Tag Archives: exercise

Hiking in Ice and Snow in the Grand Canyon

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On Friday December 11, 2009, I phoned the equipment rentals desk in the Grand Canyon’s South Rim General Store (Canyon Village Marketplace), which is located in the Market Plaza, Grand Canyon Village. Arizona’s north country had a huge snowfall last week, and I was wondering about trail conditions.

The employee at the equipment rental desk said the snow extends down 3300 feet below the South Rim, with ice covering the last few hundred feet (of the 3300 total). He said that the snow can be knee deep in spots on the maintained trails and that he would take poles and crampons on hikes. (He went on to say that the the non-maintained Grandview and Tanner trails require snowshoes: the snow is over seven feet deep in some areas.) read more

Hiking and Trail Etiquette

If you join a hiking group you will, of course, meet people from a variety of places and backgrounds. And you will usually meet them early in the morning and then carpool to the trailhead, which is fine when your fellow passengers are courteous enough to refrain from riding along when they have bad colds or bacterial bronchitis. The morning doesn’t seem quite right when the stranger in the backseat shakes your hand, coughs repeatedly, talks about the antibiotics he’s taking and about how his live-in girlfriend died last month after a very prolonged illness that required multiple hospitalizations, how he is looking for a job because he has spent his savings after buying a 2700-square-foot foreclosed home and because his dead girlfriend’s social security checks have stopped coming. read more

Top Brands: Hiking Boots

[August 2010 Update: Last fall I bought a pair of Vasque Mantra hiking shoes on clearance at REI for $20. The Vasque Mantras are now my favorites, and I’ll keep on buying them (but if you have high arches the Vasque Breeze Low hiking shoes will probably fit you better). Last spring I bought a pair of North Face Hedgehog low-top waterproof hikers. I find that after 4 hours of hiking the Hedgehogs hurt my feet, especially where my foot meets my ankle. The Hedgehog tongues and metal eyelets seem poorly designed.] read more

Quit Sit-on-your-bottom Activities

Quit spending money sitting down. Everybody wants your dollars and cents, and they want you to spend it in a chair–at concerts, movies, restaurants, ballets, musicals, coffee shops, meditation groups . . .

Stay on your feet. Go for a walk or a hike. Lift weights while you watch the news. Find a good deal at a gym (the best deals usually appear when a gym first opens for business and offers a contract that stipulates that they can only raise your fees by, lets say, 1 percent every 3 years).

More About Running and Aerobics

You should try to run at 7 miles per hour for 20 minutes–it gets your heart rate up and provides both cardiovascular and respiratory benefits. I run at the gym on treadmills. The treadmills are equipped with shock absorbers and are generally easier on my joints. You can vary the treadmill speed and slant (elevation) in order to minimize the chance of injury due to repeated motion.

If your joints are not up to running, get on the recumbent bike for a half hour or use the elliptical machine. The recumbent bike is the one where your legs are positioned further out in front of you. read more

More About Cancer Prevention

In addition to my Anti-cancer Diet and Vitamin D, I work out at the gym 3 days a week and take walks and/or lift weights at home 3 to 4 days a week. At the gym, I run 2 miles and then lift weights for an additional 60 to 90 minutes.

I also take numerous 6- to 9-hour hikes up mountains and into canyons, sometimes for 7 days in a row. The hiking may help ward off colon cancer, and I am a firm believer that running helps stave off lung cancer.