Fashion Risk (*and who cares?)

I am a hot person.  I don’t mean it in the slangy, cool way, I mean I’m a little warmer than most of the people around me.  Hiking at 7,500 feet didn't make me any cooler.

In my pack I carry rain-pants, a green rubber poncho(provided by Canadian Mountain Holidays ( http://www.canadianmountainholidays.com/en/), a parka, and a bottle of water that I am afraid to drink before noon.

I wear a thin 'wicking' t-shirt topped by a slightly heavier-weight long sleeve 'wicking' shirt.  Wicking means that it pulls the sweat away from your body so it evaporates faster. This is a good plan when you are working up a sweat, which, as you can imagine, a hot person does fairly quickly on a nice mountain hike.

Dawny the Hiker poses with guide

The first thing you notice in this photo is the flat shale, the snowy peaks, the white clouds in an azure sky and then there’s these two little people... oh wait... one is me.  With this view, why would I care what I look like?

Now...what should my outer layer be?  Some of my fellow hikers wear their parkas the entire time.  In summer.   I put on the parka and began to melt.  I take off the parka and began to freeze.  

I try a fleece jacket and that works great...  as long as there’s no wind.  Wind cut through that fleece like it's fishnet.  So when a wind blows in, I switch from fleece to parka, and get hot again. 

A couple of times I try the rubber poncho as a windbreaker, but it's rubber and has a huge hood which falls over my forehead and covers my eyes.  The first time I wear the poncho I fall in the snow (yes, snow) because I can’t see where I‘m going.

And as I flail blindly on the mountaintop, I began to sweat inside my little rubber world.  I looked like Little Green Riding Hood on acid.

Parka.   Fleece.   Poncho.   Parka.   Fleece.   Poncho.    all three....none

My fashion life is hell for a little bit. Not only do I feel like a fiery lunatic constantly changing outerwear, but I also have to stop more than anyone else. I end up at the back of the group most of the time,  And being at the back makes me bear bait... hot, sweaty, fashion-risk, bear bait. So as I try to catch up with the group, I sing loudly (and badly) to warn off the bears.  

Hiker with her fleece tied around her waist over her windbreaker 

has given up worrying about how she looks

 More interesting than what I am wearing is the hill I’m standing on,  the run off from a glacier at the bottom of the slope, and the snowy peaks behind me.  As always, billions of years of geology and nature give me a sense of what is important.  It ain’t my fleece.

Bugaboo Spire - another view that takes my breath away

By the second afternoon I get the right combo, and stick with it in one form or another for the rest of the trip.  That's good, because all I really care about now is wilderness in which I stand, and the exalted majesty of these snow-capped peaks and green valleys.   Can you blame me?

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