Exploring the great outdoors

Taking to the hills in the Rocky Mountains

The United States Rockies are an outdoor nirvana. They not only offer virtually every possible type of landscape, but also have enough infrastructure to make it all accessible without having so much that it's over-developed or overcrowded.

Whether its solitude or adrenaline, you can have it all here. There's plenty of scope for patient wildlife watching, just soaking up meadows full of wildflowers, contemplating life while tramping along a trail or simply whiling away an afternoon fly-fishing for the many healthy trout.

But if it's action you want, try rafting the Arkansas River, which plummets through gorges that dwarf skyscrapers; or mountain biking hundreds of miles of smooth and winding single-track trails; or hiring a four-wheeler to explore old mining towns deep in the mountains.

Steamboat ski resort in Colorado

Skiing powder

Colorado alone attracts around six million skiers every year - an almost incomprehensible figure until you realize how great the skiing in the Rockies really is.

The vast accumulations of light, dry and fluffy powder snow ensures that the region's many peerless resorts are a skier or rider's veritable candy store. Aspen and Vail, Park City, Sun Valley and Big Sky might be the most famous, but there are so many other worthwhile ski areas; each with its own unique character and many small-scale family hills.

Brewpubbing

No beer tastes better, no hearty pub grub more satisfying, than that consumed after an active day in the mountains. Perhaps this is why so many microbreweries have accumulated around the Rockies: one town - Fort Collins, Colorado - had seven at the last count, and they pop up in every corner region.

Along with inventive and distinctive brews you always also find great bar food here. Perhaps it's the scenery that inspires the mountainous portions, but it's usually the local ingredients that really make the difference. Beware the Rocky Mountain Oysters though: they've never been near the sea, as local castrated bulls can confirm!