When CLIF Bar sent me a few samples of their new CLIF CRUNCH granola bars, I thought, “Ho-hum… another crunchy granola bar that’s going to break my teeth and taste like cardboard.” After one taste, I couldn’t be farther from the truth. These things are downright tasty — especially the White Chocolate Macadamia flavor!
As I sit here and crack open a Honey Oat bar and munch away, I’m dying to share these bars with you, my loyal readers! So, I’ve worked out a bit of a contest with three lucky winners getting 24 CLIF bars each! If you ration them, they can last a month, right? Here’s the skinny on the contest (and yes, it’s so easy a caveman can do it):
- Become a fan of FeedTheHabit on Facebook (I’ll be checking!)
- Post a comment below on your most glorious moment in the outdoors. Maybe a peak you finally bagged, a 50-miler you crushed or a line you finally cleaned. Keep in mind that it can be simple and witty too… extra points for humor.
- That’s it!
The writers of the three best moments (as judged by an astute panel of judges, including my 4-yr-old daughter) will win a month’s supply of the new CLIF CRUNCH granola bars. The contest ends at Noon MDT on Monday, July 26 with winners chosen and notified on Tuesday, July 27. Fantastic!
Spread the word on Facebook and Tweet it up, amigos. Now it’s your turn.
A Seattle native, Jason developed a love for the outdoors and a thing for mountains. That infatuation continues as he founded
My most glorious moment in the outdoors was last year while on Safari in South Africa. I wanna go back !!!!!!
A big challenge to outdoorsy Oregonians is the hike to the top of South Sister (Oregon’s third-tallest mountain). There’s a trail all the way to the top, but it is a steep, strenuous and long hike from the Devils Lake Trailhead. Finally I felt like I was in good enough shape, and hiked up with a group of friends.
I had ONE glorious moment standing at the summit of before vertigo set in and I had to go hide in a wind shelter for a while. Then we hiked back down.
In April, 2008 I was riding with an elite cycling training camp for 5 days in Asheville, NC. It was just the beginning of my 2nd competitive year, and I’d never done any climbing like this. Due to the weather forecast, our coach moved up the Mt. Mitchell ride to our first day, since that looked to be the warmest we’d get.
The climb itself is over 5,000 feet and 26 miles long. It’s been immortalized in the annual “Assault on Mt. Mitchell” race, which George Hincapie has won numerous times. And for us, it began at mile 62 on the day. Total we’d over 10,000 feet and 120 miles by time we came back down.
I’m a bigger guy (180ish) so when the real fireworks in my group started on Highway 80, a steep, switchbacking, torturous grade up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, I was dropped pretty quickly. However, I knew that if I stayed at my constant threshold effort, I’d recover the lost ground over the remaining miles.
And it played out exactly in that manner. Teammate by teammate, I caught and dropped. Once to the Blue Ridge, where we’d spend 16 miles to the Mt. Mitchell State Park turnoff, I caught my coach who was massaging the cramps out of feet on the side of the road. I knew there were four more teammates up ahead, all higher categories, that I thought I’d not see again.
My feet were in agony, a single song by Air played over and over in my head, and the tenths of a mile clicked off on my computer as though time had stopped. I put in a hard dig once when I looked back to see coach gaining on me. I held him off.
The sag van was running back and forth between us, and he told me we were all over the mountain. Just another mile and a half he said, want anything? I wasn’t getting off my bike for anything, and refused. Even thought the temperature was low-50s at best, I was boiling from the now nearly 90 minutes of 90%+ effort.
I turned at the park, and saw that the driver had lied to me – the sign said 3.9 miles to the summit parking lot. That was another half-hour on the bike. I screamed.
It was actually 20 minutes or so, because after a steep section, it levels off and you cruise into the parking lot. There I was greeted by Ed, who we all knew would crush everybody today. He rolled up, looked me, mouth agape, and only said, “no f***ing way!”
“Where’s the other three?” I asked, wheezing and trying free my tortured feet.
“You’re it!” he yelled. The other three had missed the turn to the Blue Ridge on 80 after Ed dropped them, and went five or six miles down the other side of the ridge in the wrong direction.
It took two hours before we were finally all regrouped at the top of Mt. Mitchell – much of it spent huddling in the closed concessions stand, were I cursed my decision not to take any water or Clif from the van – but everybody climbed that Mountain.
We rolled back down the 27 mile run up in less than 45 minutes. That night we ate like kings and slept like the dead.
Humm, not so glorious, but definitely the most memorable and freeing moment I’ve had in the outdoors. I’d never really been on a true hike, where it took half the day to get to the top of the “hill” and then the rest of the day to get back down, with no restrooms along the trail. But hiking a remote mountainous farm area in Ireland was quite the experience for a city girl, having to potty in the wide open landscape with sheep staring at you the whole time, then getting drenched to the bone in a surprise downpour that no GoreTex jacket and boots could possibly handle. I was exhausted and every muscle and bone in my body hurt but I had never felt such pleasure and peace in my whole life! Oh so good for the body and soul.
These are great! Thanks for submitting already! Keep ‘em coming!
My most glorious moment outdoors came 2 summers ago on a week long solo backpacking trip around Isle Royale. The solitude, long days of hiking and reading at night while the sun set across Lake Superior was all I needed then and all I want now. I can’t wait to go back!
For me it has got to be discovering fat skis for the first time this winter. All I could think or dream about this winter was skiing powder. I drove my wife crazy talking about it, but not much is better than floating / flying on top of soft beautiful snow! How many days until winter?
I’ve had lots of great outdoor moments – crossing the finish line of my first marathon and finishing my first triathlon rank among the top – but I think my greatest outdoor moment was when I went “coon hunting” in North Louisiana when I was 21 years old.
I was a newlywed and wanted to impress my husband with my outdoor prowess, so when two of his students (he is a minister to college students) who were champion coon hunters asked us to go on a hunt with them, I immediately said yes.
I thought it would be a fun adventure…but what I didn’t realize was that coon hunting involved trekking into a north Louisiana forest and dealing with raccoons. So around 10:00pm one night we headed into the tree line and let the dogs loose. We waited and waited, and finally heard the unmistakable braying of a dog that had just treed a coon. We headed in the direction of the dogs, pausing briefly as we came to a creek that could only be crossed via a rotting log. As I hopped on the log and prepared to make my way across, one of the coon hunters said “Careful up there, I was fishing out here the other day and this place is swarming with water moccasins.” With this terrifying knowledge swimming in my head, I picked up the pace on the log. However, my high-stepping backfired on me and next thing I know I was in the creek. My husband said later that it looked like I hit a spring board – not water. I was back on that log in about 5 seconds flat. I made it to the other side and got my wits about me.
The rest of the night was fairly uneventful, other than when I learned that coon dogs are VERY proud of their bounty and think they are doing you a favor when they drop a half-dead rabid coon at your feet. Surviving this hunt was my most glorious moment in the outdoors!
I love Clif Crunch bars and it would be awesome to win a month’s supply. Thanks for this great contest!
It would have to be Fremonts Peak, In Monterey county. California. It was about 4 thousand feet of climbing. It was so hot I thought my bike tires were going to “adhere” to the blacktop. Halfway up, the temps soared to about 105 degrees. Then to add insult to injury a Vulture was picking at some poor critter it had maimed in the middle of the road. It was brutal. The moment came when I reached the cloud bank–the low coastal clouds often butted up against the mountain. it was like riding thru cool, misty cotton. the sun played with my eyes thru the clouds, rainbow prisms abound. It was epic. then above the clouds, the peak! I had made it! Still to this day, that dad-gone vulture still irks me though!
@Meredith: You had me rolling at “coon hunting”… LOL
@John Grodegut: Fatties man… fatties.
Everyone! WOW… these are awesome stories! Isle Royale, Mt Mitchell (nice name), Ireland, South Sister (always wanted to do that one), Fremonts Peak… AWESOME!
It’d have to be when I went snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef!
A while back I was hopelessly searching for someone to hit the trails with on my mountain bike when my mother offered to come and give it a shot. She’s not exactly a spring chicken, but without any other options, I packed up our bikes and we set off. We headed for one of my favorite trails in Kananaskis, Alberta called “Powderface”. It’s a relatively short single track ride but it is made up of a quite steep climb for the first half and a fast, tight downhill run for the second half of the ride which is right next to the edge of a 200 foot drop-off.
The ride was beautiful until about 20 minutes in when my mom started complaining that her hips and butt hurt. I wanted to tell her to suck it up but figured I should show a bit of compassion since she was born with no hip sockets and now has arthritis where they have formed. We rode (okay, mostly walked) our bikes up for the few miles nearly to the halfway point when my mom announced that she couldn’t go any further and that we’d have to turn around. We were nearly past the hardest part and I wanted to keep going, but we turned around and started riding back down. About a mile back down we ran into an equestrian group that was stopped about 30 feet from a grizzly bear. They told us that we needed to turn back around and ride the way we came.
Somehow our retreat back up the trail turned into me pushing both mine and my mother’s bikes up the hill while she ran ahead and drank all of my water – all the while I was expected to ring the bike’s bell (because somehow she was convinced that this would scare off a 1000lb grizzly bear!). By the time I got about 1/2 a mile from the end of the trail, I heard a loud scream coming from up ahead (my mother had abandoned me behind with the bikes). I dropped the bike and ran to find my mom dangling off the edge of a cliff crying.
I scooped her up to find that despite a few scrapes, she was fine. I wasn’t though – she had slurped up all of my water, leaving me to dehydrate as we made our way to the end.
While this trip may not sound glorious to most people, it sure made me appreciate how wonderful it is to get a nice cold drink of water… and leave mom at home.
This one time, in band camp… Just kidding! I have been getting out on my mountain bike more lately and really enjoying it. Have also been doing some hiking around Colorado that I have never done before. I guess I take this beautiful state for granted, because my memorable moment was in Oahu at Hanauma Bay.
My brother and I were snorkeling in the bay, chasing fish as we swam, having a GREAT time! The clear water, and colorful fish was a pretty amazing sight… Not to mention just being able to swim freely around this large bay and chase all the cool looking fish!
After a while, we stopped for a breath of air and a short rest. We looked around, and thought hmmmmmm we should probably get back to the beach. We were decent swimmers, and with fins, and all the fish chasing we did, we had ended up outside the bay! It looked like a long way back to shore, but we made it back to shore without trouble. That was a great day, sure could have used some of th9ose Cliff Bars after our long swim though
THE CONTEST IS NOW OFFICIALLY OVER!
Thanks to everyone who participated in the Clif CRUNCH contest! I’ll be hunkering down and making a decision tomorrow. Stay tuned!
And the winners are:
Stewart: Don’t bike with Mommy
Meredith: Coon hunting in water moccasin country
Brian Morrissey: Mt Mitchell death march
Thanks a ton for everyone’s submissions! Enjoy your bars. Email notification coming soon to each of the winners.
Sweet!!