Take a Bite to Save a Stream

Last summer, one of our product developers came back from the Outdoor Retailer show with some samples of a type of energy bar I had never seen but is apparently very popular with climbers. I looked at the ingredients—because as the parent of a kid with a peanut allergy I am used to reading every bit of product labels—and although the bars were not safe for my son, I was impressed by the natural, mostly raw, and mostly unprocessed ingredients.

And when I tasted one, I was really hooked. Man, do ProBars taste good, and not only that—the ones they call “Meal” bars are truly that. Two of them in my sling pack, and I can fish all day without worrying about breakfast and lunch. Anything that keeps you on the water longer with no fuss is a plus.

ProBar asked me if there was any chance Orvis could sell the bars, and although I am not a product developer, I play one on TV. So I told them I doubted if it would be something we’d carry. But then we hatched an idea: We were looking for creative ways to raise the awareness of our 1,000-Mile Conservation Project with Trout Unlimited— where we are trying to raise enough money to reconnect 1,000 miles of tributary streams to larger rivers, to open up more pure cold water so that salmon, trout, and steelhead can use them for spawning. Tributaries are invariably better for salmonid spawning, but many of them are blocked by perched or impassable culverts, and it takes money to replace a culvert with either a better design or even a bridge that eliminates the need for a culvert all together.

We came up with a scheme to use these great bars to raise funds and awareness for the project, and both companies pitched in a portion of their sales for every bar sold. The bars still sell for their regular retail of $3.29 each, so the entire buck that goes to conservation for each bar sold comes right out of our profits and your pocket and back to the resource. I am about to leave for my annual solo trout-fishing trip to a secret river, and I figure that most of the energy I get will be from these bars, because I typically fish 12 hours, tie flies at night, and then get up and do it again the next morning. Food is just an annoyance. I may splurge a couple nights on sardines and apples, but 1,000 Mile Bars will get me through most days.

Pick up a few boxes of these and use them for your own trips to secret spots this year, knowing that every time you open the wrapper, you’ve just donated $1 to re-linking tributaries to larger rivers and gave our precious fish some new spawning grounds.

You can find the 1,000 Mile Bars at Orvis retail stores, or click here to buy them online.