I recently read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. Pollan recommends eating “real” food, which he defines in detail (if you want the details, read the book). It’s a safe bet that eating real food will be better for you and better for the planet.
Enter the health fair I worked last week. Since I knew I would be working late, I lack a good excuse for being ill-prepared, but I found myself in desperate straights, food-wise, with a bag of Sun Chips in my hand. There I was, a health educator, working at a health fair, eating chips. Suffice it to say that I consumed said chips surreptitiously.
To further torture myself, I could not help but look at the nutrition label, which broke Pollan’s, “less than five ingredient,” guideline by, oh, about 30 ingredients. This included some special ones like Yellow 5 Lake (artificial color) and the ever ubiquitous, “natural flavor” — ingredients that clearly put this “food” outside of the real food realm.
In our country of material abundance and excess, may you find true happiness in what matters most — relationships with others and the world. May you give generously from the heart and walk lightly on the earth in the New Year.
. . . and biking. That is to say, I biked all around the town on Friday morning, running errands. Friday afternoon I hopped on the big blue bus to KC, MO for a girls’ weekend with my mom and sisters! Taking the bus to KC instead of driving the car was the only particularly green part of the trip, although I did have my reusable silverware ready for the hotel breakfast. Oh, and we ate at a cool vegetarian restaurant that sources local and organic as much as possible, Eden Alley.
Between the new job and the trip, I’ve been a bit out of the blog loop, which may not really get resolved until Friday.
We woke up early and paid for a shuttle van that took us from St. Mary’s to Many Glacier to begin the 16 mile, 2400 foot elevation climb, hike from the Swiftcurrent Trailhead to the Logan Pass. In preparing for this hike, we had talked to several park rangers and other park staff, who unfailingly encouraged us to complete the hike in the other direction, starting from Logan, so that we would be hiking down, and not up, the Swiftcurrent Pass. After a few times of trying to explain, that, yes, we knew it would be more work, but we really preferred going up to doing down since it would put less stress on the knees and other joints, we gave up explaining and just decided to go with our plan. Also, after two days of hiking in Tevas, and many ibuprofen, and feeling rather certain that I would never wear those horrible, awful, no good, very bad hiking boots EVER AGAIN, I coaxed my feet back into them for the day’s adventure. Since I could lace them without whimpering in pain, I decided it just might work.
Lakes in valley visible through fog from Swiftcurrent Trail
It started out overcast, but not too bad. On the first leg of the hike, we saw lots of huckle-bear-y scat right on the trail, but no bears. Before too long, the fog and drizzle rolled back into the picture. We did experience some brief and very welcome clearings in the fog as we climbed ever higher, affording nice views of the lake in the valley below. Later we encountered a herd of ten bighorn sheep on the trail. We came around a bend, and there they were, very close!
Bighorn sheep on trail
We felt good hiking up the Swiftcurrent Pass, and arrived at the chalet, the halfway point, to eat our lunch. We assumed that we had done the hard part, the part with all of the climbing, and would now enjoy a nice stroll along the popular Highline Trail before arriving at the Logan Visitor’s Center to catch the shuttle back to our campsite. Do I need to tell you what happens when you assume?
Instead of the Highline Trail, known for it’s sweeping views and gorgeous scenery, the trail we hiked that afternoon should have been called the Never Ending Trail with Lots of Fog that Never Ends. Having never hiked the trail before, and unable to see more than 30-50 feet in front of us for most of the hike, I seriously wondered if it would ever end. Maybe we would just keep hiking through the fog FOREVER. And despite it not being the long, sustained climb of Swiftcurrent, there was still plenty of up and down and rough terrain.
To make things extra fun, we came across a pair of hikers, one of whom wore a bear bell on his hiking boot. The incessant jingle jangling was getting on our nerves (and, by the way, studies have shown that the noise is NOT effective in warning off bears). We tried to slow down to let them get far enough ahead of us that we couldn’t hear it, but they kept pausing which allowed us to catch up to them. We passed them and tried to hike quickly so they would be far behind us, but that didn’t work either. We considered pushing the man off of a cliff, but decided to try the more socially acceptable option of asking him to please remove that bell because we are about to go crazy here. He looked surprised, like, “How could this constant jingling noise, repeated with each step I take, possibly annoy anyone?”
Obviously, we did make it back to Logan, just in time to catch the 6PM shuttle. On the ride back to the campsite, a black bear crossed the road right in front of the shuttle! It quickly moved into the brush on the other side of the road, so we did not get any pictures, but we did see our first bear!
After setting up camp at Two Medicine and eating lunch, we set out for our first hike. I insisted that we walk to the trail head, about a mile away from our campsite, instead of driving. This would come back to haunt me later. We hiked to Cobalt Lake, a gorgeous blue glacial lake, through meadows of incredible wildflowers and forested areas with waterfalls. The hike was 12 miles to the lake and back from the trail head, with notable elevation climb thrown in the mix.
Brief interlude: I planned on buying hiking boots for this trip, and a few weeks prior to our departure, I got around to purchasing my first pair of hiking boots ever. Matthew discovered an employee at an outdoor outfitter in town who seemed to really know his stuff about fitting boots. He literally spent HOURS, over two separate visits, measuring our feet in different ways, trying our feet in boots he thought would be appropriate based on the measurements, and making adjustments to the boots we purchased. After investing that much time, and a good bit of money, on my hiking boots, and after wearing them without incident for a four mile hike on a local mushroom foray, I brilliantly decided that they were great, and all the things that people say about breaking in boots? It did not apply to me and my boots. (In my defense, my husband, who has owned hiking boots before, and should have known better, made the same mistake this time with his new boots.)
When we got to the lake (i.e., halfway through the hike), my feet hurt a good bit. I took off my boots and walked into the glacial lake. Soon, my feet did not hurt anymore. Sadly, this was not due to a miraculous healing, but rather to the fact that I could not feel my feet anymore due to the numbing effects of the frigid water.
In Cobalt Lake - If you can't feel your feet, they can't hurt
All too soon, I had to stuff my feet back into the boots so we could hike back before it got dark. By the time we were within 1-2 miles of the trail head, I could barely walk, my feet hurt so badly. My husband, in a good deal of pain himself, gave me a piggyback ride for the last bit of the trail. We arrived at the trail head parking lot, still a mile from our campsite, where there was not a vehicle waiting for us, because SOMEBODY had insisted on walking to the trail head instead of driving.
Like a true knight-in-shining-armor, my husband made the solo trek back to the campsite and drove back in the Guzzler. To justify the use of the vehicle, we bought some fire wood and ice at the camp store.
Back at the campsite, with boots off and feet attempting to recover, we enjoyed a delicious meal. I had thrown some leftover breaded, fried eggplant into the cooler, so we reheated the eggplant over the campfire and had wraps filled with eggplant, fresh tomatoes, and goat cheese. Yum! Before we went to bed, we saw a rather amazing shooting star.
During the night, I had to overcome my fear of getting eaten by a bear or mountain lion when I set foot outside the tent to walk to the bathroom in the dark. I probably annoyed lots of other campers throughout the trip by singing or talking to myself to ward off the bears during my nightly bathroom venture.
Her Green Life 