Hiking Lady

Hiking Humor: Tweet Tweet

Hiking Lady — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:01:58 +0000

I wonder if the little bird uses Twitter.com?

Special thanks to the very talented and creative hiker, Geolyn “Boots” Carvin, for letting me share her hilarious cartoons. Her website, On the Trail with Boots McFarland, has many more funny cartoons about the trail adventures of the female hiker, Boots. Boots is based on Geolyn’s years of hiking and enjoying the outdoors.

Where Do You Belong?

Hiking Lady — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:10:26 +0000

“I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof. The obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities… ”

- Everett Ruess, 1934

A Clif Bar based on a 800-year old recipe!

Hiking Lady — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:47:46 +0000

I always enjoy learning about the history of a company and why and how the founder was inspired to create the product or service. In the case of Clif Bar, similar to many other great success stories, it started out with the rather simple thought of Gary Erickson. One day on a bike ride, he took a bite of an energy bar and decided that he could definitely make something better! Thankfully he took action, because now we can all enjoy the wide range of tasty, high quality energy bars from Clif Bar.

In honor of Clif Bar’s 20th anniversary, Gary decided to share a limited edition bar that was inspired by his cycling adventures over the Passo di Gavia in Northern Italy. Pedaling up and down those hills somehow must have inspired Gary to develop an energy bar version of the 800 year old classic Italian dessert, the Panforte. Panforte’s are very popular in Italy, and are known for their wide range of fruit and nut ingredients. True to its origin, the Clif Bar Panforte has loads of tasty ingredients.

The Panforte bar is a unique flavor…to be honest, based on the description on the front of the package “Fruit, Nuts & Spices”, I was a bit hesitant to try it, since my favorite Clif Bar flavors are sweet, not savory, and have my favorite ingredient – chocolate! This chocolate-less bar is a unique blend, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it! The bar has a nutty flavor, and has big chunks of one of my favorite nuts, pistachios! Add in a mix of oats, dates, figs, a hint of ginger and a wide range of spices, and yum – a tasty and nutritious energy snack for the trail!

The special edition Gary's Panforte Clif Bar

Leaders Turning to Nature

Hiking Lady — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:08:51 +0000

Is is true that being out in nature can help you “disconnect from the chaos to find the truth”? That is what Tom Scott, a co-founder of Nantucket Nectars posits. In the April 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review, there is an excellent article co-written by the director and diversity manager of NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School.

As all of us who have spent time outdoors know quite well, immersing yourself in natural beauty can have a tremendous ability to calm the mind and enable clearer thinking. I know it works for me!

And those of you who have ever been lost on a hike, or faced inclement weather on a backpacking trip, or had a run in with a bear, know that wilderness adventures can pose mental challenges and require conflict resolution skills. Perhaps that is why so many business leaders find that spending time in the wilderness makes them better at their desk jobs – they know how to remain calm in a crisis, have the humility to realize that actual skills matter more than titles or degrees, and problems get solved when people can look past the imminent danger and plan a resolution.

Perhaps all high school students should be required to spend a week in a wilderness survival school? There is so much to learn from being outdoors in the wilderness – not just how to read a map or survive in a worst-case scenario, but skills that can be translated to the rest of our lives…teamwork, communication, delegation, planning, backup planning, and even more backup planning! I’ve made some of my closest friends by spending time with them on backpacking trips, and we’ve all learned how to be better people because of these trips.

I’m off to enjoy the natural world around us and take a nice sunset hike in the local hills. I’ll be thinking about my next backpacking adventure…

Have you taken an outdoor course such as the NOLS course referred to in the Harvard Business Review article? What did you think?

Pocket Sized Water Purifier!

Hiking Lady — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:20:13 +0000

SteriPEN Freedom

When you’re hiking in the wilderness, come across a stream, and need to refill your water, what do you do? There are several treatment options: filtering, boiling, chemicals, and my personal favorite, UV light! That’s how water municipalities do it, so why not just do what the pros do?

The SteriPEN company has a wide range of UV “pens”. I first bought my SteriPEN Classic a few years ago, and since then, it has been upgraded to a SteriPEN Adventurer Opti.

How SteriPENs work?

All SteriPEN models operate the same way. You remove the lamp cover, then immerse it in the water (you’ve got to collect water from a stream if you’re hiking in the wilderness and get it into a bottle), then stir the SteriPEN in the water until the LED light turns green. The UV light kills 99.9999% of bacteria, 99.99% of viruses, and 99.9% of giardia and cryptosporidium.

SteriPEN has a new product called the SteriPEN Freedom, the smallest of all SteriPENs – it can fit right into your pocket! Unlike the other models, this one can be recharged. The catch? It has to be plugged in to a USB slot…so your laptop, or a wall outlet if you slip on the adapter. For those of you who travel abroad and are likely carrying a laptop with you or a wall charger (and the appropriate international converter), this handy little model is the way to go. Slip it into your purse or pocket, and it can be used to zap bacteria and viruses from your drinking water.

SteriPEN Freedom charging

For hardcore backcountry hikers, the SteriPEN Adventurer Opti is still my favorite. I just bring along a spare set of batteries

Banff Mountain Film Festival is back!

Hiking Lady — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:09:24 +0000

Are you ready for some exciting short films loaded with amazing outdoor scenery of all the places we dream of exploring? The Banff Mountain Film Festival is again making their traveling circuit around the U.S. and Canada, with showings at local outdoor stores, colleges, etc. I can’t wait to see it!
Here’s the full schedule

Win a Rapid Response Folding Knife

Hiking Lady — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:22:14 +0000

This month Coast Portland has partnered up with Hiking Lady – one lucky Hiking Lady reader will win!

To enter, go to the Hiking Lady Contest page and leave a comment. That’s all you have to do to enter!

Good luck!

Hiking Humor: A Scared Grasshopper

Hiking Lady — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:34:39 +0000

Don’t worry little grasshopper, Boots likes you!

How about taking a walk across the hottest desert in the world?

Hiking Lady — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:48:16 +0000

Helen Thayer truly knows how to test the limits! Last month we shared a book review of Helen’s journey to the magnetic north pole, made famous in her acclaimed book, Polar Dream.

Helen Thayer in the Gobi Desert

If you want to hear less about frostbite and polar bear encounters and warm up a bit…how about picking up her next book, Walking the Gobi? That’s exactly what I did, and embarked on a page turning adventure story of Helen’s trek across the entire Gobi Desert.

Check out the just published Hiking Lady book review of this adventure story!

The Best Teacher: Nature

Hiking Lady — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:01:38 +0000

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”

-John Lubbock, British archaeologist and biologist, 19th century