Tag Archive for: hiking

How To Keep Healthy and Active as the Cold Weather Approaches

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I just finished a post for Mountain Trek about how to stay active and healthy now that the days are getting shorter and the temperature is dropping. The first tip in the blog definitely struck a chord with me because I gave up coffee for this month. I’m not a huge coffee drinker (I might have two double espressos in the morning) but I don’t drink it in the afternoons nor do I drink caffeine-rich drip coffee.

In fact, it’s a common misconception that espresso has more caffeine in it but one 2 oz double espresso shot has about 80 milligrams of caffeine, whereas a 12 oz brewed coffee has about 120 milligrams.

However, the caffeine headache I had after giving up coffee on October 1st lasted 3 days! Three days! It definitely makes me re-evaluate my morning cuppa ritual. (But it’s so damn yummy though!) Thankfully the headaches are over and I’m swilling a caffeine-free barley malt drink every morning. Whether this will continue on Nov 1st remains to be seen.

Avoiding more hot caffeinated beverages like coffee in the cooler months is just one tip for health as we head into the winter. Here are nine more listed in the Mountain Trek blog. Oh, and there’s a delicious Pumpkin Beef Chili recipe in there as well!

Press Releases – Swing ‘em Like a Hammer

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I have to say it’s a pretty good feeling when a client gets splashed all over Canada’s largest newspaper, The Globe and Mail. Mountain Trek was featured on the cover of the Globe’s travel section this month and the story resulted in a half dozen direct bookings (worth over $25,000) that they know about and incalculable interest for future visits.

 

This is how it all came together. Two years ago I was doing public relations for Mountain Trek, a wellness retreat and fitness lodge in south-central British Columbia, and we came up with a campaign that featured the phrase “Hike Your But Off” and the “but” was usually, “But I’ve never been hiking” or “But I can’t take time away from my family.”

The press releases (and overall campaign) garnered good reception and one of the key reasons it did so is because of a mantra I’ve shared with my clients again and again: “A press release is just a hammer; you gotta swing it!” So many times I hear from people who have used other public relations professionals and then complained that they didn’t get more coverage from a press release. The reasons are typically two-fold:

  1. the media personnel  weren’t targeted directly in a way that would interest them and/or
  2. the press release didn’t have enough reach/stamina

A press release is just a tool and you never know how far it’ll reach. For example, I just received an email from a writer who had received the release mentioned above two years ago and wanted to do a piece on the client now. The one thing you cancontrol is how interesting the media professional finds your release and subject matter. Having been involved in the media as a writer, editor and publisher for the past 20 years, I can confidently say I know what grabs a journalist’s interest.

Touch base with me anytime and together we can work out a strategy for  your next campaign and release.

One of my 1st dates with Marley. Beautiful fall riding weather in the Kootenays

Farewell to my Lucy Lawless

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A week ago I sold my 1988 Ford Ranger pick-up truck to a friend because the maintenance required on her was getting beyond my limited mechanic skills. It was a hard decision though as Lucy and I had been through some amazing adventures together. I bought her 7 years ago and named her Lucy Lawless because, well, I illegally drove her back to my house without any insurance or license plates and I just got the sense that she was a really tough female truck.

Since then she’s taken me up many a logging road and on countless adventures from first biking dates with my now-fiancé Marley to gay pride parades. She’s shuttled bikes, canoes, climbing gear, spaceships and bodies (specifically mine when I slept on her).

I hope she enjoys her new life as a backroads wood hauler with her new owner, who’s a way better mechanic than I. May she always remain Lawless.

Loading up for the 5-day, 500km Raid the North Adventure Race in 2010

Loading up for the 5-day, 500km Raid the North Adventure Race in 2010

One of my 1st dates with Marley. Beautiful fall riding weather in the Kootenays

One of my 1st dates with Marley. Beautiful fall riding weather in the Kootenays

Full moon sleep-out in the back of Lucy before an alpine start to put up a new rock climbing route.

Full moon sleep-out in the back of Lucy before an alpine start to put up a new rock climbing route.

Hauling La Roquette to the bobsled races in Rossland.

Hauling La Roquette to the bobsled races in Rossland.

Prepping for the Gay Pride Parade in Nelson.

Prepping for the Gay Pride Parade in Nelson.

Mountain Goats Threatened at Gimli

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We’ve all seen them up at the camping area near Gimli Peak: cute, white, and way better rock climbers then we’ll ever be. But the mountain goats in Valhalla Park are being threatened by our contact with them and, in turn, our access could be in jeopardy. Luckily, there are a few easy things we can do as visitors that will ensure their longevity and our continued access to one of the best alpine climbing areas in the Kootenays.

We may have good intentions but the fact is the habituation of goats is bad for goats and bad for park users too. Firstly, there’s always the threat of a goat not taking kindly to your presence and running you through, like what happened with the unfortunate goring of a hiker in Olympic Park.

That is an extreme example of what could go wrong during an interaction with a mountain goat. Typically, what we find is they’ll hang out near wherever we are and wait for us to go pee or brush our teeth and spit so they can saunter over and lick up our mineral leavings. And while a bit of sodium is good for a goat’s diet, this behaviour is unhealthy in the long run because it’s unnatural for them to linger in one location for too long and it makes them easy pickings for hunters, as evidenced when one was shot near the Beach camping area a few years ago in front of a group of hikers.

As climbers all we have to do to curb this habituation is the following: 

  • make sure we urinate in the porta-potty located near the camping area
  • brush our teeth and spit into the porta-potty
  • do not approach the goats
  • store all food and sweaty articles of clothing in the food cache or on the cable cache
  • and of course, do not feed the goats

Hopefully, by following these easy guidelines, we can lessen the interaction between mountain goats and humans near Gimli. If not, more drastic changes may have to be made to halt goat habituation in Valhalla Park and that could look like lessened access – something we all definitely want to avoid.

Currently, BC Parks is collecting information from park users to understand what the human-goat interactions are at and will use this to build a management strategy that is best for the wildlife. If you have an encounter with a mountain goat, please contact BC Parks Area Supervisor Chris Price directly at 250-354-6026 or via email at Chris.Price@gov.bc.ca.

Review of the Exped 40L Mountain Lite Backpack

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Exped’s tagline is “Maximum outdoor experience with minimal means” and their Mountain Lite backpack series definitely lives up to the mantra. These packs eschew any of the bells and whistles in favour of the bare essentials wrapped into a comfortable hiking pack. Before I continue, however, I should be clear that while the Mountain Lite 40 backpack I reviewed is very good, it’s not ideal for a backcountry ski experience. I used this pack on both a day trip and an overnight hike into the Valhalla mountain range but I’ve not taken it skiing. The reason for this is, because it’s a minimalist pack with one main pocket, the Mountain Lite doesn’t comfortably store everything I need for a day ski into the backcountry. No matter how I tucked my shovel into the bag, for example, it simply did not feel good against my back and there aren’t any outer straps to affix it to. That said, because of its light weight and small size (when the two aluminum back stays are removed it can be compressed to the size of a rolled-up pair of jeans) I could imagine taking the pack along on a multi-day tour and using it for short summit runs rather than humping a large touring pack to the top of a bowl. What the Mountain Lite 40 is ideal for, though, is short hikes whether on foot or on snowshoes. At only 1100g (or 2.4 lbs) it barely registers on your back and yet its robust design ensures you don’t have to be gentle with it out there.

For the full review, log on to Backcountry Skiing Canada.