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EAST
Take the Pole Position, Maine
The Eagle Scouts were wrong: Standing in a canoe has its advantages. Play apprentice to champion canoe polers as they teach their craft on narrow Class II stretches of Allagash Stream, in northern Maine ($295 for a two-day course; www.allagashcanoetrips.com). Learn to "snub," a technique that helps you hold your line while navigating the four-mile flow to a primitive campsite on Allagash Lake. "With a pole, you can stop on a dime and scout rapids," says guide Lani Cochrane. On day two, head salmon-like, upstream, steering clear of beaver dams and seeking refuge in the dead water of eddies.
 
Bike Around the Block, Rhode Island
A bike and a backpack—that's about all you'll need when boarding the ferry bound for Block Island ($10 one-way; www.blockislandferry.com), a shabby-chic vacationland 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Rhode Island coastline. Settle at colonial Rose Farm Inn ($149; www.rosefarminn.com) and make for the cobweb of hiking trails in Rodman's Hollow, a glacial outwash basin leading to cappuccino-colored bluffs and an oft deserted swath of beachfront. Hungry? Tie up at Oar on Great Salt Pond for the local combo meal: a cup of chowder and a mudslide.
 
Do the Tour des Smokies, Tennessee
It's adventure cush epitomized: thigh-demolishing days cycling Smoky Mountain grades and cricket-quiet nights on a fluffed-up featherbed. Dancing Bear Lodge ($229; www.dancingbearlodge.com) treats guests like Tour de France pros, sending out a follow car loaded with gear and food ($100 for four hours) for cyclists plying the 60-mile (97-kilometer) Black Bear Bike Bash route, a backroads course so bushy wild it could double as a hiking trail.


CENTRAL
Find Prairie Companions, Kansas
The Cimarron National Grassland (www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/cim), home to a stretch of the Santa Fe Trail, is a 108,175-acre (43,777-hectare) time capsule of the days when tough-as-rawhide settlers rolled West. To parallel the historic thoroughfare, set off down the 19-mile (31-kilometer) Companion Trail, a discreetly mowed path through wide-open expanses rife with prairie dogs, coyote, and pronghorn antelope. After the hike out, "summit" Point of Rocks; at 3,540 feet (1,079 meters), one of the state's highest points.

Climb Buckeye Boulders, Ohio
The 99-acre (40-hectare) protuberance of sandstone ledges huddled together inside Hocking Hills State Forest is a jungle gym 250 million years in the making. Drop your pack at a log cabin in the pines ($109; www.getaway-cabins.com) and meet with a guide from Earth-Water-Rock: Outdoor Adventures ($100 for a half-day climb; www.ewroutdoors.com) at Gearshift Knob, a 30-foot (9-meter) block of low-angle, single-pitch climbs. After the warm-up, test yourself on 50-foot (15-meter) overhanging Rectangle Rock.
 
Go Badger Wild, Wisconsin
Rivers like this just don't happen in the cheese belt. "I've seen black bears swim in front of me, wolf tracks on the riverbanks, and I've never been on the river without seeing at least one bald eagle," says park ranger Dale Cox. Shove off on the Namekagon River, one of the most remote paddles in the upper Midwest, at the County Road K Landing ($56 a day for rental; www.wildriverpaddling.com). Fifteen miles downstream, camp beyond the sandy banks (glacial till left over from the last ice age). Take out on day two, four miles (six kilometers) past the confluence of the St. Croix River.

ROCKIES
Ramp Up, Rub Down, Arizona
Go ahead, run yourself ragged. At Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort and Spa ($325; www.sanctuaryoncamelback.com), a high-octane retreat tucked away in the orange-hued mountains outside Phoenix, there's little reason not to. Trainers, massage therapists, hiking guides, and healers are at your beck and call. Start with a guided boulder scramble to the top of 2,704-foot (824-meter) Camelback Mountain and a three-mile hike along the cactus-studded Cholla Trail. Follow up with a medicinal Thai-herb massage at the spa's private outdoor site.
 
Make Al Gore Proud, Colorado
Mother Nature takes enough lumps as it is. Get versed on how to tread lightly during a two-day Leave No Trace Trainer Course offered by the Rocky Mountain Nature Association (June 2-3; $150; www.rmna.org). Follow LNT guru Chris Derman on Sandbeach Lake Trail for a five-mile trek. Should you encounter a mud puddle, splash right through to prevent erosion. At night spread out to minimize impact (it can take a century for some plant communities to rebound after being heavily trampled). With views of snowcapped thirteeners, the karma is instant.
 
Cast Away With the Legends, Idaho
It's the fly-fishing equivalent to a tee time at the Masters. Starting June 15 the best anglers on the planet flock to Harriman State Park, a voluptuous stretch on Henry's Fork of the Snake River in northern Idaho, to get first shot at fat, lumbering rainbows. "It's a who's who of trout fishing," says Rich Paini, owner of Island Park–based TroutHunter guide service ($430 a day; www.trouthunt.com). To up your odds of success (and save face), fish the lower, less languid section of Henry's Fork, below the town of Ashton.

WEST
Get a Sea Kayaking Ph.D., California
Half Moon Bay is where good kayakers go to become great. Calm, practice-friendly waters are just paddle strokes from a forgiving surf zone and open coastal stretches. Instructors at California Canoe & Kayak ($200 for a two-day clinic; www.calkayak.com) start with the basics—launching, landing, edging—in placid water, then up the ante. The second session consists of a five-mile (eight-kilometer) open-water coastal paddle to Pillar Point, where you learn to read safe zones: spots behind rocks and reefs where the surf gets mercifully diffused.
 
See a Darker Side, Oregon
Now this is nightlife: Listen to the wingbeats of nighthawks and the flutter of bats on the volcanic lakes dotting Cascade Highway in Deschutes National Forest. "The lakes are choppy on summer afternoons," says Dave Nissen, owner of Bend-based Wanderlust Tours ($65 for boat drop-off and pickup; www.wanderlusttours.com). "But once the sun goes down, they're glass smooth." To ply 55-foot-deep (17-meter-deep) Elk Lake, set up at Little Fawn Campground and hike to the put-in before sunset. Mallard Marsh Campground accesses hauntingly still Hosmer Lake.
 
Raft a Raw River, Washington
Each year the Sauk River, one of Washington's wildest, gets a Ty Pennington–style makeover. Winter flooding carves up its banks, dropping mighty cedars into the drink. Put in with Alpine Adventures—the sole outfit permitted to overnight on the river—for a 19-mile (31-kilometer) float ($269; www.alpineadventures.com) through woody debris, a half dozen Class III rapids, and no signs of civilization. On day two, paddle Jaws, a Class IV that curls around your craft, flipping boats with a tailing wave.








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