As a contributor to the Travel Arts Syndicate, Kurt’s work has appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Denver Post, Miami Herald, New Orleans Times-Picayune and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

 

His stories are a reflection of his travels in the West and to national parks across the country, with pieces on Moab, Utah; the Valley of the Gods in southern Utah; Mesa Verde National Park; and Acadia National Park. He’s also written about seasonal escapes to national parks, and has an upcoming article on Glacier National Park.  

 

Visit The Travel Arts Syndicate Web site at
http://www.TravelArtsSyndicate.com for more information. To subscribe, contact Terese Loeb Kreuzer at TravelArts1@aol.com or call 212-807-7509. FAX: 212-627-3726

    MEXICAN HAT, Utah — There’s a rugged patch of southern Utah that’s so far off the well-trodden path that many travelers find it only by mistake. This slice of the state is vast and sprawling, a broken-down, red-rock landscape of  arroyos and buttes and mile after mile of mile after mile. But even in this terrain, the Valley of the Gods is deliciously remote, so far gone that not even cell phones catch a signal.

 

Travel Arts Syndicate

Full Text

Valley of the Gods

                Kurt Repanshek Photo

   MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, Colo. — Though the sun-baked oak rungs seared my palms, letting go was not an option as I climbed toward the Balcony House.

    The wooden ladder was only 30 feet long, but it stretched back roughly 800
years to the time of Kublai Khan and Marco Polo and the people that once lived
along this remote mesa top.
    Minutes after stepping off the ladder, I stood on the cliff dwelling’s plaza with its airy terrace overlooking Soda Canyon near the southern tip of Mesa Verde National Park. A thigh-high balustrade of rock separated the terrace from the canyon’s void, while far off to the east, the San Juan Range’s snow-capped peaks tantalized on this hot summer day.
   

Travel Arts Syndicate

    BAR HARBOR, Maine — Tall, tightly knit stands of fragrant spruce, fir, birch and aspen rose above the rippled waters of Eagle Lake as my wife and I pedaled across Mount Desert Island. Despite being deep within one of the nation’s most visited parks, on this summer day we seemingly had its fabled carriage paths all to ourselves.
    Adrift in the Atlantic Ocean a long stone’s throw off the Maine coast, lobster-claw-shaped Mount Desert is a rumpled, and at times angular, landscape of granite, timber and water. The island stood up to glaciers thousands of
years ago and today endures constant beatings from the Atlantic.
    Acadia National Park, embracing most of the island’s eastern half, still holds the magic I first witnessed some four decades ago when our family drove north from New Jersey to explore Maine’s coast. That Acadia ranks among the nation’s most visited parks, with 2.2 million visitors in 2004, is a testament to the lure of its raw beauty.

 

Travel Arts Syndicate

Jordon Pond, Mount Desert Island

 

                Kurt Repanshek photo

Balcony House, Mesa Verde National Park

 

                                Kurt Repanshek photo

kurt@kjrwrites.com