Barefoot hikes might sound hard on the feet.

But people who like to trek without shoes insist that it's good for your mind, body and... sole.

New Mexican rites of passage:

1) Buying Hatch green chile in the smoky parking lot of the local grocery.

2) Riding high on the tweaked hydraulics of a lowrider.

3) Facing off a rattlesnake, cougar, coyote, or an Espanola sheriff.

If you're looking for a way to combine your love of cycling with your concern for the planet, you may wish to check out the Sustainable Energy in Motion Bicycle Tours organized by Portland for Peace. This small progressive organization arranges one- and two-week group bicycle tours that offer not only a physically invigorating challenge but also the opportunity to learn hands-on about such topics as permaculture, sustainable and indigenous building practices, environmental ethics, ecology, organic farming, appropriate technologies, and sustainable energy. The slogan, "Less Pollution, More Solutions!" succinctly sums up the group's goals, but doesn't begin to hint at the natural beauty of Oregon's coast and Willamette Valley that greets the roughly 20 to 30 participants as they ride.

"Peakbagging" is the obsessive quest to "bag," or summit, high mountains. In Colorado, the highest mountains are the so-called "fourteeners," 54 peaks topping out higher than 14,000 feet. Each summer, people flock to Colorado's fourteeners, and as a newspaper in Colorado Springs described it, it's "like collecting baseball cards: Once you've attained one, you want to gain the whole set."