Tag: 2016

Big Springs Park Snowshoe with Hike It Baby

Have you been “mama-stalked”?

Last August I was walking around the Outdoor Retailer trade show when a stranger approached me and handed me a card. She had noticed Baby L strapped to my chest (it was hard not to notice a second person plastered to the first). Her name was Shanti Hodges and she invited me to check out her website – Hike It Baby.
Once she said Hike It Baby something clicked in my head. I knew Shanti. We were part of the same Outdoor Family Bloggers Facebook Group. From there I knew she cared about getting outdoors with kids, just like me and I was more than happy to check out her website.

HikeIt Baby is a community of outdoors lovers who lead hikes in over 150 cities. Chances are there’s a local Hike It Baby branch near you. Run by volunteers, all hikes are free and offer an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors with other parents of young children.
Since last August I’ve attended several local Hike It Baby Hikes and last month led a Snowshoe hike at Big Springs Park – my favorite local trail.
Little g was excited to try out her bear print snowshoes while Baby L was happy to sleep on my chest once again. We went out, a group of five mamas all carrying at least one child. We were all trying new things as most of the others had never been snowshoeing before.
We started out on the trail that followed a beautiful stream. I loved the ice formed by the water edge and the frozen landscape all around. It was great getting outdoors and we did pretty well for the first half mile.

Then all hell broke loose. We had gone just half a mile, but half a mile of snowshoeing while carrying twenty extra pounds (or more) is really hard. When we turned around to head back to the trailhead Little G decided she was done. She cried, complained, whined and refused to walk another step. Unlike another mother of a four year old I hadn’t brought a second baby carrier to strap her to my back. Instead I hobbled down the trail with Baby L in the wrap on my front and Little G clinging to my neck on my back. 


It was awkward and difficult and we were all glad when it was over.
One great thing about hiking with other moms is that they get it. Yes my daughter’s crying was annoying to everyone but they’d also been in situations where their kid didn’t do exactly what they wanted when they wanted. They knew that sometimes adventures with tots don’t always go exactly as planned.
That’s what makes Hike It Baby great. No hiker is left behind because they care about building the next generation of outdoor lovers. If you haven’t checked out Hike It Baby now’s the time. See what hikes are in your area and get out on the trail! 

How Hippee Are You?

I’m writing this while eating granola that I purchased in the bulk food section of Sprouts Market using refillable jars that I brought from home.

Yeah. I’ve gone a little hippee. 

I’m not the only one. Green living, sustainable agriculture, and climate change are big topics in the world. As an outdoors lover it makes sense to care about the environment and want to preserve the beauties of the earth. But living in an eco-friendly way requires sacrificing personal convenience.

How much do you give up for the sake of the environment?

In October, I read the book Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson. Her family of four produces just one quart of garbage a year. That’s less than the average American produces in two days.

Zero Waste Home and its accompanying blog advocates living more simply by consuming less and using package free alternatives. Since reading the book, I analyze everything I throw in my trash bin – wrappers, bits of tape, food scraps – and think how I could compost, recycle or avoid tossing it altogether. It has changed my daily life.

I now use cloth diapers (much to Mountain Dad’s dismay), bring my own containers to the grocery store and carry a handkerchief instead of tissues. I choose to garden, make my own reusable bulk bags, and scrutinize every item that enters my home with a view on how to dispose of it when the time comes.

Living in the mountains requires us to haul our own trash and recycling away, so we naturally have an incentive to produce less of it. It also makes it easy to compost since our yard has no grass, just trees and native landscaping (mostly weeds).

But even so, I view my life from the outside and wonder, What happened to me? I used to think the only people who refused straws and used their personal water bottle at restaurants were the fringe of society. The crazies who hugged trees and wore free range wool or fair trade cotton. Now I am that person!

Maybe I should expect this kind of change living in an outdoors loving community. Tree hugging. Granola. Anti-plastic.

I realize that I live on the banks of mainstream society. But I don’t think I’m weird or abnormal. I think the rest of society is.

When I see people leave the grocery store with a cart full of plastic bagged food I judge them a little. It’s not hard to buy a few reusable shopping bags and keep them in your car. You go grocery shopping every week and will for the rest of your life. Why not invest $10 and a half hour of time to making the world a little greener?

Or my sister who continues to receive her bills by mail even though she lives in 2016 like the rest of us. I know automatic bill pay and ebills take time to set up, but one hour of your life is a small price to pay for greater convenience and fewer dead trees. 

Everyone has their comfort level in this area. For me it’s where cost, convenience and logic intersect. I compost and recycle because it’s cheaper and easier than hauling trash down the mountain. I cook homemade meals because it’s better for my family and I can use package free ingredients. Plus it tastes better.

There’s a little hippee in everyone. How Hippee are You?

Stranger Magnet – A Valentines Love Story


Mountain Dad is a magnet. A stranger magnet.
Unknown people ask him to take their pictures, or occasionally take pictures with him. If there is a car stuck in the snow he’s the one drivers approach. Every time we are on outdoor adventures a stranger approaches Mountain Dad for something – directions? Check. Recommendations? Check. Random small talk? Yep. Once we went UTVing and the only other person in sight struck up a conversation about suspension, towing capacity and aftermarket parts.
Some of the more outrageous stranger magnet moments he’s had? Two winters ago he and Big E were having a snowball fight in our yard when a random group of Korean tourists stopped and asked to take their photo. Snowballs, flannel shirts, flushed faces, maybe it felt like an Eddie Bauer catalog moment?

Then at the Sundance Film Festival this year, no less than five different groups grabbed photos with him in a single night while hanging out down at the Resort. Maybe they thought he was famous? I’m not sure why anyone would want to take their photo with random strangers, but of if they did, Mountain Dad would be the one they would ask. If we are on a hike or at a campground people come over to chat, not with me, but with the bearded guy in a flannel shirt. Stranger magnet.

It’s not like he’s the only person around. It’s not like he exudes approachability. He’s a broad shouldered man with facial hair. He’s introverted. Between the two of us, I would be the one most open to talking to strangers. But something in the universe makes people gravitate toward him. This is the mystery of our adventures. 

This interaction has happened so often in our lives that Mountain Dad has a nickname – American Friend James. What is it about a broad shouldered man in flannel that gives people a sense that he knows what he’s talking about? Does he exude friendliness? No. 
He exudes expertise. 
It’s true, Mountain Dad DOES know a lot. He researches, plans, and has experience with outdoor activities. When we invite other families to go camping with us I make a point to say, “It’s easier if you camp for your first time with us. We know what we are doing.”

Mountain Dad is confident. His quiet confidence leaks through everything we do in the outdoors. I trust his judgement with finding camping spots, loading up gear, and knowing where we’re going.  
When we were dating, he took me on hikes and camp outs for the first time in my life. He introduced me to the fresh air feeling of enjoying the outdoors. When we first got together, I never would have expected how much the outdoors have become a part of our lives. It has enriched our time together, become our vacation choice, been our family bonding time. For our ten year anniversary we spent the week in Alaska, camping in Denali National Park, viewing glaciers fall in Kenai Fjords National Park, watching bald eagles and grizzly bears and wild salmon.
I love that. I love him. The outdoors has been a large part of our life and our love story. What about yours? 

Peets Dryer Review

Part of our 2016 gear review series. Thanks for the write up Mountain Dad!  

So I bought the PEET Four Shoe Dryer for Mountain Mom a couple of years ago and it just sat in the box. She felt it was kind of frivolous and wanted to return it, but days slipped into weeks, and then months, and then it was too late to return it.

But this year is an El Nino year here in the West, and Sundance is getting pounded with snow (almost 5 feet in one week). With so many relatives coming over to play during the holidays,forcing us outside even more than usual, I decided to crack open the box to see if it would help us combat the piles of wet shoes, boots, gloves, etc in our home. What do you know, it works awesome!


The PEET Four Shoe Dryer is a simple device, with a mildly heated fan, a timer control, and four posts with various end attachments, not unlike a vacuum. It comes with adult size boot attachments in the box, but I purchased an additional glove attachments and helmet attachment. PEET gave Mountain Mom a set of the smaller kid’s mitten attachments for Big E and Little G’s boots and shoes last summer at Outdoor Retailer.

These attachments can be mixed and matched as needed by simply popping them on and off the base. It is made of thick black plastic, is lightweight, and easy to move around if necessary. It seems sturdy enough for the task, even if it looks a bit cheap. I think you could even easily pack it for ski/snowmobile vacation if you wanted.

What I Love
Simple is good. Throw your gear on the PEET Four Shoe Dryer, choose heat or no heat, and depending on how wet they are, turn the timer to a setting (ranges from 10 minutes to 200 minutes in 10 min increments), and maybe check on them every once in a while. The timer automatically shuts it down when the timer runs out, and viola, dry gear! 

How long it takes depends on how wet the items are, but I don’t think we have ever needed to exceed the maximum timer setting. If you did, you would simply turn the timer again. Unlike setting your gear next to a fireplace, there is no risk of your gear getting singed/melted or your heat moldable ski boot liners getting screwed up, as it produces very mild heat. The attachments are easy to attach/remove yet sturdy enough that you don’t feel like it is going fall over or break. The plastic is thick and sturdy and looks like it will hold up well.

Attachments
The adult sized boot attachments work good for our ski boots, snowmobile boots, rain boots, and normal shoes. There is a PEET Boot Extension Attachment if you have really long boots or waders, but we haven’t needed one to date. It dries the foot bed extremely well, with longer boots taking more time to get the upper interior as dry.

The smaller PEET PeeWee Kid’s Mitten DryPort Attachment work good for the kid’s boots AND gloves, particularly mittens (the adult sized glove attachments are too big for kids gloves). I am assuming this is because kid’s gloves are smaller, with shorter fingers, and less likely to flop over and block the airflow.

The PEET Glove Attachment works very well, although putting on the gloves can be a little tricky depending on the size. This is due to the attachment opening and directing airflow directly into the fingers, which makes short work of moisture. Gloves typically dry out pretty quickly.

We have not yet tried the PEET Helmet Attachment but I expect similarly good results.

What I Don’t Like
That we didn’t start using the PEET Four Shoe Dryer sooner? Honestly, this is a great little piece of equipment. It is a little pricey at around $100 + any additional attachments (approx. $15 each), but we have used this often during the last month and are very pleased with it. Hopefully it will hold out over time and prove to be reliable and dependable.

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