Parkour is the art of moving. Parkour enthusiasts practice the art by maneuvering their way over, around, and through obstacles in the most efficient way possible. The sport requires no special equipment or playing surface. It typically is played in cities, which by their nature provide a suitable series of obstacles.

Parkour originated in France in the late 20th century and retains the original French terminology for many of the moves. The object of Parkour is to move in such a way as you would in an emergency, when every second counts. Practitioners, called “traceurs” for reasons that I don’t know, run as if trying to catch or escape from someone else moving at peak efficiency.

The originators of Parkour resist the idea of Parkour as a competitive sport, instead considering it to be a self-development activity. Predictably, Americans generally don’t view it that way. Here, we consider any physical activity worth doing is worth doing competitively, and competitive Parkour tournaments are making their rounds in cities across the country.

In America, Parkour has evolved/melded into Free Running. The primary difference between the two is that while true Parkour places the highest emphasis on efficient movement, Free Running values creative movement above all else. Parkour features a few predetermined moves, including vaults, drops and rolls. Free Running is constantly generating new and increasingly spectacular movements, which generally don’t have names and often cannot be duplicated.

In the Rowe family, European Parkour, American Free Running, and an episode of “The Office” have merged into something else altogether. Rokour, which is the official name for our own particular brand of the sport, involves my two sons running through the park, going out of their way to jump on and over every obstacle within sight, and yelling “Parkour!” at maximum volume upon encountering each obstacle.

There is no particular scoring in Rokour. There are no winners or losers, per se. The game usually ends when the little one falls down and starts to cry. The game resumes again when he realizes it didn’t really hurt that bad and his big brother is getting away. I highly recommend Rokour for your next family outing. Just be sure to bring the video camera… and the first aid kit.

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Sure, a lot of people say that camping is not camping if you are using some sort of electric stove instead of the good ole’ gas or over the fire methods. I personally would object to seeing someone use some sort of a “cooking made easy!” device if they were simply at a campground for their leisure. However, when you are climbing with a purpose, hiking, or doing some other sort of extreme exercise where food is an essential necessity, I think that being able to make dinner in a short amount of time could be very useful.

I recently was researching a company whose founders had the same frustrations as some people have experienced. Dwight Aspinwall and Perry Dowst were sick of dragging around their heavy vacuum bottles and clunky stoves, so they formed a company called Jetboil. At first I thought it would be some sort of an aircraft company, but it turns out that this company makes products that will make outdoor cooking much easier.

One of their newer devices is the Flash. Flash is an all-in-one design, and it is a combined burner and cooking vessel in one compact unit. This product features a 1.0 Liter FluxRing® cooking cup with insulating cozy and color-change heat indicator. Do not worry, the cup clips onto the burner, so you do not have to carry around the burner while you are enjoying your soup, coffee, hot chocolate, or something else. Just think, with the click of a burner, you could be eating gourmet freeze-dried right in the White Mountains.

Another type of product that people use is the group cooking system. This pot has a 1.5 liter system, and it heats evenly throughout the whole material. What this means is that you could cook something like a scrambled egg right on there!

There are a lot of other places that sell outdoors equipment. These are just two of the examples of “cooking gone easy.”

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You can tell that something funky is going on with the weather these days when it is beautiful and sunny, but 40 to 50 degrees on a Saturday and snowing, raining, and sleeting and 30-40 degrees the next day. I am not sure if any of you live in the Boston area, but Sunday’s weather was a little out of the ordinary. For instance, it was 42 degrees F, but it was snowing snowflakes the size of golf balls. However, even though it was snowing, it also was raining–the two forms of precipitation could be distinguished clearly from each other, and they definitely were happening at the same time. Sometimes it would rain, sometimes it would snow, and other times it would be a complete mixture.

In any case, the Head of the Charles still continued on. Even though a winter wonderland mixture was falling from the sky or a torrential downpour was occurring, the races still went on as a planned. I am not sure of the actual head count this year in terms of viewers, but from working in the sales tent, we definitely noticed that the weather was not drawing in a crowd at this year’s Head of the Charles. However, the dedicated fans were still there and ready to take on the New England weather, and the race was a success as always.

Wondering about some of the highlights? Well, one special moment was when a 60 year old, Jim Dietz, won the 60+ singles race to take his 11th singles title. It was also his 21st or 22nd Charles win since he started rowing this race in 1965. In the collegiate world on the men’s side, Cal’s 8 was able to take the top honors, a mere 0.2 seconds ahead of Washington. For the women’s 8s, Yale took top honors (and 2nd place overall), followed by Washington, Princeton, Virginia, and Brown. While Washington was 16 seconds behind Yale, the rest of the schools were all within a second and a half of each other.

Even though the rain was able to draw some people away from the races, the event was a great success! It just goes to show that the weather is crazy in New England and that you always should be prepared!

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Have you ever thought about keeping a journal on the outdoors?

How to keep a journal depends entirely on your personal preference. Your level of commitment and your availability will determine how far your journal will be able to take you. Here are some ideas, from simple to more advanced:

• Comment – Take notes on the most beautiful things you saw that day or maybe the weirdest thing you saw.
• Take pictures – A picture is worth a thousand words, right? There’s no reason you can’t cheat a little in your journal and just let the pictures speak for themselves.
• Save specimens – If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the real thing worth? You always can press or preserve interesting leaves or petals you find and include them in your journal.
• Identify – You can buy books to help you identify what you’re looking at, whether they are birds, insects, plants, mushrooms, critters, or all of the above. Take note of what you find. You might be surprised with what you end up with. You could look up a list of organisms that you should be able to find in your area and make it your goal to find each one.  (If you don’t know where to start, I would suggest trees.) If you can’t figure out what you’re looking at right away, snap a picture to search online later.
• Teach others – With a little bit of practice, you’ll be able to identify many creatures or plants without having to look in a book. You might have learned an interesting fact about that organism, and by all means, you should share it! Knowledge about nature is perhaps one of the most useful types of knowledge; it has saved many lives. Knowing what plants are edible or what side of the tree moss always grows the fullest on (North) is an essential survival fact that has saved many people in sticky situations in the outdoors.

If you keep the journal going throughout the year, you can see your progress and also compare what you saw one day with what happened the year before. Pretty neat!

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I’m a city boy now, or at least I’m a country boy who lives in the city. I grew up riding my bike over dirt trails, up impossibly steep inclines, and through tangled thickets unfit for two-wheeled travel. Recently, however, bike riding is done on side streets where I can encounter the least motorized traffic.

Not too long ago, my friend Rick told me about the bike trail not too terribly far from our house. My first reaction was to openly mock my friend for several reasons.

1) The absurdity of getting into his car and driving 15 minutes to ride his bike
2) The goofy looking contraption attached to the back of his car to transport his bicycle to the trail
3) I’m just that kind of friend who enjoys mocking his other friends
4) The very notion of riding a mountain bike 200 miles from the nearest lump that could possibly be considered a mountain

After some gruff talk questioning my manhood, Rick convinced me to give it a try. And it… was… fantastic! I had no idea this kind of trail existed in the heart of Florida. It turns out, they’re all over, if you just know to look.

DeSoto trail is terrific. There are nice, flat, paved trails for beginners, which is about what I expected. But there are also trails that require borderline masochism to ride. Steep inclines, followed quickly by equally steep drop-offs pepper the course. Roots jut out at unsafe angles here and there. The whole trail is a circle, or more accurately, it starts and ends at the same place. To call the circuitous, meandering five mile path a circle would be a grave insult to my 9th grade geometry teacher.

The moral of the story is that outdoor adventure is never that far away, the fear of injury is an inherent part of the joy of mountain biking, and that I can still mock Rick for the goofy bicycle carrier permanently affixed to the back of his Taurus station wagon.

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When the clock turned 5:22pm on September 22nd I think I may have been the only one celebrating the end of summer at my work. Some people looked at me as if I were crazy for wanting summer to end, and others just looked at me as if I were crazy. In any matter I was extremely excited for summer to end so that fall could hurry up and pass by. Yes, yes, the leaves’ changing colors is always a glorious sight to see, but being a New Englander, I have gotten used to the fall foliage, and it is not too exciting any more.

What is exciting, however, is that with fall underway, this means that ski season is fast approaching! I probably started looking into buying a season pass to Sunday River back in July, but maybe that is not something that I want to admit.

Anyway, here are some of the deals that you are going to want to look out for at Sunday River this season.

First of all, I think I am more excited for ski season to start than Sunday River is because their lift-prices are still up from 2008/2009. They still have their deals up where from “now” until April 26th you can ski for very cheap prices. They are also offering their “cute”  Sunday River Affair deal where Sunday through Friday for the “rest of the season” you can show a valid 2008-09 season pass from another resort, and you can purchase a lift ticket that day for $39. I guess those are deals to look out for in the way distant future?

In any case, here is the deal on season passes for the 2009-2010 season. They are offering their New England Pass this year; this pass enables you to hit up the slopes at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire, Sunday River and Sugarloaf in Maine. If you want to purchase a pass, whether it be gold, silver, bronze, the best time to do so would be before October 12th because the prices get hiked up after that.

However, the best deal still is the college student ticket; if you know you can get up there this season, buy it. It’s unlimited skiing at three amazing resorts for $329! Who could pass up that deal?

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Quiz: What trail is eleven miles long, nearly flat, and perfect for pedestrians, bicyclists, inline skaters, wheelchairs, and cross-country skiers alike? Hint: It passes through the towns of Ayer, Groton, Pepperell and Dunstable (all in Massachusetts). Answer: You guessed it, the Nashua River Rail Trail. (Okay, maybe having the answer as the article title made that a bit too obvious.)

In the late 1800s and early 1900s many railroads were constructed to connect cities around Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The Nashua River Rail Trail was once the Hollis branch of the Boston and Maine Corporation railroad. Probably due to the rise in automobiles, many of these plans were abandoned, and many of the lines that were completed stopped running. The Hollis branch saw its last run in 1982 and was purchased by the Department of Conservation and Recreation in 1987. Mass Highway worked to convert the track to a 10-foot wide paved surface that officially opened as the Nashua River Rail Trail on October 25, 2002.

This trail is really perfect for a leisurely ride or stroll because it is incredibly flat due to the requirements of the trains that formerly passed through. No motor vehicles are allowed, thus the atmosphere is generally quiet or bubbling with casual conversations. Because the trail is wide, those looking to ride quickly can do so without endangering other travelers.  From Dunstable to the Groton Center there is an additional five-foot-wide gravel equestrian path.

The official access points to the trail are Ayer Center, Groton Center, Groton Sand Hill Road, and Dunstable (which is right on the border of Hollis, New Hampshire). It can feel quite accomplishing to travel it end to end, and you can reward yourself by stopping for some ice cream in Pepperell. The trail offers many scenic overlooks and rest stops. The foliage season is around the corner, and this is a particularly wonderful time to appreciate the landscape that the Rail Trail has to offer. This trail is great for groups of family or friends but equally satisfying for any individual. For a pleasant afternoon outdoors, the Nashua River Rail Trail is the perfect solution.

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Some things are just better outside. With all due respect to the treadmill crowd, you can’t beat a walk in the great outdoors. The best, juiciest, thickest hamburger that can be made in the finest of restaurants can’t compare to an average backyard barbecue burger.

I think of Labor Day as a weekend-long celebration of the outdoors life. We swim, fish, hike, cook, and eat outside on Labor Day weekend. That is the one time each year that no one seems to notice the bugs, or the heat, or any other impediment to enjoying life outside.

This year’s festivities were no exception. Volleyball, a homemade obstacle course, and grilled burgers and sausage highlighted the weekend. For all the times that we’ve paid our hard-earned money to be entertained inside – for every trip to Chuck E Cheese’s or the air conditioned black lighted mini golf course – they can’t compare to the free trip to the park to cook and play and eat and play and eat some more.

I don’t know why we can’t get the whole family together to do this more often. Just like we only cook a turkey once a year at Thanksgiving, we only gather the whole kit-n-kaboodle together once every year to spend a whole day outside. No one ever complains that they don’t like the turkey and stuffing each November, but we wait a whole year before we do it again.

Similarly, no one ever gets bored at the Labor Day picnic. Even the Yuppie cousins from the city obviously delight in every minute of three-legged races, water balloon fights, and roasting marshmallows.

This year, I declare 2nd Labor Day, sometime later to be determined, when we’ll try to marshal the troops to do it all again. Maybe they’ll come; maybe they’ll decline on account of that’s not how we do it. But I’m asking. And whether they come or not, I’m going again.

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Summer may be almost over, but canoeing season doesn’t have to end just yet. We’ve looked at what you need to do to get ready for your first canoe trip. Now let’s see what experienced canoers say about the things you should and shouldn’t do out there on the water.

DO:

• Tell someone where you’re going and when you should be back. “Better yet,” says longtime canoer Don Perkins, “give them a copy of the map with all your logistics data written on the back.”
• Load the canoe carefully to stabilize it. Liz Doyle, a former Outward Bound instructor, says, “If you’re heading into a strong headwind, weight the front (the bow) more heavily- it will make steering easier (if it’s a tail wind, weight the back [the stern] of the canoe).”
• She also says, “Hold the paddle grip at the top, not on the shaft! It’s amazing how many people hold their paddle incorrectly.”
• Wear long sleeves (loose-fitting synthetics dry more quickly) and shoes (not flip-flops!) that you don’t mind getting wet.
• A life jacket goes without saying.

DON’T:

• Bring alcohol (this actually may be forbidden in places).
• Stand up or try to swap places, says Sherry Gavanditti, a veteran of many family canoe trips.
• Try to hold onto tree branches as you pass them.
• Canoe where there are alligators. “I’ve done it and it’s insane!” says Ms. Gavanditti.
• Drink the water. (Bring plenty of your own.)
• Count on your cell phone working. But bring it anyway, in a ziploc bag.
• Use leaves for toilet paper. “A ziploc bag containing a few tissues is your friend. Nuff said,” says Don Perkins.

Take your time and see what’s going on around you – it’ll help you stay safe and enjoy yourself.

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Some of us are so extremely lucky to live in places where we can go water skiing, rock climbing, snowboarding, hiking, and more. There are others of us who are living the city life– far away from the beautiful Rocky Mountains of the West or the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Of course, most of us live in the city by choice, but that is not the case for everyone.

There are places that city people can go to in order to feel like they are experiencing the great outdoors. For instance, Metro Rock is an indoor climbing gym just outside of Boston that one could go to if one were interested in climbing. However, I can speak only for myself right now when I say that the way that I typically satisfy my need to experience nature is by taking walks.

For those of you who live in Boston, here are a few walks that I love to take. Nearest to me is the walk around the Fens. The Fens is a grassy park right in between Fenway Park and Northeastern University. It is about one and a half miles around the park, but it is a beautiful one. You can see the public rose garden, a newly turfed field, basketball courts, grass, trees, plants, and more.

Another amazing walk is the walk around the Charles. I am not quite sure if there is an official route, but I have a six mile route that I take sometimes. Any walk along the Charles is a nice one. I usually come from the Boston side and then I duck under right before the Massachusetts Avenue bridge. I then take a right and go over the Longfellow Bridge near the Museum of Science. After that I stay on the other side until I can cross the bridge near Harvard University. A walk around the Charles is really one for you to decide it’s length.

Living in the city does cause me to miss nature, but I find my ways around this adoration of it. I hope you can, too!

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