Hiking in Crete, Greece – Mt Gingilos

Mt. Gingilos is a fantastic option for hiking in Crete, especially in winter when the Samaria Gorge is closed. The trail actually starts at the same place as the Samaria Gorge hike, which is convenient because it’s a well-paved (by Crete standards anyway) road and it’s easy to follow the signs to the right spot. First you follow the signs for Omalos, which is the plateau you cross prior to reaching the mountain. Then you follow the signs to Xyloskalo, which is the cafe at the trailhead. There’s a convenience store and the cafe has an amazing view at the trailhead as well.

You can see the entire face of the mountain looming in front of you as you drive up to the parking lot, and it’s somewhat intimidating to realize you’re about to climb all the way to the top.

The trail starts by climbing the hill up to the cafe, which also has restrooms. Note that during the winter, both the cafe and convenience store are closed. Then the trail continues switchbacking up the hillside, gaining elevation relatively quickly. 

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Climbing the switchbacks up from Xyloskalo cafe to Mt. Gingilos

From there, the path continues somewhat level across the mountain until reaching the bottom of the saddle. There is a fresh spring with cold, clean water that is safe to drink (at least no one from our party got sick). I would recommend getting water from the hose instead of the water in the troughs, however. 

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Spring with cold water. Ignore my colleague doing pushups on the rock.

At this point the trail continues to switchback up to the top of the saddle. This is a large boulder field, making footing somewhat more difficult. Once you reach the top of the saddle, you can see the Mediterranean Sea on both the North and South sides of Crete. 

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Looking down at the scree/boulder field that you climb up to the saddle.

From the top of the saddle, you continue to the right towards the summit. This section gets a little more tricky and requires scrambling on rocks in sections. There are yellow spray painted signs that supposedly guide you towards the safest route across the rocks. There are several false summits on the way up, so don't get discouraged! You eventually reach a flat section with a large cairn. This is not the true summit, but still has amazing views if you don't want to continue the rock scramble. The true summit is about 20 minutes further, and here it really pays to follow the yellow painted rocks.

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Southern-facing view from the summit.

The views from the summit are 360 degrees and absolutely gorgeous. It's a nice place to relax after a long uphill climb. Crete is unfortunately full of rocks, so the downhill can be rough on feet and knees. Afterwards we stopped at a restaurant in an orange grove and had some of the best orange juice I've ever tasted. All in all, I highly recommend this hike to anyone visiting beautiful Crete, Greece!

The True Cost of Cheap Clothes

It’s pretty rare that I watch a documentary that causes as sharp of a paradigm shift as this one did. It’s similar to those documentaries showing gruesome scenes of animal slaughter to convince people to go vegetarian/vegan, but with clothes instead of cows.

The True Cost is about the environmental and societal impacts of the clothes production process today. We’ve all heard about this on the news or the radio – the sweatshops working children for 12 hours a day, factories that collapse and kill hundreds of people. But it all seems so distant and far away that it’s easy to just brush it off and continue life as normal.

As a teenager, the rise of fast fashion stores like Forever 21 and H&M was a godsend. Don’t be mistaken, I’ve never been a fashionista and I kind of (really) hate clothes shopping. However, the ability to purchase an outfit that you could feel and look good in for $20 total was amazing. Back then, I didn’t even think twice about why it was so cheap.

John Oliver has a good bit about the problems with fast fashion, and he actually goes into a few of the reasons these problems remain persistent. First, he notes how easily the general public forgets about these injustices; the news about poor factory conditions has been repeated for the past several years and we haven’t really done much about it.

In 2012, a fire in a clothing factory in Bangladesh killed over a hundred people. Five months later, another building collapsed and killed over 1,000 people. This was five years ago, and while awareness is spreading, I would argue that most people in the US haven’t changed their shopping habits.

There a several reasons it’s actually really difficult to make consumer-driven changes.

Lack of Transparency

I did some more research on this topic and it turns out that it’s really, really difficult to tell where the clothes you buy at most stores are made. In fact, the companies themselves sometimes can’t even tell. They will contract with a certain factory in another country, and that factory will contract work out to other, cheaper factories, and it can be almost impossible to prevent this from happening. If you’ve been to a developing country, then you understand that their laws are often not followed, if they even exist.

It’s not socially acceptable to wear frumpy clothes

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think the high value our society places on wearing fashionable clothes is a major culprit in promoting clothing waste. I may be biased because I’ve never been interested in fashion and it’s honestly always seemed rather frivolous and petty to me.

The very existence of shows like “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “What Not to Wear” demonstrates how much wearing the right clothes can affect others’ perception and opinion of you. Look into any thrift store and you will see mountains of perfectly functional clothing that unfortunately has mostly fallen out of style, and therefore become unwearable by American standards. If you want to look professional, well put together, and feel confident in what you’re wearing, it’s going to take a lot of searching through clothes racks to get that outfit from a thrift store.

So, what can we actually do about it?

The conclusion drawn in the documentary is, of course, to just buy incredibly expensive albeit ethically made clothing. Personally, I think a better answer is a massive shift in our culture such that used/older clothing is considered socially acceptable. Neither one of those things is likely to actually happen.

Really, the best we can do is buy used as much as possible and to actually wear our clothes as long as possible. Price of clothing is not necessarily indicative of the quality, which doesn’t make it easier. Sometimes a Target or Old Navy purchase will outlive a Lululemon purchase. Either way, the longer you can make your clothing last the better.

For myself, I’ve started to buy more clothes at outdoor companies such as Patagonia, North Face, and Columbia. I’m super lazy when it comes to washing and taking care of my clothes and comfort is key. Clothes made for outdoor activities like hiking are incredibly comfortable and durable. I know people like to snark at the athleisure trend, but I’m all about embracing it full-on. I just don’t see the point of dressing fancy in uncomfortable clothes.

Does anyone else feel like the pressure to be fashionable is causing undue stress on the environment and ourselves or is it just me?

This picture is from 2011 and I still wear that shirt!

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Snowshoeing Lake Wenatchee

The winter season, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, can be a discouraging time for some outdoor adventurers. The key to really embracing winter is to find a love of winter outdoor pursuits: downhill skiing, backcountry skiing, snowshoeing, sledding, etc. Once you get addicted to one or two of these, winter becomes something to look forward to instead of dread.

I do love skiing but it can be pricy. Lift tickets can be $50 to $100 per person, and that doesn’t include renting gear. If you buy your own gear and get a season pass you can get the per day cost down a bit, but that requires devoting almost all your weekends in the winter to ski days. If you’re a diehard ski enthusiast it might be worth it, but for the rest of us a day of skiing for a couple is going to cost around $200. Snowshoeing is a much cheaper way to enjoy the snowy forests and mountains, albeit at a slower pace. We rented snowshoes for the weekend for $56 total, plus the price of parking at the sno-park was $30. We haven’t bought snowshoes because we’re not sure if we’ll still be in the PNW next winter and I hate to drop a ton of money on something that will just sit in the garage. The $30 for parking was also for a day pass – you can buy a yearly sno-park pass for $40 and a yearly state park pass for $30. Just another example where planning ahead can save you quite a bit!

Our original plan was to snowshoe skyline lake; however, by the time we got there (after 11:00 AM), all the parking lots for Stevens pass were full. Plan B was to check out Lake Wenatchee, which was a few more miles down highway 2. There had been a LOT of fresh powder the past day or so, and even with snowshoes on we sank knee-deep in the fresh snow. We had to follow the tracks of previous snowshoers to avoid this. They have a two mile snowshoe loop that we tried to follow, however we must have made a wrong turn at some point because we ended up going closer to 4 miles.

This area also has groomed trails for cross-country skiers, which is something I would love to try some day. If we knew we were going to be living in this area more permanently, I would absolutely buy snowshoes and make an effort to get out more often. It’s a fantastic way to enjoy the outdoors. The other factor making it more difficult is the time spent driving; it’s at least a 2 hour drive for us to get to appreciable snow. Close enough for a weekend escape, but not close enough for a regular outing. I would highly recommend the Lake Wenatchee area for snowshoeing. The bathrooms were very clean and spacious and the view of the lake (right by the parking area) is fantastic.

I would advise anyone traveling from the Seattle area to check the WSDOT’s website for road conditions. On the day we went, chains were required on all except AWD vehicles. What are your favorite winter activities?