Getting the flavor of...A dog heaven in Vermont, and more

A dog heaven in Vermont

You don’t need to have a canine companion to appreciate St. Johnsbury, Vt.’s Dog Mountain, said Joe Yonan in The Washington Post. Created by the late sculptor Stephen Huneck, this 150-acre haven (dogmt.com) provides fields and hiking trails where a dog can “play, play, play.” But it might mean even more to people who’ve lost a four-legged friend. Throughout the bucolic property, Huneck left playful sculptures of dogs everywhere—clustered near the pond, guarding an overlook, atop fence posts. Next to a gallery containing more of his work stands Dog Chapel, its cupola topped by a dog angel. Stepping into its sanctuary, I gasped. Covering every inch of space are tens of thousands of notes commemorating the writers’ departed companions. I vowed then that the next time I visited, it would be with a dog and during one of the park’s biannual parties. On Dog Mountain, “dogs aren’t merely allowed to run off leash; leashes aren’t allowed.”

Colorado’s most photogenic peaks

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Photographers can’t seem to get enough of Colorado’s Maroon Bells, said Dan Blackburn in the Los Angeles Times. About five years ago, as images of these picturesque twin peaks began spreading more widely, visits to the Maroon Bells surged, as did the presence of cameras. Recently, my partner and I stayed nearby at Silver Queen Campground, and “each morning, we slid out of our warm sleeping bags” before dawn just to get a good spot before scores of other photographers arrived at Maroon Lake to shoot the mountains from across the water. Both peaks are more than 14,000 feet tall and are composed of brittle mudstone, making them unsafe to climb. “Our biggest challenge,” though, was “not to be totally overwhelmed” by the scene’s beauty. This time of year, the aspens that frame the Bells add a huge punch of brilliant color. “The result is a spectacular burst of yellow, orange, and red that rivals—or maybe tops—anything I’ve ever seen in the West.”