Tips & Advice

Get Tips and Advice from the guides at Mountain Trek. Nutrition, Hiking, Sleep, Detox and Fitness are just some of the topics we cover.

How To Build Healthy Habits in 6 Steps

Healthy food selection with fruits, vegetables, seeds, superfood, cereals on gray background

Sustainable, balanced health doesn’t come by yo-yo-ing between the latest diets and health fads. It is found by integrating specific actions that over time habituate into a naturally healthy lifestyle.

Lifestyle Habits are like a heavy flywheel

Lifestyles take a lot of energy to get going, but once moving, they are hard to stop. This is what makes a balanced lifestyle the holy grail of health—once established, it only takes a small amount of energy to maintain. An unhealthy action then becomes like a random impediment to the flywheel—the unplanned event (say a happy hour, office dessert, or 3rd cup of coffee) may wobble the system and temporarily cause the wheel to slow, but it won’t derail the momentum and soon enough, your flywheel will be right back to its usual speed.

Once going, our lifestyles are our desired series of actions that require the least amount of thought and energy (stress) to perform. This presents a catch-22, however. Trying to change our lifestyle introduces stress to our daily life (in the form of the effort required to consciously make better, healthier decisions) and stress is something we have been hardwired to avoid (RUN from the stressful sabertooth tiger trying to eat you!). The exact benefit of what makes a lifestyle so sustainable also makes it incredibly hard to change. But in order to lead a happier, healthier life, we must be fierce and put in the work necessary to change our habits and nurture our lifestyles. Exactly how we do that can be the difference between success and failure.

How To Build Healthy Habits

There is a way to efficiently, and effectively, create new habits. Our method, which has been refined and proven successful time and time again by the thousands of guests who have come through our program, incorporates 6 easy steps. Follow these steps to start moving your flywheel in the right direction, and once you’ve accomplished your first goal, add a second to keep the momentum going!

Step 1: Identify your health and wellness goals

Hand, pen and writing in a notebook with a business woman sitting at a desk in her office for planning. Agenda, schedule and appointment with a female employee making a note in her journal or diary.The first step involved in building healthy habits is to identify what your larger wellness goal is. This could be as simple as “get healthy” or “get healthier”. That’s great, but the more specific the better. What does “getting healthy” actually mean for you? Does that mean you want to lose weight, improve sleep, reduce stress, increase physical fitness, etc.?

It’s highly likely you will have multiple wellness goals, and that’s great. Start by writing down a list of all of your goals and then prioritize them by order of importance. What do you want to focus on first? What’s most important to you?

Step 2: Redesign your goals to optimize for success

Female Factory worker wearing a safety helmet in the background of a production line.

To make your goal as likely as possible to succeed, follow these steps to refine your goal:

1) Identify a series of specific health actions that will help you achieve each wellness goal.

The means to the end. For the purposes of this exercise, let’s say you want to focus on weight loss. What are the specific healthy actions that will get you to lose weight? For example, for our guests at Mountain Trek interested in weight loss, we recommend the following, specific actions:

– Eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking.

– Do your best to walk or move after eating to burn the consumed calories and keep blood sugar levels from spiking.

– Target sleeping 7-9 hours to lower appetite hormones.

Do you see how the above examples could lead to the end goal? Come up with a list of specific actions for each of the wellness goals you have identified.

2) Envision possible roadblocks to your healthy actions.

Items you just added to your list are likely to have roadblocks. Say you want to eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking. What happens when you’re too tired to go to the grocery store after work so you wake up and have no food for breakfast? This is an all-too-real scenario that we must plan for ahead of time, or else we run the risk of being derailed by the slightest roadblock. To help, come up with three possible roadblocks for each action.

3) Come up with solutions to those roadblocks.

Thinking ahead and having a contingency plan will counter procrastination. Think of possible solutions for each roadblock. For instance, go to the grocery store during your lunch break instead of waiting until after work.

4) Finally, list three benefits to accomplishing your goal.

What is the benefit of eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking? This will show you the “why” behind your goal, and increase your emotional connection to the goal, giving it more reason, and permission, to get accomplished.

Step 3: Simplify

Rustic Exposed Brick Wall with Worn Farmhouse Table Minimalist Product Backdrop Background Neutral Minimalist Simple Minimal Color, Beige, Tan, White, Vase

Now, pick a maximum of TWO actions (from either the same or separate goals). Yes, you may be thinking, “what did I do all that work for on the other goals, then?” Do not worry, that was not a futile effort. Without having fully analyzed all of your goals, you would not have selected the two best goals to begin forming specific actions into habits.

Why two? With a full life of commitments and responsibilities, we only have a little time, energy, and unspent willpower to keep deciding to do an action until it habituates. Choosing only two actions at a time dramatically maximizes your energy management and increases chances of success. If you have more, you just incessantly bounce between them, not making progress on any. They become a distraction for each other.

The most successful people on the planet know that it’s best to pick a very small number of tasks to do and then do them well, ensuring they get completed. Only then do they move on.

Step 4: Set a weekly target

push pin with arrows indicating a target

You’ve now decided on which of your health actions to focus on, and let’s say it is eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking. The next step is to decide how many times per week you are going to do this.

At Mountain Trek, we recommend setting a target goal for yourself of no more than 5 days per week for each habit. Doing anything every single day without fail is impossible. Life has too many curveballs. Allowing for the unknown, a little bit, makes it far more likely you will succeed in transforming action into a habit. You are giving yourself permission to not be 100% perfect. Perfection is unattainable and the self-inflicted shame that comes when we, surprise, don’t attain the unattainable, can freeze us from moving forward toward our goal.

Start small. Aim for doing your action two, maybe three times each week, then grow from there. If you end up repeating your action more than 5 days a week, that’s just extra credit and it likely means you are “want-ing” to do it rather than “should-ing”.

If you end up not meeting your weekly target, don’t sweat it. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and missing your target every once in a while won’t impact your long-term results. What’s important is to get back on track and not to beat yourself up when life derails you.

Bonus: put the specific days you hope to accomplish your action in your calendar. And schedule yourself first! before meetings, events, and outings. Prioritize your health.

Step 5: Monitor your progress and adjust if needed

Young woman farmer inspects tomato quality in a greenhouse using a magnifying glass. Her expertise focus and dedication to farming research demonstrate intelligence and scientific discovery.

You know what health action you are working on and how many days a week you are going to do it. The next step is to keep track of it.

Write it down in your journal. Keep a pad of paper handy to tally. Track it using your online calendar.

Whatever tool you decide to use, it’s important to monitor your activity, notice what derails you, and congratulate yourself when you are meeting your frequency targets! If you notice, for example, that you are having trouble eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking 5 days per week, then consider adjusting to 3 days per week. If that still doesn’t work and you find it impossibly hard to have breakfast – consider, why and determine if now is not the right time and choose a new action to focus on!

Step 6: Reward your intention

woman enjoying spa bath with foam and body massage brush

Here’s one of the best parts about habit formation – whether you are successful or not, you still get to reward yourself for your intention to do your best!

Rewards can be small or big, simple or complex. Some examples:

  • Treat yourself to a manicure or pedicure.
  • Indulge in a hot stone massage.
  • Go to the local Humane Society and spend the day playing and petting mankind’s favorite four-legged friends. Or simply borrow your neighbor’s dog for an hour!
  • Make the time to indulge in a hot bath with some therapeutic rock salts or candles.
  • Attend a local art exhibition or classical music concert.

The list goes on! You get the idea. Every week you should “reward” yourself for your intention to do your best with some kind of treat that is not associated with food or drink.

Now that you have your habit set up for success, be fierce. Fight for your habit. It can take from 21 days to up to six months to turn an action into a habit, so be patient and consistent. But when you do put the time and energy in, you will successfully ingrain your habit and positively alter your lifestyle. Your flywheel will have positive momentum in the right direction and you will start to reap the rewards of a healthy lifestyle.

What’s next….?

Once you’ve engrained your new habit, or two, it’s time to pat yourself on your back and go back to your original list of wellness goals and health actions and pick another action or two and repeat the whole process. Good luck.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

The 747 Formula

This article is an excerpt from our full article on How To Offset The Carbon Footprint Of Your Flights, and shares only the equation to do so.

The 747 Formula

We’ve created the “7-4-7” formula (yes, a pun on the Boeing 747) to help you offset the carbon footprint of your travel. The formula, which breaks your carbon offset into three categories, is effective and approachable, increasing the likelihood of adoption, which might be the essential action needed today. The first two categories are based on the “durability” of the solution as defined by Microsoft’s Corporate Sustainability Group, which, simply put, is how long we can expect the solution to remain a solution. A great example is the durability of tree planting; what happens when planted trees burn in a forest fire or naturally die and begin to decompose (both of which will emit carbon back into the atmosphere)? The final category focuses on awareness and education, vital components in solving this little conundrum we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Step 1) Calculate Your Travel’s CO2 Emissions

Use an online calculator, like this one from carbonfootprint.com, to see how much CO2 is emitted from your flights and car travel. Jot this number down.

Step 2) Calculate Your Total Travel Time

Add up all of the time you are in the car or on the plane and moving. Exclude layovers. Jot this number down as well.

Step 3) Immediately remove 7% of your emissions with Direct Air Capture

Visit Climeworks, click “customize”, change the frequency to “One-time”, and pay a “Custom amount” that removes 7% of the CO2 you calculated in Step 1.

Direct Air Capture can sequester carbon for thousands of years, literally sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and putting it deep in the ground where it originally came from. This “engineered” technology is as close to a permanent solution as possible, making it extremely resilient and earning the label of “high durability”. Pulling air via massive industrial fans through filters to capture and process carbon dioxide and then placing it thousands of feet underground is an expensive operation, but it’s the most effective solution available to immediately reverse the emissions we cause and needs to be a part of any offset strategy. This component kickstarts your offset nicely and immediately removes 7% of your emissions out of the air.

Example: One economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back is responsible for 1300 kg of emissions. 7% of this is 91kg, meaning ~$130 USD needs to be paid to immediately pull those 91 kgs of carbon out of the atmosphere.

Step 4) Plant 4 trees for every hour you travel

Visit the website of a tree planting non-profit, such as One Tree Planted or The Nature Conservancy, and donate enough to plant 4 trees for every hour you calculated in Step 2.

Tree planting is defined as a “low durability” solution—an initiative that sequesters carbon for less than 100 years and has inherent reversal risks (such as trees burning prematurely). The math of offsetting carbon emissions with tree planting is extremely difficult to nail down. One mature tree will absorb roughly 50 lbs or 22 kg of carbon dioxide each year, but how long that tree lives before it burns or begins to decay and emit sequestered carbon right back into the atmosphere is a complete unknown. It also takes 20-30 years for a tree to mature, so this solution kicks the can down the road quite a bit. Fortunately, planting trees is the cheapest carbon offset option available, so we feel it’s best to vastly overshoot this component of your contribution, and calculate based on how many mature trees it would take to sequester emissions in one year. This is roughly 4 trees per hour you travel.

Example: One economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel. 48 trees should be planted.

Step 5) Donate $7 for every hour you travel to awareness & education initiatives

Visit the website of a climate change educator, such as Project Drawdown or Kiss The Ground, and donate $7 for every hour you calculated in Step 2.

The amount of information and misinformation flying around us at all times is dizzying and causes serious climate change confusion. Knowledge is the ultimate power, so it must be a part of the solution. While awareness and education don’t pull carbon out of the air directly, they certainly help reduce how much is emitted moving forward, which is actually the quickest solution to our problem. This element is extremely hard to quantify, but we recommend donating $7 per every hour you travel.

Example: One economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel. $84 should be donated to climate change awareness and education to aid in offsetting future emissions.

Total Example: In total, one roundtrip LAX-JFK economy ticket takes ~$260 USD to offset (as of 2023), and a business class ticket takes $500 USD.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is an award-winning health retreat located in the lush forests of British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1991, our health reset program helps 16 guests at a time unplug, recharge, reconnect with nature, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about Mountain Trek, and how we can help reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

How Long Does It Take To Recover From Burnout

Are you burned out? Or perhaps exhausted, fatigued, or just tired? What’s the difference and does it even matter? It can be tough to tell these conditions apart, as the symptoms overlap greatly, and even easier to brush off burnout as just feeling tired or in need of a vacation, but it’s important to stop and listen to what your body is trying to tell you, because burnout is serious and requires significantly more effort to recover from than fatigue and exhaustion.
It takes more than just a good night of sleep or a week on a beach in paradise to bounce back from burnout, especially if you’ve ignored your burnout symptoms for a long time, like most of us are doing currently. Whether you’re burned out, or heading that direction, this article will help you fully understand what burnout is, how to prevent it, and how to recover from it.

Fatigue vs. Exhaustion vs. Burnout

Many people use the term “burnout” interchangeably with “fatigue” and “exhaustion” so it can be confusing to discern what exactly is burnout. In short, burnout is caused by chronic stress, whereas the other conditions are situational, like a bad night’s sleep after a holiday party, a work project that has you pulling longer hours than usual at the office, or a long travel day depleting your energy reserves. Burnout is when the physical, mental, and psychological reaction to chronic stress changes our physiology, causing persistent fatigue and states of disconnection.
The most common place this occurs is in the workplace. According to the Mayo Clinic, “job burnout is work-related stress that creates a physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”. This leads to reduced productivity and increased risk of illness—the Canadian Worker’s Compensation Board claims that workplace stress is now the leading cause of lost workdays. In addition to the above-mentioned symptoms, burnout can also leave one feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, resentful, and at a greater risk of experiencing anxiety and depression.
So how can you tell if you are experiencing burnout or are just really tired? A good place to start is by looking at the different types of tiredness: fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout, and their associated definitions:
  • Fatigue: feeling overtired, with low energy and a strong desire to sleep that interferes with normal daily activities.
  • Exhaustion: a state of extreme physical or mental fatigue
  • Burnout: a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress

Fatigue

Fatigue is the mildest of the three. Overall you feel good in your day-to-day life but after a particularly challenging day or week, you just have nothing left to give. That’s fatigue, easily cured by resting and recuperating. No life changes necessary—you just need a break and some time to focus on self-care in order to regain balance.

Exhaustion

Exhaustion is a progression from fatigue. If fatigue symptoms aren’t addressed at the onset and are allowed to continue for days or weeks on end they turn into exhaustion. While the symptoms are similar, exhaustion is more serious as it’s likely caused by your lifestyle, not unique external events. Lifestyle habits that cause exhaustion are dangerous because if unmanaged, their persistent nature has the risk of evolving into burnout.

Burnout

And then there is burnout. Feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to keep up with the demands of your day-to-day life. Apathy sets in and you no longer care about things that were once important to you. Burnout changes us chemically. Hormone balance gets disrupted and you struggle to get out of bed in the morning or take care of yourself. Your performance at work starts to slip and you’re mentally checked out.
You start neglecting your personal relationships and indulge in unhealthy habits that bring you temporary comfort. Even simple things like taking a shower or making dinner feel like too much work and the only thing you have the energy for is watching TV. If these feelings sound familiar, then you know you’ve reached burnout.

THE THREE TYPES OF BURNOUT

There are many ways burnout can happen, but the three most common types are; overload,under-challenged, and neglect.

Overload Burnout

Overload burnout is caused by constantly working harder and harder in pursuit of success. Saying yes to tasks you don’t have time for and over-extending yourself, sacrificing “you time” in favor of more commitments. This is the most recognizable form of burnout today.

Under-challenged Burnout

Under-challenged burnout is caused by feeling under-appreciated and bored in your job or personal life. Your work tasks are mundane and repetitive, never exercising any form of brain power or creativity.

Very little is expected of you and so you feel no desire to push yourself. This can also extend to your personal life as well; maybe life feels stagnant, like you haven’t done anything new in far too long and have stopped growing as a person.

Neglect Burnout

And then last of all is neglect burnout, caused by feeling helpless or incompetent. You feel like you can’t do anything right and like no matter what you do, things will just fall apart. You have no support system, either at work or at home, and even your best accomplishments go unnoticed. According to

What Causes Burnout

Kirkland Shave, the creator and director of the award-winning Mountain Trek Health Reset program, says common reasons all three types of burnout can occur are:

  • Lack of control and the inability to influence decisions that affect your job, including workload and lack of resources.
  • Unclear job expectations and personal authority.
  • Dysfunctional workplace dynamics.
  • Lack of social support either through isolation or lack of trust-building interrelationships.
  • Work-life imbalance due to working too many hours.

The causes of burnout aren’t as extreme as you might think. They are simple, small things most of us would just consider “normal” for the workplace. But when left unaddressed these small things continuously add up and eventually compound into burnout.

If you’re still unsure if you’re experiencing burnout, consider thinking about burnout as the illness it is—and for any illness, you first need a diagnosis. Shave says some symptoms to watch out for are:

  • Every day starts to become a bad day (or like a real-life version of the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, in which the days feel like they are just repeating themselves over and over with no end in sight)
  • Caring about work or even home life seems like a waste of energy
  • The workday can start to seem full of tasks that are mind-numbingly dull or overwhelming
  • One feels like they aren’t making a positive difference or that they are unappreciated
  • Fatigue that is chronic, no matter how much rest you get
  • Headaches, muscle pain
  • Insomnia or changes to eating patterns
  • Sadness, anger, or irritability
  • Alcohol or substance abuse
  • Vulnerability to illness or the onset of chronic cortisol-affected inflammatory diseases (such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune disease)
  • Sense of failure, self-doubt, aloneness, loss of motivation, increasingly cynical outlook, decreased satisfaction or sense of accomplishment
  • Withdrawal from responsibilities, isolating from team members, procrastination, taking the frustration out on others, missing workdays

Knowing what symptoms to look for is just half of the battle though; the next step is to have an honest conversation with yourself, a trusted ally, or a professional (such as a therapist or primary care doctor). Take an honest look at your life and decide if the symptoms above sound like they are describing you. Remember there is no shame or judgment in admitting you are experiencing burnout—much like with many other illnesses, the first step towards recovery is acknowledging there is a problem.

Set yourself up for success before tackling a big conversation like this: come with an open/curious mind, find a comforting/non-stress-inducing environment (e.g. someplace that’s the opposite of your office or home, whatever place is bringing you stress and causing your burnout), fuel your brain with a healthy meal, have a good night’s sleep, and consider having this conversation immersed in nature. You want to free your mind of distractions and be completely present and authentic in the conversation for the best results.

How to Recover from Burnout

1) Experience a Hard Reset

If you’ve concluded you are in fact suffering from burnout, the most important first step in recovery is to experience a hard reset. As soon as reasonable, remove yourself far from the causes of your burnout, and insert yourself into an environment that affords the opportunity to slow down, unplug, and begin the healing process.

Attending an expert-guided health retreat, like Mountain Trek, takes the guesswork out of the process and allows you to immerse in a proven methodology. With the help of retreat staff, you can step back from your life and stressors and clearly and confidently “see the forest through the trees”.

2) Uncover The Why

Once you’ve afforded yourself the opportunity to step back, the next step in recovering from burnout is gaining a deeper understanding of the “why” behind the burnout. This is best done in tandem with a professional, as it likely means diving deep into previous trauma, familial relationships, and childhood expectations.

This is especially necessary for overload burnout, where an inner force pushes someone to keep putting more and more on their plate, sacrificing balance to create more work hours. Typically, a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy is what drives this unsustainable ambition, but only deep introspection will uncover the true reason(s) for pushing to the point of burnout.

3) Decide to Proceed or Pivot

The next step in recovering from burnout is to make a decision whether to return to the same life that caused your burnout, with modifications, or change your trajectory all together. This decision to pause, pivot, or proceed with change is massive and needs to be taken seriously. Calming your nervous system before making a life-altering decision is critical. Otherwise, you will be making your decision based on anxiety, stress, or even worse, fear—all inauthentic mind-states.

This decision may not happen instantaneously or overnight. It may be a lengthier process, and that’s OK—this decision likely has a massive impact on your life. It’s worth investing in an environment that will foster a good decision, where connection with the outside world is removed and a staff of professionals is on-hand to guide you through the process.

It’s important to note, this does not necessarily mean quitting your job! While that seems to be the go-to answer these days—quit your job/life, travel the world, find yourself, etc.—working (creating, producing value) with the proper work environment/boss and being appropriately appreciated/recognized can be incredibly fulfilling and rewarding.

However, the issue today is that work and life tend to blend together and as a result, we don’t do either of them well. Learning to separate the two, remove distractions to enhance focus, and subsequently, perform each more efficiently is a key factor in preventing burnout.

4) Establish a Sustainable Work-Life Balance

Regardless of whether you decide to return to life with modifications or make a massive change, establishing a sustainable lifestyle is critical. For most burnout cases, that means establishing a better work-life balance.

Here are 5 ways to create a more sustainable work-life balance:

Separate Work and Life

Commit fully to both work and life, separately, and put energy into preventing them from bleeding together. If you’re working, work deeply and with focus. If you’re at home, give yourself the permission to “clock out”, silence work emails and calls, and be present with your family, friends, and passions.

Invest in a routine at the end of your work day that helps you “pivot” to home life. Consider a work journal that you write in immediately before leaving the office to download all of your work thoughts, concerns, ruminations, and to-dos.

Pick it back up first thing when getting into the office the next day. Then, spend as few as 5 minutes practicing a flow-state activity–something that takes 100% of your concentration, and is not work—to lower stress and increase feel-good hormones. This may be exercise, meditation, continued journaling, or breathwork. Anything that forces you to be present and savor the experience.

Schedule Focused Work Time

Well in advance, and reoccurring, schedule yourself (literally block your own calendar) for uninterrupted, focused work sessions throughout the work week. Then, resource yourself in between these sessions; fuel your brain with nutritious food; oxygenate your blood with some movement and fresh air; and give your analytical left-hemisphere brain a break by practicing state-shifting activities that engage the right hemisphere creative brain. Meditate, do art, stretch, and engage an animal.

Resource yourself at home

Showing up to work exhausted is a surefire way to keep yourself on the hedonistic burnout treadmill. You will not work as efficiently, requiring more hours, which then takes time from your life outside the office, subsequently deepening your resentment for work and likelihood of burnout.

Resource yourself at home for work-life balance by immersing in nature, physical exercise, sanctifying sleep, connecting with loved ones, maintaining a creative outlet, and investing in a spiritual context

Employ a support network

Connect with a therapist or life coach for support in learning about and rewiring patterns of perfectionism, over-achievement, imbalanced competition/comparison, boundary setting and expressing, and control issues

Discover a new Job

If all of the above is failing to help, it’s time to find a new job where the work-life culture aligns with your need for balanced health

As you navigate your burnout recovery and establish a sustainable work-life balance, continue to monitor your progress and check in with yourself— have those honest conversations with yourself or your ally daily, weekly, monthly, or annually…whatever cadence works best for you.

How Long Does It Take To Recover From Burnout?

So how long does it take to recover from burnout? A precise scientifically-founded answer is difficult to provide as there are so many factors at play: how long you’ve been feeling this way, how many areas of your life are affected by your burnout, and how quickly you are able to remove the cause(s) of your burnout, just to name a few. But the average timeline varies from a few months on the short end, and up to five years on the long side.

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for burnout—it’s a long process that required evolving your lifestyle, so allow yourself grace and just focus on the day-to-day progress (much like recovering from any illness…take it one day at a time).

Experiencing burnout might seem common these days, but it doesn’t have to be. Your burnout recovery starts now.


What is Mountain Trek?

Rated one of the best health retreats in the world, Mountain Trek is a week-long, challenging but highly-rewarding, health reset program proven to dramatically transform your body, mind, and spirit. Whether you feel overworked, overweight, or just in need of time to unplug, slow down, and recharge, Mountain Trek is for you. To learn more about Mountain Trek, and how we can help reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Creative Ways to Mother Yourself

This Mother’s Day, we invite you to think of the word mother as a verb (“to mother”), versus a noun. Why? Mothering transcends the female–you’re mothered by anyone (or thing) who offers you acceptance, nourishment, instruction, and empowerment.

By detaching motherhood from any particular person, you’ll begin to notice where you could personally use more mothering. Be curious when you’re feeling unlovable, empty, anxious, helpless, scared, or incapable. Clear answers hint at your need to patch yourself together a new kind of mother that nurtures your unmet needs. To help you understand which areas you may be neglecting, try our Balanced Wellness Questionnaire, a self-assessment tool designed to help you step back and survey, at a high-level, how your health is balanced across your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Mothering Can Come from Nourishing Experiences

After a week in our award-winning program, many of our guests learn nature is the mother and that hiking is the mothering they need at this time; exploring trails enriches their being in a way they’ve never before felt. The trees wake up their mind. The rivers refresh their soul.

Kirkland Shave, Mountain Trek’s Program Director, says, “When we’re on the treadmill of life, we lose track of the wounded child in each of us, and we need to take a break to not only acknowledge our unmet needs, but to reflect on how we can self-care.” He continues, “The need to be mothered doesn’t disappear with age, and the real work is done when we learn how to parent ourselves.”  

Top two ways to mother yourself in adulthood

  1. Play and wonder. Open your senses through new tastes and activities. Experience what it’s like to try something for the first time again. Take a ballroom dancing class, or try that funky-colored fruit you always bypass.
  2. Free your emotions. Deeply connect with yourself by letting go of the notion that adults should always be strong and unaffected. The Stiff Upper Lip syndrome only leads to disconnection, and disconnection only leads to feeling lost and neglected. Laugh, cry, go in for energy-releasing bodywork treatments: do whatever you need to do to tap into your raw feelings.  

As the grandfather of many toddlers, Kirkland feels mothered when he’s playing with his grandchildren. Making forts out of pillows and towers out of blocks, he’s able to nurture his creativity and connect with his desire to live boundlessly.

Other ways to mother yourself this Mother’s Day

  • Create a comforting bedtime routine
  • Take a break from social media (because the unfair comparisons are driving your anxiety)
  • Get fresh air
  • Eat nourishing foods
  • Meditate
  • Say nice, encouraging things to yourself in the mirror
  • Do puzzles, and other mind-challenging activities
  • Keep cozy comforts easily accessible, like a basket of fuzzy socks by the door for when you take your shoes off upon returning home
  • Journal, in a free-flowing stream-of-consciousness style
  • Listen to uplifting music
  • Make yourself a nice drink (like our Lemon Ginger Tea) and sip it slowly
  • Plan a special one-on-one date with yourself
  • Build a cozy fort to relax in, equipped with a book, movie, snacks, you name it   

You mother, we mother, he mothers, she mothers, they mother. The ocean mothers, and the mountains mother. Pets mother, and travel mothers. Look beyond the female who raised you to acknowledge all the different ways you are mothered and can be mothered. Open yourself up to new perspectives and opportunities, and embrace the ability to meet your needs in a myriad of ways. Seek comfort in the potential. You are not alone. You are not stuck.

To realize a new kind of mothering, consider a week or two-week-long stay with Mountain Trek. The Mountain Trek program provides a space for you to not only feel deeply mothered but to seek out the mothering you may be lacking. We provide a safe and healthful environment, teach the important rules and roles of life through our lectures on stress, detox, sleep, nutrition, and fitness, and we meet your emotional needs with our empathy. Our program will uncover a new ability within you to grow, heal, and show up for your life as fully as you can.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is an award-winning health retreat located in the lush forests of British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1991, our health reset program helps 16 guests at a time unplug, recharge, reconnect with nature, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

 

How To Offset The Carbon Footprint Of Your Flights

passenger jet flying overhead through a hole in the trees

Humans have an insatiable curiosity — that’s one of many things that makes our species so special. However, the advent of highly-accessible air travel, where it often takes less than a day and $1,000 to place your body on the literal opposite side of the world, has quickly become the largest—by a vast margin—contribution individuals have on climate change. If you’re interested in offsetting the carbon from your flights, you’ve come to the right place.

It’s been calculated that in order to curtail global warming, each human can emit up to 3 metric tonnes of carbon each year—an annual “allowance” of sorts. That’s 3,000 kilograms or 6,600 pounds—of a gas that’s not much heavier than air…to put that into perspective, and assuming an endless gas tank, you could turn your combustion engine car on right now, walk away, and return 68 days later and just be using up the last drop of your allowance. Seems like a lot, right? Unfortunately, when it comes to air travel, it’s not. One roundtrip ticket from LAX to JFK, sitting in coach class, eats up a whopping 43% of this annual allowance. And if you decided to treat yourself and fly business class, your annual allowance is entirely spent (2.5 coach seats can be put in the same space as one business class seat,  multiplying the impact of flying business).

Even if flying coach, you likely drive to and from work, your kid’s school, grocery store, hardware store, out for dinner, etc., and presumably, like any reasonable human, you like to take hot showers, heat your house in the winter, cool it in the summer, and store food in your refrigerator and freezer. These essential activities consume every last molecule of your annual allowance. Even if you’re already driving an EV, there’s a carbon footprint attached to your electricity, which is still predominantly generated by burning coal and natural gas. So unless you’re living off your own solar panels and wind turbine, you’ll have to wait another 365 days to fly again. How likely is that? It’s not. So what do you do?

Before moving on, let’s address the elephant in the room. Ceasing air travel altogether. Would this help? absolutely. Is it realistic? Not really. Remember how humans have an insatiable curiosity? When any desire is stifled, a slew of mental health issues can arise, like irritability, melancholy, and lethargy. Basically, you are grumpy, which brings up a greater question about living life in the first place. It’s clear air travel isn’t going anywhere, so we’re best off finding ways to do it sustainably, which will allow us to feed our desire to see and experience the world and all of its majesty, without destroying it in the process.

Reduce What Needs to Be Offset in the First Place

Reducing the average annual miles flown per person will significantly move the needle, but this doesn’t mean we need to reduce our vacation days. One great option is to take fewer, longer trips, as the travel to and from the destination is typically 90+% of the entire footprint for a trip. Said differently, taking two (2) week-long trips is almost twice as impactful as taking one (1) two-week trip. So with just one adjustment, we can still take the same amount of vacation, but have half the impact. This type of travel, now being labeled as “slow travel”, is a large-dial change. Yes, you need to plan to be away from work for longer, but having additional motivation to wrap up loose ends and better prepare those around you to step up in your absence is often a good exercise to practice anyway.

What’s wonderful about longer trips is that they afford a much greater opportunity to experience your location deeply, fully savoring the culture, food, and people. Lately, we have been calling this type of travel “mindful travel”, and have been designing more experiences like this for our community. Slowing down, being present, and immersing in the region or experience you’ve made such an effort to get to will satiate your need for travel more deeply than quickly bouncing from place to place mindlessly ticking off checkboxes. This “travel satiety” will quench your inner desires and needs such that upon returning home, you won’t immediately feel the urge to start planning the next adventure. Therefore, even if your next big air-travel-based vacation isn’t slated until next year, it won’t seem so painfully far away.

Taking more local weekend getaways and fewer air-travel trips is another big step in the right direction, and can keep your lust for bigger flight-based travel at bay. For the ultimate low-footprint excursion, consider renting an EV and exploring within the 300-mile radius it affords (again, note that not all electricity is created equally. For instance, Colorado still generates more than half of its electricity from coal, with another quarter coming from natural gas). Or, hop on a train, ideally electric, which has one of the lowest emission footprints per traveler. You will likely be surprised by how much there is to explore right in your own backyard!

Calculate Your Emissions

Once you know your itinerary, it’s actually quite easy to calculate your emissions. Lots of online calculators, like this one from carbonfootprint.com, have sprung up that can help you understand your share of emissions for the flights, car trips, buses, and even trains you take throughout your vacation. Simply input your travel details and it will spit out an estimated amount of metric tons of CO2 for your trip, aka your “footprint”.

Often, time is our most precious, and limited resource, so calculating the carbon of your travel each and every time could be the hurdle that prevents you from doing so. If doing this each and every trip seems overwhelming, do one year-end review where you sum up all of your miles flown, and if possible, miles driven. If you travel a lot, just these two numbers will be 90+% of your individual footprint, which if offset, will make a massive difference.

Offset The Carbon Emissions of Your Flights

Once you’ve decided to travel, especially by air, and have calculated your footprint, consider offsetting your share of the emissions. If you’re reading this article, you’ve likely explored this in the past, and have equally as likely found that there are wildly varying and confusing methods for doing so. A lot of airlines are now offering the ability to add offsets to the purchase of your ticket, but don’t be fooled by the seemingly reasonable dollar amounts (i.e. $27 for that roundtrip LAX -> JFK ticket). In the nascent world of offsetting carbon, airlines are taking one extreme end of the spectrum, often simply purchasing carbon credits, which is fuzzy math at best, or passing funds onto what are called “low durability” solutions such as tree planting. Don’t get us wrong, planting trees is wonderful, and we absolutely need to regenerate our forests to curtail climate change. Unfortunately, however, natural solutions like tree planting are low “durability” because as soon as a planted or protected tree is ignited in a forest fire (which the likelihood of happening is increasing every year with global warming), all of the carbon that tree sucked up, or “sequestered”, (i.e. the emissions from your flight) is immediately released back to the atmosphere… And at the end of a tree’s life, during the decomposition process, most of the carbon stored will be released back into the atmosphere anyway (1/3 of all global carbon emissions come from the “deadwood” in forests!). Again, trees are 100% a part of the solution, they just can’t be 100% the solution.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could pay for “high durability” offsets, such as Direct Air Capture, which literally sucks carbon dioxide directly out of the air and places it deep underground where it once came from, and will stay for thousands of years. However, at today’s rates, you would need to spend at least $1,500 to offset your roundtrip LAX->JFK ticket, which is likely much more than the ticket cost itself. That’s unfeasible to most, meaning it’s not a sustainable solution either.

With as much air travel as our retreat requires to get to, and with our mission to heal both people and planet, we think about striking a sustainable balance quite often. We also think about what might actually get adopted. After months of research, we’ve landed on a formula that we feel is both impactful, approachable, and reasonable for most individuals, giving it a chance of actually doing some good. Note: we fully expect this formula to evolve as new technologies emerge and offset costs decrease (so stay tuned!).

The 747 Formula

We’ve created the “7-4-7” formula (yes, a pun on the Boeing 747), which breaks your carbon offset into three categories, all of which have their pros and cons, but combined, strike a balance that is effective and approachable, increasing the likelihood of adoption. The first two categories are based on the “durability” of the solution as defined by Microsoft’s Corporate Sustainability Group, whose effort to not only fundamentally understand and report on their impact on climate change, but take a strong stance in reversing it, has been a cornucopia of knowledge, while the final category focuses on awareness and education, vital components in solving this little conundrum we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Immediately remove 7% of your emissions with Direct Air Capture

Direct Air Capture can sequester carbon for thousands of years, literally sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and putting it deep in the ground where it originally came from. This “engineered” technology is as close to a permanent solution as possible, making it extremely resilient and earning the label of “high durability”. Pulling air via massive industrial fans through filters to capture and process carbon dioxide and then placing it thousands of feet underground is expensive to operate, but it’s the most effective solution available to immediately reverse the emissions we cause and needs to be a part of any offset strategy. This component kickstarts your offset nicely and immediately removes 7% of your emissions.

Offset Option:

Climeworks—$1.30 per kg of CO2 removed. Founded in 2009 in Switzerland, Climeworks has developed state-of-the-art technology for directly removing carbon from the atmosphere at scale. Climeworks provide a calculator on their website, making the calculation of this contribution straightforward.

Example: Our economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back is responsible for 1300 kg of emissions. 7% of this is 91kg, meaning $120 USD needs to be paid to immediately pull those 91 kgs of carbon out of the atmosphere.

Plant 4 trees for every hour you travel

Tree planting is defined as a “low durability” solution—an initiative that sequesters carbon for less than 100 years and has inherent reversal risks (such as trees burning prematurely). The math of offsetting carbon emissions with tree planting is extremely difficult to nail down. One mature tree will absorb roughly 50 lbs or 22 kg of carbon dioxide each year, but how long that tree lives before it burns or begins to decay and emit sequestered carbon right back into the atmosphere is a complete unknown. It also takes 20-30 years for a tree to mature, so this solution kicks the can down the road quite a bit. Fortunately, planting trees is the cheapest carbon offset option available, so we feel it’s best to just vastly overshoot this component of your contribution, and calculate based on how many mature trees it would take to sequester your emissions in one year, aiming to offset 63% of your travel’s emissions over time.

Offset Options:

One Tree Planted—$1 USD per tree.

The Nature Conservancy—$1.50-$3 USD per tree.

Example: Our economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel and is responsible for 1300 kg of emissions. 63% of this is 819kg, which would take 48 mature trees to sequester over the course of one year, or 4 trees for each of the 12 hours flown. This would cost $48 through One Tree Planted.

Donate $7 for every hour you travel to awareness & education initiatives

The amount of information and misinformation flying around us at all times is dizzying and causes serious climate change confusion. Knowledge is the ultimate power, so it must be a part of the solution. While awareness and education don’t pull carbon out of the air directly, they certainly help reduce how much is emitted in the first place, which is actually the quickest solution to our problem. This element is extremely hard to quantify, but this donation needs to eventually offset 30% of your emissions. We have interpolated between the other two solutions to arrive at our recommended donation amount of $7 per every hour you travel.

Offset Options:

Project Drawdown

Kiss The Ground

Example: Our economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel. We should donate $84 to climate change awareness and education to aid in offsetting future emissions.

Should we pay now or make our children pay later?

In total, our roundtrip LAX-JFK economy ticket costs $252 USD to offset (as of 2023), and $492 USD for a business class ticket, over 10x what the airlines suggest. This may seem like a hefty sum to add on top of the ticket cost, but that’s kind of the point. Flying is costly to the environment, so either we pay now, or our kids and grandchildren pay dearly in the future. It’s our choice. Remember, if you choose to travel above and beyond your allowance, offset your emissions with the 747 formula, immediately pulling 7% of your emissions back out of the air via direct air capture, planting 4 trees for each hour traveled, and donating $7 for each hour you travel to awareness and education non-profits.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is an award-winning health retreat located in the lush forests of British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1991, our health reset program helps 16 guests at a time unplug, recharge, reconnect with nature, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about Mountain Trek, and how we can help reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

BEST KOOTENAY HIKES | MOUNTAIN TREK’S STAFF PICKS

spring-hiking

One of the key features of the Mountain Trek experience is hiking in nature. Our beautiful lodge in Ainsworth, British Columbia, is surrounded by the majestic, snow-capped peaks of the Purcell and Selkirk Mountain ranges. The area is replete with ghost towns, mossy trails, and clear-flowing streams that feed the stunning, 100-kilometer long Kootenay Lake.

So as homage to the abundant nature that surrounds us, we share our favorite Kootenay hikes. These hikes are meant to challenge and motivate you, get your heart rate up, and set your spirit soaring.

MONICA MEADOWS

fall-monica-meadows-hike

There are fewer trails in the world that offer such relatively easy access for such a great pay off. Monica Meadows, located in the Purcell Mountain Range, is one of the most stunning locations in southern British Columbia. With vast meadows, shallow lakes, vibrant larches, gorgeous alpine flowers, and views of the surrounding peaks and ridges. Monica Meadows is a haven of calm beauty encircled by rocky mountains. An 8-kilometer hike from the trailhead, through cool forests, and along boulder-strewn pathways will get you there in no time so we can rest, enjoy the views and even go swimming before our return.

IDAHO PEAK

Looking-out-from-Idaho-Peak

This is a moderate hike that takes you to some of the best views and most abundant wildflowers in southern British Columbia. We begin our hike at the ghost town of Sandon, then wind our way up along old mining trails and logging paths before reaching the viewpoint. Once there you’ll enjoy gazing down at the town of New Denver on Slocan Lake below, as well as breathtaking views of New Denver Glacier, the Valhalla Mountain range, Kokanee Glacier, and Mt. Cooper.

EVANS CREEK

From the trailhead at Slocan City, you’ll hike on the undulating, moss-lined trail along the shoreline of Slocan Lake. On the way, you can expect spectacular rocky vantage points, special pockets of flora, and prime swimming spots. Round trip, the Evans hike is approximately 15 km (18 km if we make it to Evans Lake) and includes a lot of Ponderosa pine, juniper, white cedar, and fir trees befitting the drier climate zone. There are some fun rock ledges to clamber out onto to take in the beautiful views up and down the lake. Knowing that the surrounding Valhalla majestic peaks were named after Norse Gods makes the Evans Creek hike that much more mythic.

GALENA TRAIL

This is one of the most popular hikes in the Slocan Valley. The Galena Trail follows the route of a railway line that dates back to the glory days of Silvery Slocan. It once connected the silver mines of Sandon via sternwheeler service from Nakusp to the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline at Revelstoke. The rail beds were abandoned over 100 years ago and Mother Nature has reclaimed much of the existing corridors. This historic trail follows the old railway line, passed the ruins of abandoned mines and ghost towns like Alamo. Occasionally, we’ll even take the two-person cable car crossing over Carpenter Creek along the way.

KOKANEE GLACIER PARK

Kokanee Lake in Kokanee Glacier Park

Located just west of the Mountain Trek Lodge, the beautiful Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park offers an incredible alpine experience with very little effort. The park is one of the oldest in the province and boasts no less than three glaciers, including Kokanee, Caribou, and Woodbury. These glaciers feed over 30 lakes and are the headwaters of many creeks. On a typical hike, we’ll visit two of those lakes, Gibson and Kaslo, with water so clear you’ll be able to watch rainbow and cutthroat trout swimming by. The trail is about 14 kilometers round trip and guests will enjoy views of the surrounding peaks, glaciers, and sub-alpine flower meadows. Depending on the season, we’ll also see eagles, ptarmigan, pikas, marmots, mountain goats, and feast on wild huckleberries.

PILOT PENINSULA

Pilot Peninsula Provincial Park is the safest harbor on Kootenay Lake and is perfect for swimming and hiking. The trail we typically take skirts the shoreline of Kootenay Lake and offers multiple pebble beaches. In fact, Pilot Peninsula is a great start to our week as it’s very flat, with hardly any elevation gain or loss. We won’t bag any peaks on this trail but it’s still an incredible foray into some stunning BC wilderness that includes tall stands of aspen, colorful wildflowers, calm coves, and around every corner, views of the surrounding peaks.

When it comes to healthy living, our philosophies are rooted in nature as well – from our locally sourced, organic meals that nourish your body to the core content of our inspiring lectures, to the many stunning, butt-toning hikes we go on every day. We hope you can join us on some of the best Kootenay hikes.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

EXTRA SERVICES MENU

In addition to the three 50-minute therapeutic massages already included in your program, we offer additional treatments and sessions to enhance your stay.

Please note: Scheduling is based on specialist availability and therefore cannot be guaranteed. We will do our best to accommodate all extra service requests. Prices do not include tax.

2022 SEASON SERVICES & PRICING

DEEP TISSUE THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE
Support your individual healing needs with a therapeutic massage. Engage your mind and body, while focusing your session on chronic areas of contraction or pain, while releasing muscle knots and fascia, liberating joints and mobility.
$150 CAD

THAI MASSAGE
Traditional Thai Massage performed fully clothed on a floor mat and incorporating a combination of deep tissue acupressure and yoga-like stretching. Encouraging lymphatic function, this therapeutic offering will also detoxify the body, strengthen the immune system, and prevent injury.
$150 CAD

ACUPUNCTURE
An alternative medicine modality in which extremely fine needles are used to help relieve pain and inflammation in the body by stimulating the release of chemicals and the body’s natural healing process.
$165 CAD

NUTRITION CONSULTATION
A 50-minute, private session with our Registered Nutritionist, Jenn. Health questions and concerns are reviewed, physical, emotional, and lifestyle factors discussed, and recommendations are given. Please bring a 7-day food diary.
$150 CAD

PRIVATE YOGA SESSION
Enjoy a personalized session focusing on creating your own take-home routine, or deepening your current practice.
$150 CAD

ORGANIC FACIAL
An anti-aging and mineral-rich nourishing facial treatment.
$185 CAD

PERSONAL COUNSELLING SESSION
Enjoy a private 50-minute session with our Registered Clinical Counsellor, Michelle. Whether you’re working through a life transition, relationship issues, depression, anxiety, stress, trauma, grief, addiction, or issues relating to self-image and self-confidence, these client-centered counseling sessions are an opportunity to slow down, become clear, and find ways to resolve current concerns or issues from the past that interfere with living fully in the present.
$200 CAD

NATUROPATHIC HEALTH CONSULTATION
During a 50-minute consultation, Dr. Kimberley will review your health history to help you identify the underlying cause of your symptoms and health concerns. You will leave with a personalized strategy to maximize your health.
$255 CAD

OPTIONAL NATUROPATHIC HEALTH CONSULTATION ADD-ONS:

The above Naturopathic Health Consultation is required to request any of the following add-ons.

FOOD SENSITIVITY TESTING
Common symptoms of food sensitivities include fatigue, bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, sinus congestion, headaches, eczema, and joint pain. Immune reactivity to 96 foods can be assessed through an advanced laboratory test that is easily collected via a simple finger-prick blood test.
+$550 CAD
Includes a 30-minute follow up phone consultation 

DUTCH COMPLETE HORMONE AND NEUROTRANSMITTER TESTING
This detailed test assesses your sex and stress hormone levels; including estrogen and its metabolites, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline, melatonin, and more! This test is suitable for both men and women, and it’s especially helpful to pinpoint the cause of anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, weight gain, and PMS or menopausal symptoms
+$650 CAD
Includes a 30-minute follow up phone consultation 

CARDIO-METABOLIC & THYROID TESTING
This test provides a comprehensive assessment of thyroid function. It measures thyroid hormones (TSH, T4, T3) as well as screening for autoimmune reactivity. It also screens for insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, which may be making it difficult for you to lose weight.
+ $600 CAD
Includes a 20-minute follow up phone consultation 

COMPREHENSIVE DIGESTIVE STOOL ANALYSIS
This comprehensive test is paramount to help us pinpoint the cause of digestive symptoms, bloating, skin concerns, autoimmune conditions, and more by providing us with a detailed assessment of your gastrointestinal health. Through advanced laboratory assessment, we are able to evaluate your key markers of digestion, absorption, and inflammation, in addition to assessing for bacterial imbalances, yeast overgrowth, and parasites.
+ $675 CAD
Includes a 20-minute follow up phone consultation

COMPREHENSIVE FULL PACKAGE PRICE
Includes all tests and 2.5 total hours of consultation time with Dr. Kimberley (50-minutes in person at Mountain Trek and the remainder via phone or video-based consultations once you return home).
+ $2,475 CAD


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

A Saturday in Nelson, British Columbia

Nelson BC

While you’ve traveled to beautiful British Columbia to experience our award-winning program and otherworldly hiking trails, Nelson, a little bohemian town located just 45 minutes away from the Mountain Trek lodge, is well worth a visit before, or after, your stay with us.

Also known as “The Queen City,” Nelson boasts an impressive collection of restored heritage buildings from its glory days in a regional silver rush. The downtown area is packed with good restaurants, coffee houses, one-of-a-kind shops, and small art galleries.

Should you take the opportunity to explore our lumber-town-turned-thriving-arts-and-mountain-sports-hotbed, here are some suggestions:

  • Walk up one side of Baker Street and down the other, popping into the unique boutiques and eateries
  • Head uphill from Baker Street into neighborhoods showcasing a mixture of classic Craftsman houses to quaint Victorians
  • Keep heading uphill to The Great Northern Rail Trail for wonderful views of the city and BOB, our Big Orange Bridge that crosses the lake

To fuel your adventure, may we suggest:

  • Oso Negro for locally-roasted coffee, enjoyed in their perennial garden
  • Pitchfork, a farmer-owned restaurant that forages its ingredients from the surrounding wild Kootenay mountains
  • Cantina del Centro for seasonal tacos, tortas, soups, market fresh salads and desserts made in-house and from scratch
  • Red Light Ramen, for, you guessed it, ramen, and house-made kombucha
  • Full Circle Café for a hearty brunch, featuring gluten-free and vegan options
  • Kootenay Co-op for their salad bar and snack selection
  • Sprout for flavorful plant-based foods, including burgers and grain bowls
  • Rel-ish for locally-sourced, organic dishes prepared in their open kitchen

To boot, Saturday hosts Nelson’s Farmers’ Market at Cottonwood Falls Park. From 9:30 to 3:00PM, browse the 40+ vendors selling produce, eggs, honey, local natural meats, home-brewed root beer, a great selection of prepared savory and sweet foods, jewelry, artwork,  body wear products, hats, scarves, and so much more. There, treat yourself to some fresh juice while listening to live music–the perfect way to start or end your Mountain Trek trip.

Visit Nelson’s Tourism page for even more ideas and discoveries. The list of things to do and see in Nelson is endless.

What Are the Differences Between a Wellness Retreat and a Wellness Resort?

You might hear the terms “wellness retreat” and “wellness resort” used interchangeably, but don’t let that fool you: these destinations are as different as night and day. It’s important to understand the differences between the two when choosing what to book, or even what search terms to use when doing your research, because arriving at a resort when you were hoping for a retreat, or vice versa, may put the final nail in the coffin of your trip before it begins.

So what are the differences between a wellness retreat and a wellness resort? And how do you know which is the right choice for you? There is no quick answer, so let’s break it down…

By definition, a retreat means “a place of refuge, seclusion, or privacy.” At its core, that’s exactly what a wellness retreat is: a place to escape from the stresses of daily life and the ever present demands of technology and obligations. It gives you an opportunity to connect with yourself and focus on your needs free from any other worries.

Activities and meals are usually included in your reservation package and follow a set schedule, even down to what day and time you arrive or depart. The retreat will often have a particular focus area, like perhaps yoga, strength training, or weight loss, and is usually geared toward a final outcome: helping you achieve whatever goal you had in mind when booking the retreat.

The retreat begins the moment you arrive- many have a “no phones” policy to help you decompress and detach from the outside world (because honestly, most of us need a break from our phones from time to time and need a little external push to make that happen). Activities and meals vary between retreats, but most wellness retreats prepare meals to encourage a healthy lifestyle and detox from caffeine, alcohol, refined sugar, and processed foods. Which as an added benefit, also assists with weight loss.

Activities could include things like hiking, yoga, cardio classes, meditation, sound baths, massages, cooking classes, workshops, and any other activity that could help you recharge and rejuvenate. Healing takes place when you make changes from within, and that is exactly what happens when you attend a wellness retreat- you leave the retreat a different person than the one who arrived. All while under the guidance of trained professionals in a distraction-free environment.

Some of the key benefits of attending a wellness retreat are:

  • The opportunity to do a full mental and physical reset- the retreat takes you out of your regular life and gives you the chance to start fresh
  • Guests see faster results because it is the only thing they have to worry about during their stay- the focus is completely on you and your journey due to the smaller staff to guest ratio
  • Having the help of trained professionals takes the guesswork out of creating a healthier lifestyle and losing weight
  • The seclusion of the retreat makes it easier to be fully present and just focus on attaining your goals
  • Guests sometimes have the support of the retreat staff long after their stay is over to give them the best chance of continuing their health journey

So then what is a wellness resort? While there are some similarities such as the focus on living a healthy lifestyle, detoxing, and rejuvenation, there are a few notable differences. First and foremost, a wellness resort doesn’t seek to separate you from your regular life. Rather the focus is on integrating your regular life with wellness practices. They don’t seek to achieve a full system reset or jumpstart a healthier lifestyle, but instead strive to help you relax and maybe learn some new habits you can take home with you.

They also function more like a typical resort- you experience the trip on your own time, and often meals and activities aren’t included with your stay and must be purchased separately. But with that comes more flexibility; eat when you’re hungry, sleep in however long you want, book spa treatments when you want them, or venture off-site to do some exploring. Or do literally nothing if that’s what you want. You set the schedule, you make the rules. The goal is to soothe the spirit, rejuvenate the body, and enrich the mind…however you see fit.

Some key benefits of a wellness resort are:

  • Flexibility- arrive when you want, stay however long you want, and do whatever you want
  • A more relaxed approach to building new healthy habits- no pressure to exercise if you really don’t want to
  • Staying connected with the “real world”- makes it easy to see how your new healthy habits will work with your regular routines
  • Leave feeling relaxed and rejuvenated with tools to continue your wellness journey back home

The biggest differences between a wellness retreat and a wellness resort are structure, intensity, and level of seclusion from the outside world. How quickly do you want to see results? How much guidance and support do you want or need? To what degree are you looking to detox and reset your life? How unplugged from “normal” life do you want to be? How focused do you want to be on your wellness journey? These are just a few of the questions you should ask when trying to decide which one is right for you.

Retreats provide the opportunity to stop everything you are doing and start fresh. At a resort, regular life continues, but you focus on your health more than you normally would at home. Humans are heavily impacted by their environment, so retreats help guests escape from their usual urban settings and connect with the healing powers of nature. Many resorts also strive to do this as well, but maintain some connection with the outside world.

According to Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT, constant external stimulation and multitasking have been found to increase the production of cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline, which leads to an overstimulated brain and mental fog. When retreats ask you to unplug they remove that temptation, providing an opportunity for increased mindfulness and clarity. Retreats tend to be more goal oriented, regimented, and structured, with a focus on targeting underlying issues to help guests change their behavior.

Resorts function more as a quick fix or band-aid- they make you feel better during your stay, but the results don’t usually last. Support from the staff ends when your stay ends. Retreats are a long term investment for your well being whereas resorts are for the present.

There are a few other terms that could come up in this context and it’s worth taking a quick look at what those mean too. For example:

  • Health retreat: a multi-day destination that focuses on providing guests a complete and balanced guided rejuvenation of body and mind 
  • Health spa: a place you go to exercise and take part in activities that are thought to be good for your health such as massage, exercise, and time in spa amenities like; steam room, sauna, soaking bath/hot tub/jacuzzi, and cold plunge.
  • Health vacation: self-supported travel designed around health-focused intentions
  • Wellness tourism: a division of the tourism industry geared towards marketing natural assets and healthy activities to wellness travelers
  • Wellness travel: travel that specifically provides the opportunity to maintain or create a healthy lifestyle and enhance a sense of well-being
  • Wellness vacation/holiday: self-supported travel designed around wellness-focused intentions 
  • Wellness destination: a geographical area that promotes and fosters wellness within the community and economics
  • Day spa: a place a person visits just for the day to receive spa treatments such as massages and facials

There’s a good deal of overlap between all of the terms and they all fall under the overall umbrella of “wellness”- it really just comes down to personal preference. Knowing yourself, knowing your body, and knowing which style will give you the best results for whatever you seek. These destinations are definitely not one-size-fits-all.

So how do you know if you need a wellness retreat over a resort? There are many different reasons that a person might seek out a wellness retreat, either for their physical or mental wellbeing. Or maybe they just want to go on a healthy vacation and meet like minded individuals. But some common reasons that draw attendees to wellness retreats are:

  • Feeling like your health is out of control, and need external support and motivation to reset and get back on track.
  • Tired and exhausted all the time, and no amount of sleep is helping
  • Overwhelmed with stress and life, feeling like you can’t catch up and are just going through the motions instead of thriving
  • Feeling stuck in a rut, wishing your life was different but are unsure how to break free and get where you want to be
  • Trauma healing- have just gone through something horrific and need to get away from everything for a while to focus on mental and physical healing
  • Finding your life purpose, knowing you are meant for something better but can’t figure out what that is
  • At a crossroads, whether that is retirement, a new job, or a death in the family
  • Getting in touch with yourself, feeling like somewhere along the way you forgot who you are and want to feel like “you” again
  • Dependents are finally out of the house and it feels like time to be selfish again
  • Wanting to create healthier habits/get in shape/lose weight and need a little help
  • Seeking time to reflect, renew, and restore without the distractions of regular life

A wellness resort is the best choice when you are looking for something with less structure and more freedom, in the way most of us think of the term “vacation”. If you get there and decide you just want to sleep in and relax by a pool, that is ok. And it’s also ok if you want to keep busy every second of your stay and pack your days with exercise, hiking, spa treatments, sightseeing, and whatever else strikes your fancy. The wellness aspect is there if you want it, but you can also opt out. This is a good choice if you are very self motivated and normally happy with where you are with your health, but just need a little break. Or are curious about the health and wellness lifestyle. You aren’t looking to make any major changes in your daily habits or lose weight or detox…you just want to escape for a while, but in a healthy way. And maybe learn some new good habits while you’re there.

Wellness retreats and wellness resorts both have their place and attending either will be a rejuvenating experience. When it comes to choosing which way to go, it just comes down to what you are hoping to gain from the experience. Looking to refresh your spirit, unwind, relax, and detox on your own? A wellness resort is a good choice for you. Looking for a more supportive experience to reset your health? Then a wellness retreat is the right call.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below: