Hiking for health in B.C.
Mountain retreat on west coast focuses on everything that doesn’t have a price tag
NELSON, B.C. — My heart slams against my rib cage as sweat begins rolling down my spine. But halfway up the steep, uneven gravel road, I remind myself — I asked for this.
I’m in the middle of a heart-rate test on the first of six hikes that I’ll embark upon during my weeklong stay at Mountain Trek Retreat and Health Spa. Located in the Selkirk Mountains above the 100-kilometre-long Kootenay Lake near Nelson, B.C., Mountain Trek is North America’s only mountain-based Nordic Fitness Trekking program.
Our day begins with a 6 a.m. wake-up call and a smoothie. Over the next three hours, the15 other guests and I work our way through a yoga class, a calorie-controlled breakfast, a fitness lecture, a “foot care” class (on how to ward off blisters), as well as instructions on how to hold our Nordic hiking poles and now, a two-hour guided hike up a steep path to a backcountry graveyard with an incredible view of down to Kootenay Lake.
While this highly personalized hiking wellness program, which includes everything from body-composition as- sessments to deep-tissue massages, will likely result in loss of fat (1.4-2.3 kilograms for women and 2.3-3.2 kilograms per week for men, on average), most people aren’t here to just go down a pant size. Like me, they want to press the reset button on life and are willing to push themselves to the edge of their current fitness limits to get there.
“Most people have been stuck for a few years to a decade and think they just can never reclaim their energy, their flexibility, their strength, their cardio, their poise, their presence,” says Kirkland Shave, 62, program director and general manager. “Then, after just six days of living this optimal Petri dish in the mountains, they’re amazed at just how full of life they feel.”
With its staff-to-guest ratio (about three to one), this beautifully situated lodge made me feel that finding my mental, physical and spiritual health was a priority. And learning the credentials of their nutritionists, therapists, personal trainers and other experts gave me confidence in ceding complete control of my daily schedule.
MOUNTAIN from T1
“The Mountain Trek philosophy is to help people reset hormones, rebalance their health and reclaim functional fitness in a modern world of extremes,” says Shave, who has worked extensively as a B.C. park ranger in the Kootenay region, and has been guiding at Mountain Trek for 20 years.
“We’re giving people super succinct tipping points, potential habits that they can weave into this modern, post-industrial, technological world to reclaim health in a time when it’s so difficult.”
Shave’s philosophy comes from an anthropological overview of how humans have lived for 200,000 years, looking at how people slept, ate, moved and managed stress. The idea is to reboot Mountain Trek guests’ metabolisms and rebalance hormones through proper diet, sleeping patterns and physical exercise — three things that are chronically ignored in our fast-paced modern world.
As an executive director with Apple, Carrie Laureno knew all about that world — until she abruptly quit her job earlier this year.
“I woke up one day in February and just said, ‘I can’t do this lifestyle anymore,’ ” says Laureno, a 44-year-old from New York City. “I was so unhappy, sitting all the time, on a plane to fly between cities, not knowing what time zone I’m in, and eating really poorly.”
She’d first come to Mountain Trek in 2013, for their winter snowshoeing program, and had tried numerous well-known health and wellness spas across the U.S. since then. But Laureno returned to Canada’s western mountain range for a post-job personal tune-up because none of those other places measured up to the level of care she feels here — nor could they provide the same insight she’s gleaned from Shave’s passionate, science-based lectures on everything from integration to willpower.
“I’ve never been to a place where I felt like you’re a part of this team that’s going on a jour- ney to understand the meaning and importance of self-care and wellness, in such a supportive, structured, caring environment,” says Laureno.
Similar to Laureno, I had been yearning to rediscover what physical and psychological fitness felt like, after several years spent dealing with not only numerous chronic conditions, but a string of personal family tragedies.
On top of that, the nature of my work means plenty of hours spent stationary in front of a screen.
“We’re giving people super succinct tipping points.” KIRKLAND SHAVE PROGRAM DIRECTOR AND GENERAL MANAGER
But on the mountain, I could let go of deadlines and the buzz of social media, and instead practise living in the moment.
On the daily, three-to-four-hour guided hikes (which happened rain or shine), the group split off into four fitness-level subgroups, each with its own guide who would take us up and down five to 15 kilometres of winding mountain paths reaching between 300-800 vertical metres, as they pointed out yellow-flowering arnica root, rare morel mushrooms and wild purple clematis along the way.
No doubt, the physical exertion of climbing a 60-degree rocky incline forces you to be very present; besides, the alpine scenery was so spectacular I wanted to drink it in (while drinking in the required three litres of water per hike).
Shave tells me that 35 per cent to 40 per cent of guests are repeats. One of those is Philip Lanni, a 70-year-old from Kleinburg, Ont. who has spent 40 weeks and walked over two million steps with Mountain Trek here in B.C., and also joined overseas trips to Machu Picchu and Mt. Everest base camp.
“The program got me in the groove,” says Lanni, who first came to the lodge back in 2000 (the year Shave co-founded the Balanced Health Reset program) weighing 123 kg, and is now at a steady 90 kg. “You have to exercise every day, you’ve gotta have your goals, you’ve gotta watch what you eat, so that’s what I do. At my age, I’m not taking any medication at all, no pills, nothing.”
Lanni’s words echo in my head as I finish my week at Mountain Trek, having built up both my muscle and my willpower. And as I think about how much better my brain and body both feel, I can’t shake the feeling that I might just end up as one of those return guests. Travel subsidies disclosure: Emma Yardley was hosted by Mountain Trek, which didn’t review or approve this story.
Emma Yardley is a Toronto/Vancouver writer. Find her on social media @byemmyardley