FIT Magazine, January/February, 1999. FitSPA: Rating the Fitness Retreats Soooooper, Eh? If glycoli-schmancy-hydroxo-crapological facials are not your scene, this down-to-earth, inexpensive, Canadian hiking resort may be for you. By Marjorie Ingall

If you usually skip this column because you are not a spa person, read this! For Mountain Trek is not a spa: it is a "Fitness Retreat". Nestled in a tiny town in the Kootenays (pronounced "koot-knees"), a mountain range in British Columbia, Mountain Trek is an antidote to too much fussiness. If herbal wraps make you claustrophobic; if you are not a fan of tiny artfully arranged "meals" of two baby carrots and a beet; if you cannot imagine sitting around with a bunch pedicure-heads discussing moisturizers for hours; well, Mountain Trek could float your kayak.

There are no wraps, scrubs, polishes, peels. There are no Spinning classes, aquarobics, tennis courts or New Age anything. There's a hot tub. There's a weight room and a yoga studio. There are massages. That's it -- and that's all you need. Mountain Trek is about the great outdoors, and it is utterly breathtaking, literally and figuratively. You hike through alpine meadows frosted with wildflowers and criss-crossed with streams. You hike up mountains surrounded by glaciers. You kayak on an electric blue lake ringed with evergreens. Adjectives fail.

Land O' Lakes
I flew into the teeny Castlegar airport, midway between Vancouver and Calgary. The flight was something else, in a tiny plane [note: the Canadian Airlines plane seats 50 people] like something out of Indiana Jones; you fly low along the gleaming Kootenay River, trees rising at window-level on either side. The airport is a postage stamp. The Mountain Trek van arrives in the afternoon, but I arrived in the morning. So I took a shuttle to the little town of Nelson, to be picked up later by Mountain Trek and driven to the even littler town of Ainsworth Hot Springs. I asked the (lone) airport security guard where the shuttle was, and he looked stricken. "It's right outside, but it doesn't leave yet!" I told him I would cope. I went to the bathroom. A woman came in a couple of minutes later and chirped. "I hear you're going to Nelson!" Um, yeah. I came out of the bathroom and the shuttle driver ran up to me anxiously. "You're the one going to Nelson! I'm so sorry to keep you waiting!" I felt like I was starring in my own private Truman Show.

Nelson is a frontierish town. Steve Martin's Roxanne was filmed here. (It still has that volunteer fire department feel). I walked around, looking at art galleries, hippie jewelry stores and sports shops. Then I had a veggie burger, checked my E-mail in the groovy Internet café and went to meet the van.

It was filled with my fellow guests. Everyone was friendly; no one had that crazed spa-lady look. With only 12 rooms at Mountain Trek, you really get to know your neighbors, mostly women traveling solo, so it wasn't clique-y. Plus, hikers tend to be pretty down-to-earth. No princesses! No whiners! One guest turned out to be a friend of a friend's, a former political speechwriter, funny and sharp. And there was a couple -- a cat-food scientist woman and her dryly funny husband. And a realtor from Florida -- full of gossip and mischief. The only annoying guest was a competitive, rail-thin New Yorker who kept saying, after hiking six hours a day, "I need to work out! I have to do my upper body!". She was also so determined to Be First all the time that she kept ramming people with her kayak. But they let it go. Canadians are nice and we must emulate them.

Mountain Trek lodge is surrounded by trees, with a view of Kootenay Lake. The lodge isn't fancy, but it's awfully cozy, with dark green walls, rainbow-bright rag rugs, dark wood knotty chairs and couches. In the evenings we'd sit on the lawn and watch the trees darken and silhouette against the pink and purple sky while the owner's exuberant dogs tumbled around, growling impressively.

The individual rooms at Mountain Trek are simple but comfortable: flowered duvets, handmade wooden coat racks and bedside tables. No phones or T.V.'s. The first night we all gathered around the dinner table, a bit shy at first, like some kind of collective first date. But soon everyone was laughing and chatting as we snarfed down salad, pasta, roasted veggies and berry rumble. The meals were low-fat but substantial. That night I looked up and gasped. The sky was spazzy with stars, like a black velvet painting.

Bonding with Nature
The schedule: A wake-up knock at 6 a.m., stretch class at 6:30, breakfast at 7:30 with an overview of the day's hike or kayak trip, then pile in the sport-utility vehicles for an 8:30 departure. Hike all day, lunch on the trail, back by five. I really appreciated the way we were told in advance what to expect on each hike. The guides, in fact, were the most professional of any I've met. Greg did search and rescue for a ski resort in addition to his Mountain Trek guiding; Sharon was a sunny triathlete who said "soooooper" a lot and looked 35 but had a 24 year old daughter. Lise did double-duty as a paramedic. The three stayed in touch by walkie-talkie during the hikes, and spread out so that we all had a guide near us, no matter what our pace.

The first day's hike was in Kokanee Glacier Park, which contains over 30 lakes. Wildflowers covered the edges of the path. Like most of our hikes, the majority of elevation gain was in the first hour. Then the trail gave way to a wide, level field of meadow flowers. Soon we arrived at an old one-room cottage where snow-boarders were hanging out bouts of shredding. The combination of warm summer sun and flowers at ground level with the snow-capped glacier hanging next to the cabin was jarring.

At a lake nearby, we ate smoked cheese sandwiches and delicious red pepper and pine-nut salad. Greg began sketching in a little notebook: Anita fell asleep on a rock, Nancy sat perfectly straight, as if meditation , near the water. I peed behind a rock.

We hiked back, scrambling across shale and loose stones. Several of us had a close encounter with a marmot. Marmots look like groundhogs on steroids and are inherently amusing. When we returned to the lodge, we feasted on incredible melon, mushroom soup, salad, salmon, green beans and potatoes, and low-fat apple strudel, which I chowed so as not to be late for my massage. Oh, the hardship.

A Lake Smooth as Glass
The days flew. Some of us tried mountain biking and kayaking. A long ferry ride took us across the lake to ride on dirt roads and a tiny bit of trail. The crossing was lovely (Sharon pointed out baby ospreys nesting on buoys) as was biking to a historic lighthouse. The entire bike ride was 20 kilometers to the ferry and an additional 15 on the other side. (Kilometers sound more impressive than miles, no?) I was sorry not to have hiked instead: the hiking group came back raving about their trek to a mountain peak, with a 360 degree view of the river and hills below. Bitches.

But the kayaking was incredible. Our guides, Helene and Sean, taught us the basics. The lake was smooth as a mirror. Spiky evergreens pierced the hills around us. I loved how responsive the kayaks were, how strong I felt propelling my boat (the kayaks were so light it didn't take much, but dammit, I reveled in my feelings of machismo). Five miles later, I had a blister between my forefinger and thumb. This made me feel even cooler.

In the evenings, conventional massages alternated with something called a G-5 massage, which involved a gigantic vibrator. Not as kinky as it sounds, the therapist rubs it over your back, shoulders, and legs. It's pleasant, but I would spring for the reflexology instead. You simply cannot go wrong with a foot rub.

Monica (not Lewinsky)
Another hike took us to Mount Monica. (I began writing punchline/slogans in my head, like Quick to Go Down! And For the Ambitious Social Climber!). Many trees here, regardless of age, were gone. According to the Rainforest Action Network, trees are cut every 66 seconds in British Columbia. Before this trip, I'd have said that there could be no place more beautiful than the Northern California redwoods. Now I think the Kootenays are even more beautiful .. But it's clear both regions face uncertain futures.

This hike started out with 1,804 feet of elevation gain in the first mile. We hiked past a ridiculously perfect picturebook outhouse -- it looked like a fairy-tale cottage -- and then through a meadow, stopping for lunch at a gurgling stream. The water wound around rocks and rushed across fallen branches, and the uneven terrain allowed us all private exploration time. I found my own mini-waterfall and sat with tears in my eyes, so thankful to experience this beauty. Greg then said, "At the top of that ridge, there's something every woman wants." I gasped, You mean there's a mall up there?" Greg stared at me, dumbfounded. I was kidding.

When we finally reached the summit, several of us succumbed to the urge to twirl around like Julie Andrews and sing, "The hills are alive!" (We did, I swear). We also discovered Greg's surprise: a rock formation shaped like a gigantic throne. Every woman wants a throne? I was too exhilarated to start a feminist conscious-raising session.

We hiked back across rolling grassy fields surrounded by snowcapped mountains, for about 12 miles total.

I didn't want to leave. I never saw a bear, after all the warnings that they were nearby eating huckleberries. (The day I got home, the rest of the group had a bear encounter -- thrilling and scary, but Greg and Sharon kept them safe). When I got back to Castlegar airport, the same old security guard was there. He saw me and exclaimed, "Aw, you didn't stay long!" No, not long enough. But I'll be back.

NOTE: Writer Marjorie Ingall felt a tad ignored when she arrived home at San Francisco's airport, but she got over it.

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Super Natural Spa

Mountain Trek Fitness Retreat & Health Spa,
Box 1352, Ainsworth Hot Springs, British Columbia, Canada V0G 1A0
1-800-661-5161
www.hiking.com
info@hiking.com