“Magic mushrooms. Cannabis. Tequila. Lake O’Hara. All will get you high” it said in the hiking guidebook. And Lake O’Hara definitely lived up. In mid-August, The CIM Team camped out at Lake O’Hara for four days, exploring the trails, lakes and peaks of region and the impact that said trails, lakes and peaks had on our blood glucose levels.
Regular visitors to the area commented that they had never in 25 years of hiking there, experienced a stretch of weather as perfect as the one we had been fortunate to experience – four days of sunshine! We took full advantage of our time- scrambling up steep slopes, plunging into glacier fed lakes, sliding down snow patches and indulging on world famous carrot cake baked fresh daily at the lodge.
Within hours of our arrival, we were part of a community – O’Hara Campgrounders, where our team quickly became a key source of entertainment for other campers. Our neighbours were impressed by our cooking skills, pizzas with yeast dough from scratch and scrambled gluten-free brownies among other creations!
We settled into a routine, rolling out of our tents as vapor rose off the lakes and the mountains shed their misty cloaks. Still snuggled in toques, down and fleece, we would choose our route for the day. Oatmeal and coffee bubbled and boiled and the fire snapped and cracked. After packing lunches, snacks and making diabetes plans, which almost always entailed setting reduced basal rates of some form or another, we would shed our fleecy layers and head out on the trails. An hour of upward climbing would more often than not result in spectacular views, vistas and often, blood sugars. We spent the rest of our days high in the mountains, swimming in impossibly blue lakes, frolicking in the snow (sometimes both within the span of a few hours), exploring alpine meadows and of course, managing our diabetes in a wide array of situations, conditions, elevations and locations.
Back at the campground, curious campers peered from behind camp stoves and pots of rehydrating camp meals as we changed infusion sites, started sensors, filled reservoirs with insulin, gave injections, and covered picnic tables with glucometers. We enticed questions and even overheard the odd comment between other campers ‘Oh, those are the diabetic people’, explaining our out-of-the-ordinary actions to campground new comers.
At times, being the only one observed and ogled at as you go about your diabetes duties can be completely overwhelming, not to mention annoying and alienating. But we weren’t about to hide in our tents. Our courage to let our pump cords and insulin pens hang out was strengthened by our numbers. As a group, our public diabetes management gave us a chance to learn openly from one another as well as to inform and educate the people around us about Type 1 diabetes. In fact, by the end, we were getting quite a kick out of it! One of our many duties as people with diabetes (as I see it) – educating the people around us about the disease’s intricacies – was fulfilled. Everyone benefited.
As for the Rocky Mountain High’s….we certainly had our share. We were giddy from the intense beauty of the mountains that surrounded us, and often ‘high’ from oatmeal, rice and marshmallow BG spikes! But just like the barometric pressure, we can all expect highs, lows and fluctuations, especially when we are out in the mountains pushing our limits and trying new activities. It’s how you manage, predict, adapt, treat and learn from those highs (and lows!) that matters most. O’Hara, in all it’s glorious impossible beauty, afforded us an incredible backdrop for learning about managing highs and lows and a team.
Thanks to Bayer Diabetes, Medtronic Diabetes and Dex 4 for their support in making our summer trips possible.
