Saturday, March 17, 2012

Wasabi Seeweed

A couple of weeks ago my good friends/hall-mates Kami and Kaylse Rose were cleaning out their food supplies in the Whistling Winds kitchen cabinet. My room-mate Bree and I had just finished coming back from a brisk walk outside. We came in and examined Kami and Kaylse and they were organizing. Off to the side, I eyed a bag full of seasoned seaweed. I know there are a lot of the population that think this is gross to eat, but I don't. In fact, I love to eat seasoned seeweed. ( I got it from my dad) Anyhow, Bree pointed it out to Kaylse and said, "Thats a lot of seaweed. She brightened up and said, "We are trying to get rid of it, would you like it?" "YES" I almost jumped for joy but then my heart plummeted in disappointment as she told me it was wasabi flavored seaweed. I don't really like wasabi flavoring, its not that its too spicy, i just don't like the flavor. I was sadly telling her this when Bree piped up and said that we would take it anyway because she sorta liked it. So we took the big bag of seaweed to our room. One day I decided to take a bite. "OH, it was awful." I stayed away for about a week, then decided to try it again. It wasn't that bad and if I folded it right, then I could minimize the wasabi flavor and still get the seaweed flavor. Needless to say, the more I tried it, the more I started to like it.
As of right now, I'm curled up on the couch in Whistling Winds house and am eating wasabi seaweed as I write this, and I'm actually enjoying it. Dad, you would be proud of me!! People are crazy creations at times.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Winter Camping at Stryne = Exhilarating

A couple of weeks ago I found myself tucked away in the majestic trees and boulder fields of a particular mountain in British Columbia. It is affectionally known to my friends and I as Stryne Cabin although I'm not sure the name that would be used on an official parks map. The reason the old cabin will forever be dubbed as Stryne Cabin is because its sits high above and up the Stryne Valley in British Columbia.

The hike takes about two hours, less on a good day at a fast pace. Its a very uphill type of hike. We cover a lot of uphill ground in those two hours. Near the end of the hike, we cross a small bubbling flowing stream on a log and then take a winding path by a still pool. The cabin is not visible until you are directly upon it. Suddenly its beautiful weather beaten logs and chimney rise to the side, and after walking up and ducking through the low door, you are inside. The cabin has two parts, an outer and an inner. Both have antique old stoves that we use to keep warm and cook on. Outside is a pile of wood that we keep stocked up. It was built almost a hundred years ago as a halfway to a mining camp far up Stryne Valley. Moss is growing in the cabin top and its so hidden away that while your there you feel very tucked away and disconnected from the confusion of life below. Everything is big there. The trees are HUGE and the boulders in the boulder field are even bigger. The stream is icey cold and the surrounding vista is so breathtaking that a person wishes they could just capture and hold the image forever.

I love being up at Stryne, I want to take my family there someday, but this last time I was up there was by far the most extreme. A group of eleven, including myself, were going up for the weekend. This was the first time that I was going up during winter. We sorta got a late start and dusk was falling as we were about half way up. It got colder the farther we went up and also more icey. The narrow trail was covered with a clear sheet of ice and since it was dark I couldn't see it. I would be walking, completely out of breath and then WHAM. I would be on the ground with the added weight of my back pressing me down farther into the ice. Rolling over, I would get back up only to have the person in front of me take a tumble. It slowed things down a bit. Soon it was completly dark, I'm almost glad it was. Otherwise I would have been frightened to see that the snow had narrowed the trail to a little under a foot. One slip on the ice and one would have a rocky slippery slide down the mountain, in the dark. We made it safely through this part, crossed the ice covered log and made it safely to the cabin.

The next day and a half were the highlight of February for me. We snowshoed, jumped off boulders into the snow, breathed the mountain fresh air and all crowded into the loft in the cabin and shared stories while we also read the notes from previous campers before in the guest book.

On Saturday evening, after supper, everyone went outside to make a fire and heat up some got coco. Soon a HUGE fire was roaring away. Dusk was falling as I climbed away from the group and climbed up into the snow covered boulder field. Glancing back over my shoulder I see the huge fire looking like a tiny glow somewhere from below and the mountains raise up so high in front that I have to crank my head back to take them all in. I have to say that I felt privileged. Just privileged to have an opportunity to see something as beautiful as I was seeing, to have absolute quiet and to lay on my back in the snow, breathing deeply as I watched the stars shyly appear on the horizon. Huge, blazing, powerful lights that only appeared small as they suddenly appeared to dance across the sky.

I only have one word for the hike down in the daytime. EXHILARATING. Even though I was frustrated at my lack of coordination going downhill, that was soon drowned out by being so high up. Seeing the mountain range spread out, hiking in the snow, taking in the beauty of it all. If you get as lucky as I did to take at trip up there during the winter. TAKE IT!