrupted by lakes and nothing else.

Towns such as Nelson and Revelstoke are bigger centers in the region, but villages and hamlets are the name of the game here. The region is populated by folks who are eccentric and friendly, artistic, and deeply passionate about being outdoors.

This sparse population is good for us locals. We live along the “Powder Highway,” taking its name from our deep, dry winters. The low population and unending peaks mean there’s an untouched surplus of skiable snow all winter. Even our front country ski areas — Whitewater and Revelstoke Mountain Resort — see loads of snow that never gets tracked out.

Lucky us.

Sea to Sky Region, British Columbia

Just north of the Sea to Sky Highway, but continuing in the same visual vein: Joffre Lakes Provincial Park in Pemberton, BC

For the Cabot Trail in the east, there’s a counterpart in the west. From Vancouver to Squamish and on to Whistler — the Sea to Sky Highway — and north still to Pemberton, the drive captures views of mountains so intense, my jaw dropped involuntarily. The Coast Mountains create a barrier along the Howe Sound at the southern head of this highway. Mountains bubble up in the sound, too, creating islands navigated by oversized ships coming in to port, kayakers, and divers. A spongy ground somehow supports dense trees with moss that runs halfway up their trunks.

Squamish, north of Vancouver, and the area around it is one of the most picturesque oceanside vistas I’ve seen; the town at night spills in golden light down from the surrounding mountains and into the blue curve that terminates Howe Sound. “The Chief” — a granite dome that breaks out of the forest cover — reigns over a boulder field. Wandering under the dark canopy that protects the massive boulders, seeing the moss running halfway up the old-growth cedars, I felt as if I’d stepped back in time. It felt as though a brontosaurus could very naturally lift its head from the fern-covered floor and I would take it as all part of the scene.

Yukon Territory

Shortly becoming independent and acting on my gypsy blood, I stumbled across a poem by Robert Service. One stanza, in particular, would haunt me for years:

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back—and I will.

The poem was written by a British-Canadian cowboy in the late 1800s and titled “The Spell of the Yukon.”

I couldn’t shake it. I wanted to go, but didn’t have any idea what to expect, if it was safe for me to go, or even if there were roads in service (I was young at the time). All I knew is that until I set my own eyes on it, I wouldn’t be satisfied.

I had that chance a few years ago on my way to heli-ski in Alaska. I decided to drive instead of fly so I could explore along the way. As I mapped out my route to Cordova, I saw the drive would take me right into Yukon’s capital, Whitehorse, and across a good chunk of unpeopled Yukon Territory.

My heart leapt.

If I could instill a feeling of magic in you, I would do it here. I crossed the border between British Columbia and Yukon deep after dark on a late March night. There was absolutely no light pollution, not even another car on the highway. The stars were as close as they’ve ever felt against the inkwell sky.

The reading on my car’s thermometer steadily continued its journey below freezing until it bottomed out at -17ºF. I’d never driven in such a desolate situation, but I was thrilled. I felt wild and uncaged. And then, something unnatural grew in that black sky.

It started indecipherably; just a white glow. I wasn’t sure if I was even seeing it. Being alone, my mind started coming up with insane reasons for it. I was in the middle of Nowhere, Northern Canada, and alone. If there was a place for extraterrestrials, this would be it.

But then it shifted. Everything clicked. I slowed my car and pulled to the shoulder, shutting down the lights. Fumbling for my camera, I switched into manual mode, set it to a long exposure, and rolled down the window. The cold rushed in and bit my skin, but the grin on my face spread to my heart and I took no notice.

The northern lights were spreading across the sky directly overhead. Dancing. Shifting. Weaving. Green with a tinge of purple.

That night, my first in the Yukon, I fell asleep while those lights danced overhead.

There’s a magic in exploring the regions of this great expanse of land north of the 49th parallel. There’s magic in the people, there’s magic in the wildlife, and there’s magic in the seasons — especially in the quiet ones when you have the whole land to yourself.

The Trail Less Traveled

This post was written in partnership with REI.

I'm not really a hiker.

I don't hike for the love of burning quads, burning lungs, or a sweaty back hugged up against a day pack.

If anything, I'm a seer. Not in the prophetic sense; I'm talking about an addiction to visual stimulus. I get hung up on details in the most ridiculously minute way. If it were possible, I would inhale entire landscapes just so I could absorb everything they hold.

But, like most addictions, mine comes with a problem: I don't like seeing the same trail twice. And if it's a popular trail, one that’s been documented endlessly on Google’s image search, I don't want to be on it — at least not when it's in prime season.

But unlike most addictions, this one has a benefit.

Searching for new sights keeps my mind open. It helps me realize that adventure and scenic beauty aren’t designated to one kind of environment (e.g. the go-to mountains of Colorado) but are widespread, found in areas people might not readily consider:

Singletrack in northern Florida.

The historic mountain culture of the Appalachians.

The contrasting colors of land and sky in the prairies.

Backcountry skiing over the Atlantic ocean.

No, they aren’t “the classics.” But trails through these less-popular areas provide me a space to move through varied ecosystems, cultures and landscape. They offer connections between people and the subtleties — or grandeur — that make each region unique; that’s helped me see the appreciation people have for their corner of the continent.

But truly “seeing” a place is nothing without fuel from the other senses.

Have you, for example, ever noticed how the sun bakes the morning dew off Florida’s fallen pine needles, filling the air with a warm Christmas scent? And how, in the rainy season, clockwork thunderstorms empty over the southland’s hammocks, lingering in muddy patches where wild boars stomp their grounds?

Or have you heard the insects clap in flight as you disrupt their place on prairie tallgrass? Their sounds are amplified in the afternoon clouds, thundering across the sky line. After summer’s storms finish feeding the grasslands, autumn’s wind brush against the stalks, moving them in formation like golden waves.

And what about the Atlantic Maritimes, where the Appalachian Mountains submerge below icy waters, shoring a legacy of explorers who tread a land once considered wild? If you look in its quiet folds, in the regions surrounding the whitewashed fishing villages, you’ll find the mountains of the maritimes still hold a salty breath of mystery. Or top off the Appalachian Trail with its International section, and you’ll pass through the system’s most remote and rugged region — the Chic Chocs — showing that the Appalachians do hold a candle to the rugged peaks of the west.

Because of my unquenchable addiction, I’ve held open the doors of perception and allowed North America to show me what she holds, no judgements. And she’s shown me, as I’ve traversed her trails over many regions, that she’s exquisite.

Canada: Where the Wild Things Are

This injury has me at 47 days without walking, without my car, without snow and ice. I'm one person in over a million strung along mountains I cannot access but that are crucial to my well-being. There's been one too many "Keep Calm and _(fill in this blank)_" and "The mountains are calling and I must go," quotes thrown at me. I've kept calm. Cheerful even. But the mountains are calling and I can't go. Instead, I'm holed up under a covering of yellow smog and rain. Don't talk to me about John Muir.

The other morning, instead of waking up early for a powder day, I woke up early for hockey. The Canadian men were making their push for gold at precisely 5 a.m. MT and I was ecstatic. It would have happened anyway, regardless of my being hurt; I have a crush on hockey and am in love with my second country up north. But never once before have I set my alarm to watch something on television.

What was happening to me?

My road trip partner on my first trip north.

The journey began a few years ago while I was carrying out life from a tent in the high Uintas. That entire summer, I shivered through alpine nights (it snowed in early July), but craved the cold air on my face as I unzipped from my bag each morning. Daytime temperatures were incredible — so different than what I was accustomed to in the asphalt-charred city a couple of thousand feet below. Green surrounded me, made alive by braided rivers and summer showers. I needed more.

On all sides of Utah stand desert tracts, but only in one direction on this continent, if you push just a little further, do you find mountains erupting out of deep forests, ripping apart the sky. Only in one direction do milky blue rivers, electric in color, smooth glacial rocks in passing. And if you so choose, only in one direction is there a land that stretches, beyond comprehension, into not one single other city.

North. The word alone made me feel wild and unbound.

There were only 4.5 days.

Glacier. Waterton. Banff. The quiet wonder of Jasper. Eyes grew increasingly wide as the stunning view unfolded inside the windshield; the further north my tires rolled, the more surrealistically beautiful the scene grew.

My heart capsized in Jasper. As an American, I grew up singing "sweet mountain majesty" but didn't fully comprehend the impact of these words until I experienced the profound allure of this national park. Arriving 365 miles north of the U.S. border, I was surrounded by land that undulated through glacier-strewn summits and valley lakes. It was a land owned by wildlife and covered in a lush carpet of chlorophyll.  If it hadn't been for a travel partner who needed to return for her job, our road trip would have concluded instantly.

I've since traveled well over 50,000 miles (possibly twice that) of lower 48 roadways in a search to find the same verdant intensity as our northern neighbor so easily displays. There were hints of it in Washington and Montana, but they were bookended beauties — capped by cities or dehydrated land.

Limitations have never been a favorite of mine.

So I returned north. Each year, my car transported me to a country that felt more like home. Visits extended from 4.5 days to weeks, then months. I explored coves, skied isolated backcountry, waited for caribou to cross, and enjoyed the ready smiles and playful accents of the Canadian people. Nothing in my cross-continent travels brought me greater happiness than the days spent in this friendly country.

The charm of this wild northland wove its way into so many of my thoughts that action was taken to make it legitimately part of my identity. Blazed with a red maple leaf and inscribed in French and English, my Canadian citizenship papers filled me with humble pride: the most beautiful country in the hemisphere had accepted me as one of its own.

So I watch hockey. Not to pose as a born-and-raised Canadian, but because I'm finding that certain things that were already a part of me before I stepped foot on Canadian soil — enjoying poutine, loving hockey, superfluous amounts of saying sorry [er, soorry], etc. — mean that I have found kinship in that country. Maybe these things were inherent, passed through my father's French Canadian side. Maybe I was just born in the wrong place. The game point comes only from rectifying the situation.

Not being able to walk will only temporarily hold me back from the place where my soul finds life's purity — much further north than this Salt Lake valley — across a border, in a wild land. It calls, John Muir, so I must go.

Game point: The Move to Canada. Coming Summer 2014.

The Space Between

There were intentions of taking daily pictures this year so I could maintain at least a weekly blog post. Yet here I am, over a month after making that sort-of resolution and finding that I have made one post and taken probably about the same number of daily photos. An exaggeration; there are at least two.

In protest, I'll put the blame somewhere else, like on the guy who skied out in front of me. Just a few days after I set my New Year's "Meh-solution," I suffered what skiers call the "Terrible Triad" — the tearing of three crucial knee ligaments — because of his oblivious maneuver. I realized, too late, that ski racing while uninsured was stupid. I stopped spinning, clutched my right knee and felt like cursing for one of the few times in my life.

My first thought was that I let my team mate, Katie Smith, down by not being able to finish the race. I then thought of my job (adventure journalism) for which being mobile seemed to be a necessity (not many adventures happen on the couch). That led to my next thought: How the heck I was going to pay for my knee to be fixed? The last sobering thought: my mom.

I knew what was coming. After her questioning my well-being twenty times and how the accident happened and how I was going to take care of myself and if I had help and telling me she wished she could be there to assist (she lives 2500 miles away), it was going to come: The question about my lifestyle choice.

I live against the flow of the larger society, though I'm surrounded by like-minded people which means I don't notice my nonconformity until I talk to friends and family back home.

So, after talking to my mom back home, I noticed it.
. . .

The past few weeks on the couch have been rough. Insurance was applied for dutifully through healthcare.gov back in October, then November, then December, each time with some answer that my application was delayed or missing. It still hasn't gone through. That means I'm dealing with a debilitating injury sans insurance, and trying to figure out how the heck to get care. I also had to drop out of the classes I signed up for this semester at university, as I was now unable to drive anywhere. The consequences of dropping meant dealing with the hassle of tuition reimbursement, submitting withdrawal requests and appeals for delayed entrance, should I decide to stick around Utah long enough for another semester to approach.

Then there's been the pain. The pain of moving my leg, of not moving my body, of a restless mind, of unproductiveness. There's the pain that the world is spinning by without my seeing it. That a month of my life has been confined to four walls and no loved ones.

Under it all, my mom's question smolders: Why do you choose this lifestyle?

She wants the best for me. Skiing was where I poured nearly all my energy. I tried to capture it in photos and words. I crisscrossed the continent in search of it. I pushed myself to perfect technique — though I'm far from attaining it. Free moments were spent thinking about bigger travels and bigger lines. And this injury is what I now have to show for it. To my mom, that is not enough.

For the first time in my life, I wonder if it is enough for me.

I look at Facebook updates from friends who "conformed": Families, dogs, houses, enough money to pay for health insurance. Enough money to not have to choose between food and gas. Little hands that are always getting into messes and bigger hands to hold. Sunday dinners.

Then I post my Facebook status: another photo from another stunning, wild place. Often solo.

What was so fulfilling at one time, what felt so empowering, is beginning to feel like a decoy leading me from where real happiness resides: Friends. Family. Washing the tiny hands of my nephews before they are too big to need my help. And for the first time in a long time, maybe even a bigger hand that holds my own. Not just for two years, or seven, but for good.

These are the thoughts that come more frequently into my mind this past half a year. The cross-road decision: I either give it up and settle down or pursue what might never be fulfilled.

I have to face it: There may never be a rewarding career in doing what I love. Relationships might always be squeezed into short conversations before cell phone reception cuts out. There might never be that other half who can handle, let alone be passionate about, traveling with someone addicted to new vistas and enthralled with an untethered existence — and open to taking that journey with me.

I'm stuck between two worlds, wanting the stability of my own family but wanting the freedom of the wild. I was once positive that the two could mesh — and would if I stayed true to myself. I'm not so sure anymore. The longer I travel down the unconventional road, the further it divides from what my mother wants for me and what I ultimately want as well.

There's no pretty way to wrap up this post since I haven't got life figured all out, so I'll let the words end where my answers do.

Bubbas and Backcountry: What Makes the East so Different

Trail blazes painted on the rocks & trees are common in New England hiking

The Northeast is different.

Here people have nicknames for everything and everyone, though the latter often falls back on the generic “Bubba” if you’re a guy. People use expletives where they don’t even make sense. And the accents: whoa.

The outdoor world is just as fascinating. Skiing in the east broke me in to its eccentricities and I learned to adapt quickly. As winter melted into spring, the Northeast’s rock climbing had me bushwacking into approaches and picking ticks off later.

And now it’s hiking season. The trails are rife with rivulets; where they don’t exist, large stones stack on top of one another, either naturally or by the hand of man. Throw in some tree roots and you’ll find that hiking in the Northeast is less a simple act of walking and more of scrambling and jumping.

Here your cardiovascular condition better be in tune; no sissy switchbacks exist to accommodate you. If you’re lucky, a ledge will crop up and provide you with a grand view of the surroundings—that is if you aren’t too busy trying to catch your breath while pretending to stop for the scenery.

But, as a Westerner, nothing stands out more to me than the shelters. They are everywhere—hike a trail that summits somewhere, and you will be greeted by one of these log structures.

Shelter view; includes 3-seated log bench

They vary in luxury: some are fully-decked out cabins with bunks and woodstoves, such as the Starks Nest shelter along the Long Trail at Mad River Glen. Some are more primitive—nothing more than a three-sided structure with a roof overhead. This is what I found at the top of the Swan Lake Trail near the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire a couple of nights ago.

The trail itself was pretty low-key for the east, actually more akin to what you’d find out west: rocks thrown in here and there and some hard packed dirt. The grade was a piece of cake and had it not been for the mud and little streams periodically cutting the trail, I could have easily placed it in the intermountain region.

The trail cut through tall stands of birch and maple until the grand finale: a beautiful lake surrounded by rolling peaks and a spectacular sunset in the making.

Get comfy

And a shelter. The log structure was accessorized by a rough-hewn three-seater bench and a metal firepit. Inside the shelter, visitors had carved their names into every space of wood available and a drab olive-colored fleece lay crumpled on the floor.

I turned my back on the shelter and claimed one of the spots on the bench. You’d be hard-pressed to find this much structure accompanying the backcountry trails of the west, or at least Utah.

I watched the colors of the sky turn from blue to gold and then pink. It was about that time when my hiking partner laughed behind me. I turned to see him crouched in the shadows of the shelter, a spot I had overlooked. He had donned the olive fleece and was lifting a bag filled with a dark liquid. I wrinkled my nose, thinking it was some putrid mix that had sat there for ages. Then he took a swig.

Leftover libations

“Red wine!” he smiled.

Seriously? I walked over to the spot where he was crouched and saw corner stuffed full of wine, little bottles of flavored vodka, scraps of folded paper (no notes written on them), and a red-dyed feather sticking out from the logs. It was like folks left these things behind for future hikers to enjoy.

I’d never seen anything like it. I thought back to geocaching and how folks hike to spots where treasures lay hidden. This was like a giant geocache haul except without GPS coordinates. I am not a drinker, but I still found the remains incredible.

I sat on the edge of the shelter and swung my feet. Here in the east, I’d seen so much evidence of man’s interference with the wilderness—interference meant to make trails more hospitable for humans. There were shelters, rock-hewn stairs, colored blazes on rocks and trees instead of cairns like we have out west. These accommodations gave the outdoor experience a softness, a potentially false sense of “all-is-well” while navigating the backcountry.

It wasn’t that easterners were not hardcore. On the contrary, these were some of the hardiest people I’d met. What ultimately differed was the history of outdoorsmanship in this area. It was a land of our forefathers who explored their surroundings long before the west was “tamed.” It was a land of the Civilian Conservation Corps, an organization developed to employ men during the Great Depression. It is a region that the Appalachian Mountain Club, from 1876 to present, has worked to protect and maintain. It is part of historic trail systems that set the example for through-hikes around the nation.

I have heard that newer trails are less structured than their predecessors. For those who believe the outdoor experience should be as wild as possible, this might be welcome news. However, the hiking in the Northeast is all the more charming for those old shelters and its distinctive trail design. Its unique features separate it from other regions’ hikes, making it simultaneously a great place to experience something new and to hike back into history.

View of Swan Lake and the beginning of a beautiful sunset

Good Morning, Sun

Just a short post as I am writing via phone.

Been pretty thankful for Mr. Sun the past two mornings. The northeast can make for a dark winter (hence, no goggle tan this season) and the sun makes a huge difference in the cold temps here. So I thought I'd share the glory of a sunshiney morning with you. 

Below are the views I woke up to the past two days. Exhibit A is the view from the pilot's seat in the Mazda 3 as I woke up just now. Exhibit B is in New Hampshire as I open a barn door (yes, I stayed in a barn). Not a bad way to start the day, eh? (I think in rhymes.)

Now excuse me as I go test out this new snow.

Ski the East: Powder Like Utah

"Ski the East" is a series of articles created by founder, Gina Bégin, as she tours from maritime Canada to the northeast US in a quest to uncover the culture and vibe of the ski community and areas of eastern North America. This is part IV in this series. For more about this project, check out "Uncovering the Mystery."

. . .

Returning for more

An enigma. A fabled land. A tiny corner of the Northeast Kingdom that Vermonters held sacred in their snowy reaches.

It was Jay Peak and it had been haunting my imagination ever since I happened upon a tiny write up in a worn magazine years ago. The description claimed that the weather patterns there dropped the driest snow in the east, comparable to the feathery powder of the western US mountains.

This struck me as impossible. My experience with eastern snow was that it stuck to every surface it touched and then promptly turned into a sheet of ice. My one run down a Pennsylvania hill solidified this idea; having ice skates strapped to my feet, rather than skis, would have been more appropriate in that instance. If any weather pattern could mix up a dry concoction of frozen H2O in the eastern states it would have to be through some sort of voodooistic phenomenon.

Perhaps there was some magic behind this far away mountain as the name “Jay Peak” could not be shaken from my mind. Through the years I tried to find out more about it, questioning skiers from the east about the ski area, asking if they knew anything about it. A great majority returned my questions with a shrug. Some said they had never gone because it was just too far to reach; too backwoods, too in the middle of nowhere. There were a select few, though, whose eyes misted over with a dream-like glaze and nodded as they spoke in tales of powder deeper and softer than any eastern mountain could provide.

The more I questioned, the deeper the mountain haunted me.  I had to go.
. . .

Is the legend true? Find out on Outdoor Women's Alliance, where the story unfolds.