The Adventure

6 Reasons Hydration Packs Suck for Adventure

It was on a 10-hour bus ride across the Peruvian Andes from Lima to Huaras, the bustling town at the heart of the Cordillera Blanca, where my suspicions about hydration packs were confirmed.

The twisting mountain road and the banana pancakes from breakfast were already wrestling with my tummy. Then I looked across the aisle and saw a fellow tourist’s hydration pack tube. It snaked from his backpack, along the stained seat edge, and under the passenger beside him. My stomach churned, and from then on, I’ve referred to hydration packs as “germ samplers”.

Sure, there’s a place for hydration packs. They work great for some outings. REI has a good article on how to choose the right hydration pack. 

I use them on occasion. But only in environments where I’m pretty comfortable ingesting almost anything the mouthpiece might touch and when I need my water bottle to collapse when it’s empty. Some manufacturers now put little covers over the mouthpiece, which helps a little, but dirt and nasties still seem to find their way under the thing.

Including the Petri dish effect of hydration packs, there are six major reasons I prefer old-fashioned water bottles:

1. The Germ Sampler.
2. I love stopping, taking off my pack, sitting down, looking around at a piece of wild splendor, sipping from a cool stainless steel bottle, and having a little chat with my adventure partner. 
3. There are few things worse than being miles up the trail and hearing your partner say, “My water broke...”
4. In cold weather, even the fancy hydration packs with insulated tubes freeze much more quickly than wide mouth water bottles – as if a few millimeters of foam will keep water from freezing in a little tube.
5.  Sucking plastic, when you’re already sucking air, is highly unpleasant compared to chugging effortlessly as if from a glass.
6. With a water bottle, every time you take a drink you get a pretty good idea of how much water you have left. With a hydration pack, you get thirsty, suck down all your water without paying attantion, and then when you run out you beg your adventure partner to share their water.

Now I use stainless steel water bottles whenever humanly possible. Even if you doubt the potentially harmful effects of storing water in plastic, or prefer using old soda bottles for environmental reasons, water from a stainless steel vessel just tastes better.

Photo of enjoying a water break at while heli-hiking at CMH Bobbie Burns by Topher Donahue.

Which Footwear is Best for a Summer Adventure?

It was 1985.  I was clomping down a Colorado trail in my hiking boots.  We called them “waffle stompers” for the pattern left by the heavy tread.  I was proud of my waffle stompers, and the suffering I endured while wearing them was part and parcel of mountain adventure.   We stopped at the side of the trail to rest our weary feet, and I vividly remember watching two climbers coming down the trail with their packs heavily laden with ropes and various implements of vertical fun.  My eyes were immediately drawn to their feet.  No waffle stompers!  Instead they were wearing lightweight running shoes and it seemed they were floating down the trail instead of walking.  The rest of the way down the trail, my feet felt as if they were clamped in a hot waffle iron, and I would have given anything for a pair of running shoes.   After that I became a committed light shoe hiker.

Fast-forward 20 years.  Adventure travel is mainstream.  I'm heli-hiking in the Bugaboos.  I’m wearing running shoes.  Everyone else in the group is wearing new-school hiking boots that are lighter and more comfortable than my old waffle stompers.   The marshy area we crossed earlier has my tennies squelching with ice cold water and my toes feeling weirdly numb and tender at the same time. 

Then, while walking across a short scree field, the sound of a huge ice avalanche calving from a vertical glacier face in the distance catches our attention and we all stop to stand awestruck by the display of wilderness power.  Then I take another step onto a sandy slope without paying attention, slip, and in trying to recover my shoes scoop up handfulls of gritty sand.  So now I have wet, sandy socks and I looked with envy at my fellow hikers in their lightweight high-top boots.

Today, outdoor footwear companies make a shoe for every occasion, and I realize there is a place for all of them.  Here’s a list of iconic mountain adventures and the footwear I choose for each one:

• Short day hikes in warm weather, like visiting Yosemite’s Vernal Falls:  Ventilated running shoes with cotton socks.

• Long day hikes in warm weather like Canyonland’s Joint Trail: Sturdy, ventilated trail running shoes with thin synthetic socks.

• Rugged trail hikes in alpine areas like Peru’s Santa Cruz Trek: Gore-tex approach shoes with wool or synthetic socks.

• Off-trail hiking like CMH Summer Adventures: Light, high-top hiking boots with wool or synthetic socks.

• Early season, off-trail adventures like Rocky Mountain National Park’s Boulder Grand Pass, including snow fields and/or scree:  All-leather high-top boot with wool or synthetic socks.

And, no matter what shoes I choose, I leave a pair of flip flops at the car, hut or lodge because my feet are always craving fresh air at the end of the day. 

Do you have any footwear epics or opinions you'd like to share?

Photo by Topher Donahue

Sunscreen for mountain vacations

The worst sunburn I ever had was in Ecuador on a 5897-meter volcano called Cotopaxi.  It was cloudy all day, we never saw so much as a sliver of blue sky, we never even thought about putting on sunscreen, and yet the next day we were all so sunburned that some of us ended our trip early.  
Another time I was hanging out on a beach in Thailand and got sunburned in the shade from the sun’s reflection off the water.  Then there was the time I used some sunscreen that seemed to enhance the sun’s rays rather than reduce them.  
While I still play outside all the time, these encounters with the sun have turned me into a bit of a solarphobic.   Now I’m the guy in the big dorky hat with a swath of zink-based white sunscreen smeared on my face.  I’ve become a conesoir of sunscreen, and a lot of the time in the mountains I look pretty silly - but its worth it.  Here's a sunscreen-doused self-portrait from an expedition to Patagonia:

I look bad, but not as bad as the woman in this photo:

A really educational and comprehensive sunscreen investigation, including the best sunscreens, can be found here,  but my takeaway are these big factors:

• Less than 10% of the sunscreens available do what they claim without the use of dangerous chemicals.
• The US Food and Drug Administration has been working on sunscreen safety standards since 1978, but they are still not completed.
• Research before buying.  Sunscreen marketing is not regulated, so companies can claim whatever their marketing department wants them to.  
• Oxybenzone, a chemical used in many sunscreens appears to be on its way out as less sunscreens are using the once standard sunscreen ingredient.  It is a hormone disruptor that has negative side affects and is not recommended for children – although many sunscreens marketed to families still contain oxybenzone.
• The big sunscreen brands like Coppertone, Neutrogena and Banana Boat are among the worst offenders for making claims that are not substantiated in tests!
• Sunscreens that use zinc, for a physical block rather than a chemical block, and give the skin a ghoulish white look are actually the healthiest for your skin and for these reasons are best for children.
• It is more important to reapply frequently than to use higher SPF rated product.

At the end of my research, I learned that mountaineers had it right all along.  The classic photo of the high-altitude climber is grizzled from weeks without shaving, topped with the worst bed head imaginable, and accented with white zinc sunscreen smeared around a delirious grin.  Before the recent sunscreen marketing craze of 50+ SPF ratings, the mountaineer’s wisdom was:

• Use a sunscreen containing the least amount of chemicals with SPF of 15 to 30 for arms and legs.
• Use a zinc oxide based sunscreen for the sensitive areas of the face.  When the white stuff was visibly smeared off, slather on some more.   
• Use physical barriers like generous sun hats, wrap-around sunglasses, light-coloured clothing and bandanas instead of relying entirely on sunscreen.

Now it seems the regulators and researchers are coming to the same conclusions. 

Mountain guides view the sun as another hazard to be mitigated.  For this reason, especially around the highly reflective snowfields and glaciers, your guide on a summer adventure will make sure everyone is using sunscreen, sunglasses and sun hats. 

Trekking Poles Can Make Your Summer Adventure More Enjoyable!

At CMH Summer Adventures we have been awarding our Alpinists a set of trekking poles from Black Diamond  for a few years now.  The guests are ecstatic with them. Not being a trekking pole user myself, I decided to go to the source to find out the advantages of using them.  I contacted Alan Adams from Black Diamond and here’s where our conversation went: 

JC: Alan, I’ve heard seasoned hikers say again and again that they’d never leave home without their trekking poles.  What advantages do they offer?
AA: Jane, the biggest advantage is saving one’s knees.  Oddly, everyone thinks this is just for older folks, but I fully disagree.  I’m only 29 and I use poles.  That means that my knees will be going long and strong for many years to come.  Preventative behavior is worth it in my opinion.   I won’t go on any mountain adventure without them.  

Trekking poles vs. ski poles are a great upgrade as they have much nicer grips and handles along with trekking specific narrow baskets instead of the wider powder baskets used on ski poles.  Some of our higher end poles even have shocks in them like a mountain bike fork.  Finally, trekking poles offer more adjustment points (2 vs. 1) for length, which also gives you the ability to collapse the pole to strap onto your pack or carry in your travel bag when they aren’t needed.

There are tons of other advantages as well.  For crossing a stream, you have another point of balance.  When navigating tricky rocky terrain, you can descend small drop off’s much easier by moving your weight on/off the poles as needed.  Numerous other random uses as well. . .splint for an injury, a great device to hit your hiking partner when they get annoying, grizzly bear prodding device, etc. . .the list is endless. . .
 
JC: I’m one of those hikers that is happy to go uphill or across meadows for most of the day.  My knees hate the downhills!  Would a set of poles help me to love the decent?
AA: Yes, they would help a great deal.  Find a great 2 hour loop and do it one day with trekking poles and another day without.  I guarantee you’ll be a convert after a test like that.  With a good set of trekking poles I can place nearly half my weight on the poles on the downhills.  Plus, you get into this zen like state of mind when you are making your way down a rocky downhill. 

For any skier who batters their knees all winter, trekking poles are a must.  Climbers with huge loads of gear in their packs also reap the benefits on the approach and trek out from their epic slogs.
 
JC: I think I could have used them on the Inca Trail then!  There’s a pretty wide range in price and quality.  What features should I look for in a good set of poles?
AA; Our poles range from $75 to $140 in the US.  At the lower price points, you will typically get an aluminum pole with a basic strap/grip system.  For around $100-$120, you can get shocks in the handles, nicer straps (typically nubuk), better molded grips with an ergonomic bend on certain models, and cork handles on a few select models as well.  At the top of the lineup, the tubing switches to carbon fiber, which is typically lighter and stiffer.  Our top model, the Alpine Carbon Cork, gets a full 3 piece carbon shaft and an elegant cork handle that wears in wonderfully over time.  Anyone that is a fly fisherman will really appreciate the feel of a worn in cork handle.

Looking for a place to use your trekking poles this summer?  Consider a Summer Adventure at CMH's Bobbie Burns Lodge.  A full immersion into Canada's Rocky Mountains awaits you!  Contact our Heli-Hiking experts for more information at 1.800.661.0252.