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Taste It Fresh

Hey there,

On a flight home from Italy after a whirlwind two weeks, thinking about what we get from doing hard things.

Half of our trip was spent in the Dolomites, hiking hut to hut. It was a bucket list trip for me, but one that challenged my daughters. During the hard moments, I reminded them how proud they'd be on the other side. And they were.

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to choose the way I suffer and challenge myself. The last two weeks have been a great reminder.

If you want a hut-to-hut option closer to home, we found a great one below. We’re also sharing two Via Ferratas here at home, another traditional European experience.

Length: 4.4 miles | Elevation Gain: ~650 ft | Modes: Bike • Hike • Run

Trailhead: 899 Parkview Dr, Park City, UT 84098

We featured Summit Park Peak in an earlier issue, but there are some great options to run and bike too. This loop is one of my favorites for hot weeks: almost entirely shaded and quiet.

The Start (Mile 0 to 1)
The trailhead sits in a residential pocket of Summit Park with limited parking, so arrive early and don't park along the street. Head out on Road to WOS and settle in, because the climbing starts right away. At almost exactly a mile, turn right on Short Ribs.

The Climb (Miles 1 to 1.3)
Short Ribs is a quick connector. Around mile 1.3, take the hard left onto the upper section of Road to WOS and keep climbing. By this point you've already banked nearly 600 feet, which is most of the work for the day.

The High Traverse (Miles 1.3 to 3.5)
This is the payoff stretch: rolling singletrack through the pines above Toll Canyon. These are shared bike-optimized trails, so keep an ear out on the blind corners. At mile 3.5 you'll roll back into a familiar fork. Turn right to head back down Road to WOS.

The Descent (Miles 3.5 to 4.4)
A fast, flowy drop back to the trailhead closes the loop around 4.4 miles.

If you want more, add a side order of No Worries from the traverse, which takes you down Toll Canyon, or add in Short Stack for the full 7-mile version of this loop (about 1,240 feet of gain). Dogs welcome on leash.

While planning our hut trip in Italy, I got curious about the options for such an adventure here in the States. I had heard about Colorado’s European-style hut systems, but didn’t know what we had to offer here, closer by.

Good news, Utah recently got its first year-round hut-to-hut system, and it was built for this kind of adventure. Inspired Summit Adventures, based here in Park City, launched guided summer trips connecting two yurts in the Western Uintas: the Castle Peak Yurt at 9,600 feet and the Smith & Morehouse Yurt. Your gear gets shuttled between them, so you’re only carrying a daypack.

Routes run 8–12 miles depending on your ambition level, winding through alpine lakes, high passes, and old-growth forest. Each yurt sleeps up to 10 and comes stocked with a full kitchen, wood stove, and either a sauna or plunge pool. They meet you in Park City and carpool about an hour to the trailhead — zero logistics stress.

Pricing: $485–535/person/day, all-inclusive (guides, food, gear transfer). Minimum 3 days / 2 nights.

Three more yurts are coming which will eventually connect the system across 100,000 acres.

Farther afield: the Aquarius Trail in southern Utah connects Brian Head to Escalante across 190 miles — more of a mountain bike hut trip, but worth knowing about.

In Cortina we clipped into our first via ferrata, the "iron way" routes born in the Dolomites, where steel cables and rungs let you climb walls that would otherwise take ropes and years of experience. If you can climb a ladder, you can do this. Utah has at least two, and they’re going on my list.

Waterfall Canyon Via Ferrata · Ogden
About an hour away, a guided climb up the cliffs beside the waterfall in Ogden's Waterfall Canyon. Roughly five hours, all gear included, no experience needed, and you're clipped to the safety cable the whole way. $140/person to join a scheduled group climb. Book with Utah Adventure Center

Ashley Gorge Via Ferrata · Vernal
Utah's first public via ferrata and the longest public course in the country, opened last summer in Ashley National Forest, 12 miles from Vernal. You climb above the Green River with ospreys and bighorn sheep for company. Go with the guides at Dyno Outfitters, or if you have your own skills, rent a certified kit for $40 and take it at your own pace. Sections run from a couple of hours to a full day, so make a weekend of it. Route info here

The other half of doing hard things is recovering from them. This week's roundup is all about wellness — because who doesn't need the occasional (or regular) chance to slow down and come back to yourself? Plus, some perspective: how wellness for women is quietly, and meaningfully, changing.

A Grand Canyon river guide named Kelsey Pfendler recently finished something almost incomprehensible: 2,400 miles of open Pacific, alone, in a 24-foot rowboat named Lily, in just 43 days. She became the first American woman to row solo from California to Hawaii, crushed the women's record of 86 days, and beat the men's record too. She rowed 16 hours a day and slept just 7 hours total in her first week at sea.

After a traumatic river trip left her with severe PTSD, the Whale Foundation, a nonprofit created for the mental health of Grand Canyon guides after one of their own died by suicide, paid for six months of her therapy. The row was her thank-you: she raised more than $30,000 so the foundation can do for other guides what it did for her. The organization that helped her heal is the reason she could attempt the hardest thing of her life.

Choosing something hard doesn't mean doing it gracefully. It means staying in the boat.

(Meanwhile, in Silverton: Courtney Dauwalter won her fourth straight Hardrock 100 and broke her own course record. Some people just refuse to be done.)

Amanda @Summit & Sage