Over bags of Tim’s Cascade Style jalapeño kettle chips and Mountain Dews-chased with a few PBRs-we recount the rigors and wonders of the trip, reveling in type 2 windbaggery and cementing the memories that will sustain us until the next adventure. The shit still tasted good.)īut back to our feast. Meanwhile, this is true: PepsiCo used to put a substance called brominated vegetable oil in Mountain Dew. (None of this is true, but here’s the thing: In our current society, it could be true. For all I know, the unearthly luminescence only activates in the depths where Nancy Pelosi is keeping the megalodons. I tested this by taking a plastic bottle of Mountain Dew on a recent SCUBA trip, and can confirm that it’s almost as legit as the one about Hugo Chavez stealing your vote. Speaking of fat, a quick digression: There’s a conspiracy theory floating around the dark web that Mountain Dew glows underwater, thanks to an alien bioluminescence that PepsiCo is creating in cahoots with NASA. (Photo: Courtesy PepsiCo Art by Jonathan Ver Steegh) We wolf down beer, chips, and soda, a nostalgically consistent trio of indulgences rich in the nutrients deprived to us by an ultralight diet, namely: salt, sugar, and fat. The main event varies depending on locale-burgers, pizza, sometimes BBQ-but our appetizers are always the same. The last time I climbed Rainier, my friends and I devoured the obligatory huckleberry pie at Copper Creek Inn before beelining to Eatonville’s old-school Plaza Market for the first course of our traditional post-hike feast. No, over-the-top flavors and focus-grouped products are not for me. Almost makes me want to drive to the Grand Canyon right now. I can picture him, celebrating a punishing R2R2R by guzzling a Fruit Quake with his tofu scramble. Maybe, after days of rehydrated hummus, oat bars, and instant bloatmeal, his stomach is screaming for kale chips. Roy fantasizes about portobello burgers at the end of a 50-miler. I mean, what backpacker has ever come down from the summit of Mount Rainier thinking, “I could really chug a DEWgarita right now”? Perhaps young Mr. But with Mountain Dew, my head is buried deeply and passionately in the sand, like Clarence Thomas’s is on, well, just about any issue involving civic progress. For instance, I believe laws should change, gradually and thoughtfully, to keep pace with human evolution. These wackjob flavors don’t bother me as concepts-for an entirely different brand. VooDEW? Is no one else appalled by the glaring cultural appropriation? Baja Gold? Cheech called and he wants his weed back. Major Melon? Sounds like a character in Transformers: Part 16. Purple Thunder? That’s not a proper beverage it’s what happens when I eat too many grapes. My young friend has always possessed an admirable iconoclastic streak, but in this case he’s gone too far. Roy’s choice of brands, I cannot abide his apostasy in promoting alternatives to the original citrus flavor. In standing up for a beverage with fewer calories than a caramel frappuccino-ponder that during your next macrobiotic liver cleanse, you sanctimonious, hemp-smoking snowflakes!-he is not afraid to endorse a guilty pleasure that many parched, palate-deprived backpackers have happily quaffed after a long, hot walk in the wilderness.Īnd yet … as much as I stand in solidarity with Mr. Despite his otherwise ultra-woke diet and politics, Adam’s public embrace of Mountain Dew will forever taint him-in smart circles from Boulder to Boston-as a backward, junk food-loving deplorable.Īs a fellow Midwesterner whose small-town dentist never pulled his sweet tooth, I applaud Adam’s courage. Search the Twittersphere and you’ll quickly see why my friend will soon suffer the vicious slings and arrows usually reserved for political pariahs. By publicly announcing he’s a Mountain Dew fan, Adam is exposing himself to ridicule by corn syrup-loathing coastal elites for whom this drink is the archetypal symbol of Middle America’s arrested development. Of course, being righteous and different can get you in trouble. His empathy for underdogs extends to his work as an editor, where he has created space for historically marginalized voices in the pages of Backpacker, and to his free time, much of which he devotes to volunteer work. Adam is a caring parent, a world traveler, and a charismatic champion of spiders, snakes, and other unfairly despised creatures. Let me begin by commending my opponent for joining this important debate.
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