Ainsworth Hot Springs, B.C. I’ve always suspected that when Christina and Suzan leave work to go to yoga class, they just lay around. So imagine my surprise as I find myself sweating, trembling and struggling to keep up as Sharon, our groovy triathlete instructor, teaches us yoga at the Mountain Trek Fitness Retreat and Health Spa. I’ve been invited to the intimate cedar lodge to attend its "Hiking, Biking and Kayaking Adventure." The communal breakfast is French Toast with strawberry-rubarb sauce, juice and herbal tea. Caffeine and processed sugars are big fat nos. I would kill for even a lousy Sanka. 8:30 a.m. The guests and our three guides pile into SUVs and head north along the 90-mile, 500 foot deep Kootenay Lake to go hiking. Guide Greg is elevated to god status when he stops for gas near the Mystic Convenience Store in Kaslo and says: "What you do for the next 5 minutes is your own business." There’s a stampede to the "Seattle’s Finest" coffee thermos ($1). We hike Whitewater Creek Valley in the Goat Range Provincial Park of the Selkirk Mountains. This is where most of Canada’s silver was mined. A winding road leads us to the trail and a big sign warning BEAR COUNTRY. We start our 2300-foot-elevation climb in a ferny, aromatic forest with mounds of turquoise-colored rocks and old mining doorways. Our safety-minded guides, who communicate by walkie-talkie, let us fall into groups depending on ability, which comes in handy for Mindy, 32, who is preggers. Greg shows us how to find huckleberries. We enter a wild-flowery meadow. Then we hug the side of a mountain for four hours up into the terminal moraine, or rocky deposit area, of the Whitewater Glacier. Total echoville. Along the way, we eat lunch (Chinese noodles with mushrooms, and a salmon sandwich on multigrain bread). The air is of oxygen-bar quality. We look out for bears and wild goats, but see only a golden eagle. Not that I’m complaining. 5 p.m. Once back down at the lodge, I wander down the hill to the Ainsworth Hot Springs ($6). There is a 94-degree pool overlooking Kootenay Lake. It’s filled with elderly folk talking about RVs and golf courses. Then there are some creepy caves with water at 114 degrees. At 6:30 it is time for my hour-long massage. A German therapist named Christine uses a hippy-dippy technique called Rebalancing, which draws upon Rolfing and some weird rocking motion. Whatever she did, it worked. Then I head downstairs to dinner – spicy yam soup, firecracker-red beans, fancified pilaf and roasted escarole. We compare notes on who snuck sweets during the day. I wind out the day at an old-mannish 9 p.m. staring at the stars. The Big Dipper is scarily close. In my spare-yet-comfy room overlooking the lake, I crash under a handmade quilt. Tuesday, 10 a.m. We arrive at the kayaking launching point on Kootenay Lake after another crack o’ down stretch class, tasty breakfast and, of course, tanker of contraband coffee. Our guide Kris tells us how to climb into a kayak without dumping it and how to paddle. "Work your hips like a hula dancer and feel the Kootenay vibe," she says. We paddle up the glacier-fed lake a couple of hours to a beachhead called Shutty Bench. The water is like glass, the rocky cliffs along the shore and distant mountains breathtaking and the whole event pretty darned tranquilizing. Our guide Shawn explains how to tell a grizzly from a brown bear (if you see a hump, kiss your ass goodbye). We break for lunch on a beach. Then we paddle across the lake to Campbell Creek then back down and across to picture-perfect Kaslo. Christina Ricci supposedly just filmed a movie about a lake creature here. 6:30 p.m. My massage is by Egyptian-born Victoria, a nature-lovin’ hipster who has traveled far and wide. Like the founder of Mountain Trek a woman named Wendy Pope who used to be a financial analyst, Victoria is also the strongest woman I’ve evr met; she kneads me into a drooly, blessed-out mess. Everyone laughs when I float down to a tasty dinner of what tastes like spinach-and-feta pie, but the feta has been cleverly replaced with egg white and tofu. Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. We drive down the lake to Nelson, where we’re to pick up our mountain bikes. Nelson is the coolest little town I’ve ever seen, full of cute hillside bungalows and adventure-sport groovers. We bike up grueling hills to get to a rails-to-trails bike path, part of a national system, on the edge of town. Our guides are Dan, an extreme skier, and Jennifer, an ex-model. Jennifer and Dan describe trails with names like Placenta Descenta, Little Molly Pisserpants and the Gimp. "You always seem to wind up bleeding on that one," Jennifer says. We opt for a nine-mile trek to Silver King, a.k.a., none of the above. We cruise to an ice-cold little lake for lunch then head up an evil incline to Silver King. Silver King was an old wagon trail back in the mining days, so we blast down over crumbling trestles and rickety bridges. Dan had given us pointers on how to feather your front brakes so you don’t go flying over your handlebars. Yet, by the time we reach the bottom, Dan has scraped himself up doing stunts. "Well, I got some blood," he says. "Guess I can call it a day now." Kids. Thursday, 11 a.m. It’s taken two hours, an hour of it along a logging road, to get to todays trail in the Purcell Mountains. We have traveled along the turquoise Glacier Creek, hitting vast swaths of clear-cut forests, which are extremely annoying. Still, I’m like a child with his face pressed against a candy-store window, soaking up the nature. By the time we stop at the trailhead, we’ve climbed to 6000 feet. Across the valley is Horseshoe Glacier, and Mount MacBeth , which has a giant waterfall cascading off it. We head up an evil trail though alpine spruce and fir that takes us 1700 feet up Mount Monica. My body has had it from four days of serious exercise. I cannot stifle my moans. Sharon and Jennifer give us pep talks about the beauty in store up ahead. I get a second wind when I stop and trance out on the roar of that waterfall from miles away. We round a bend and, voila, we are surrounded by snowcapped peaks and glaciers. I thought I was gonna die – it beat big screen TV! Final notes: I’ve made my share of Canadian jokes. Boy, was I eating my words when I saw how cool and kooky these people are. Attention ski fiends: The powder around this part of the province is said to kick some serious ass.
Mountain Trek Fitness
Retreat & Health Spa, |
