Mean and Green

I don't know about you, but I am sick to death of seeing the word "green" inserted into nearly every single sentence of company lingo these days. "How to green your home, green your car, green your pets, green your job, green your life." Is Ford Motor Company really going to teach me how to be more green?? Doubtful. Green has become almost completely meaningless as an eco-adjective anymore when the claims made are so disparate, so unregulated.

So with mild trepidation, I read National Geographic's Adventure cover story on "Best Green Adventures on Earth." Many make the argument that travel in and of itself can never be a truly green endeavor. But thanks to carbon offsets (the confessionals of the 21st century) we can pay a small fee to absolve our guilt and go on our merry traveling way. Or for those of us like you and me, dear reader, our guilt absolves itself naturally since our journeys take place solely in our minds.

Thank goodness because there is a winner of trip featured in this story (actually, there are many.) But my favorite is a rafting trip offered up by veteran adventure travel company Mountain Travel Sobek. Starting in Haines, Alaska, travelers raft their way down the Tatshenshini River through Canada amidst a glorious 2.5-million-acre protected area that the rafters themselves poked back at copper mine developers and successfully preserved.

With exciting whitewater (Class II/III so mean fun not mean terror), glacier hiking and nightly campsites fresh with moose, bear and wolf tracks, this trip promises a graceful glimpse at a relatively untouched part of the world. Add a scenic bush plane flight to Yakutat to round out your trip once the river reaches Dry Bay and your dream adventure is complete.

And I think these rafters might have a lot more to teach me about being green than Ford.