Leaving food scraps on the mountain to compost is a misconception; preparing a proper hiking food list is what truly shows love for the mountains

How can a hiking food plan incorporate the concept of green eating? Veteran hiking guide Lin Yi-hua, after personally working the fields as a farmer, came to appreciate even more the importance of putting sustainable environmental practices and local ingredients into action during hiking activities, and the way one eats in the mountains fully reflects a hiker's attitude of respect toward nature and the mountains in body and mind. Through the attention and pursuit of every small detail in the food plan, hikers can draw closer to the mountains, and closer to themselves.

With her wheat-colored skin and focused big eyes, Lin Yi-hua is the first woman from Taiwan, China to summit the highest peak in South America, and has 14 years of experience as a hiking guide. In recent years, besides continuing to lead groups up mountains, she also teaches a "alpine studies" course at a school, taking children to experience the beauty of the high mountains, and has begun farming by natural methods in Taitung, busily shuttling between mountain forests and fields.

Lin Yi-hua, who can always conjure up nutritious and delicious meals in the mountains yet cares everywhere about saving energy, saving water, and reducing garbage, how does she meticulously design a food plan that balances calories, flavor, and environmental ideals within the limited resources of the high mountains? She generously shares the experience and insights accumulated over many years, and the most important principle among them is: "Everything you carry up the mountain, you must carry back down!"

Let go of material goods and convenience, and learn nature from hunter teachers

Lin Yi-hua, who has roamed mountain forests for more than ten years, believes that the human body inherently holds memories of living in the wild. So she takes students who grew up in the city to learn a "hunter life course" from Indigenous teachers, shedding convenience and looking anew at the connection between humans and nature.

Starting from zero, learning to gather, chop firewood, make a fire, and cook rice, the students' takeaways were indeed very profound: "The hunter teachers can sleep anywhere, the whole of nature is their home, and they can cook rice and stir-fry dishes with just two big washbasins, super cool." "Sweet mountain palm, bitterly fried wolf's fang (yellow rattan), tasty water rattan, and blood rattan that bleeds..." "It wasn't as scary as I imagined, though I still couldn't really leave my comfort zone, like not being able to shower... and stuff..." "Getting up early to enjoy the stream and space out, I felt this kind of feeling was very comfortable, very relaxing..."

The students also practiced clearing a small patch of open ground in the mountain forest to serve as a campsite for a night's stay. Lin Yi-hua says that in the convenient life of the city, people must rely on exercise and leisure to build physical strength, but in a wild environment, one must rely on labor to obtain a convenient living space. Only through physical effort can one gain comfort and safety, allowing people to relearn the connection and meaning between material goods and labor.

Lin Yi-hua admits frankly that modern people hiking today can no longer completely abandon the material goods and technology from down below, and advanced hiking gear, on the contrary, can let people go further into wild mountains and wilderness. But from beginning to end, holding a mood of respect and reverence for nature is the indelible core idea when drawing close to mountain forests.

(This article was sponsored by the Jianzhen Environmental Education Foundation for personnel and administrative expenses, but with absolutely no interference in news topic selection or interview writing, ensuring news independence)