Maybe The Biggest Lie Of All

I keep hearing that food grown with chemical fertilizers and herbicides sprayed on it - I can't talk myself into calling it conventionally grown - is just as nutritious as food grown without. That is crap. It is a complete impossibility.

An apple grown corporately has over 30 chemicals sprayed on it. An organic apple has no chemicals sprayed on it. Our digestive systems only have 2 reactions when we ingest something. It can recognize it as nutrition and work to break it down and utilize the nutrition or it recognizes it is a toxin and has a white cell reaction to protect the body from the toxin.

There is no middle ground. It doesn't say "Oh let me quickly separate the toxins and then I'll get to digesting the rest." It's an all or nothing process.

So when they tell you the stuff they sprayed with herbicides and pesticides and fungicides is just as healthy they are NOT telling you the truth.

The favorite chemical for the genetically modified crops is glyphosate (roundup). It works by blocking nutrition to the plants it is sprayed on which kills it by basically starving it. The modification allows a plant to grow even after being sprayed with glyphosate, but there is no peer reviewed science showing that the plant has the same nutrition as an organic or even just non-gmo plant.

There isn't a lot of science one way or another because the patent laws require the patent holder to approve research which they do not approve. They prefer you and I be the lab rats for their experiment.

Just say Yes on 522 and make sure your parents and aunt and uncles and grandparents know what the truth is.

Be very well and more soon....

Crystal Peak Was A Great Second Choice

Saturday we headed off to hike Norse Peak with a loop that took Trail 1161 through Goat Lake. We arrived at the trailhead to find signage that said the Goat Lake trail was "obliterated" by a slide and was impassable. We made a quick decision to head to Crystal Peak Trail which is just over 8 miles away since it was a beautiful day and we had yet to see the view from there in our 3 previous hikes there.

So we headed up the very well maintained Crystal Peak Trail and were very surprised to see a ton of perfectly ripe huckleberries. That slowed our pace quite a bit since we were all eating our way up the trail.

 

We finally got back to hiking - mostly because as we got higher the berries went away, but the view got outstanding.

 

 

We decided the right thing to do was to pick some berries to take home on the way down so we had a snack and a little break at the top. Garry noticed something a little too white over on a steep slope a peak away from us so I zoomed in as far as I could and took a couple of shots and sure enough it was a mountain goat.

 

 

 

We took the pictures you get to take when you haul your butt up a mountain and headed down to get some berries. By the time we were done picking we were the purple finger and tongue gang, but we had some great berries and a good bit of exercise as well.

 

 

Be very well and more soon...



 

 

 





 



Pacific Crest Trail Days and Tunnel Falls

Pam and I headed down to Cascade Locks to PCT days. It was held on Thunder Island in Cascade Locks Oregon. Thunder Island is only open for camping when PCT has this event so it's pretty cool that way.

 

 

While we were there we decided to hike out the Eagle Creek trail to some waterfalls. There are many on this east trail to enjoy. The trail is rocky, but easy with little elevation gain. We had brought along 2 folks we met at PCT days who are both planning a PCT through hike. Willow owns a restaurant near Camano Island and Dan who works in his family's rare rock business in McCall Idaho.

We headed up under Pam's easy hike pace and pretty quickly decided to go beyond the original 4 mile turnaround we had planned to hike through to Tunnel Falls - about 6 1/2 miles out. We ran into some through hikers heading north that told us to go past Tunnel to a more special view and we can't pass on local information so off we went.

Tunnel Falls has a tunnel behind it that you walk through. There is a lot of "chicken wire" along this trail since it drops off dramatically in places. They have cable installed on the inside of the trail for people who may want to use it.

 

 

Around the corner from Tunnel Falls is a really pretty cascade that was perfect for us to take in some calories before turning for home.

We slammed back down the hill with Dan in tow. He was wearing some shoes with pliable soles and the rocky trail was taking it's toll on his feet.

We made it back to PCT days in time for a shower and some late lunch before the drawing for gear. They had a raffle for over $7000 worth of gear! We bought $45 worth of tickets and ended up with $450 or more in gear!

The vendors there were varied, but many had lighter weight options in tents and packs. We saw a 2+ person tent that weighed under 3 pounds. There were demonstrations and talks on varied subjects and Friday night they screened "Mile -Mile and a Half" which is a documentary on backpacking the John Muir Trail in California.

We will likely attend again next year if we can. We both enjoyed it immensely.

Be very well and more soon....