The Happy Camper: Spring Shopping Deals
“These are a few of my favourite (new) things…”
Clif Bar Organic Trail Mix Bar
I’ve got to hand it to Clif Bar. They’re always stepping it up a notch with their tasty trail snack. The latest is an organic Trail Mix Bar being released in Canada this spring. The company went organic back in 2003; they’ve purchased more than 225 million kilograms of organic ingredients. That adds up to 2.75 million kilograms of pesticides not being added to the soil, water and air. The new bars are gluten-free and approximately 200 calories; with zero grams of trans fat—and no partially-hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, artificial or synthetic preservatives. The Trail Mix Bar comes in five flavours: Coconut Almond Peanut, Dark Chocolate Sea Salt, Dark Chocolate Cherry Almond, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Raspberry. Check out their video titled Farmers Speak: Giving Voice to Organic Almonds. The owner of the farm has an amazing quote.
“We made a switch to organics because you cannot improve the health of this world if you’re going to continue to put poisons and toxins on it to produce your food.”
I’m a big fan of the Helinox camp chair. It’s one solid, lightweight and reliable unit. So, when I first saw that Therm-a-Rest had a new camp chair—the Treo Chair—I passed it by. After all, it’s around the same price (just under $100) and my Helix was holding up fine. Problem was, my tripping buddies thought different. They all bought the new Treo. Their reasoning is that this is one tough, comfortable chair. The big difference, however, is that it’s sturdy on a soft surface, like a beach or a patch of pine duff. That’s what sold me. There are even rubber pads at the bottom of each leg that give you extra grip on wet rocks; just make sure you don’t lose them (they can pop out). The Treo also packs up a tad smaller (but not lighter) than the Helinox. With that said, it’s still probably best to pack it along on a canoe or kayak trip but leave it behind while backpacking.
Adventure Medical Kit First-Aid (Costco)
Adventure Medical Kit always has a great deal at Costco each spring. This year’s deal is even better than last year. The cost of their first-aid kit is only $30. It also includes Afterbite, Afterburn and an emergency survival kit. The kit itself is too big to take into the interior. But I bought one and used it as a giant grab bag when resupplying my camp kit. The value of the Costco kit has to be well over $100 if you went and bought everything separately.
