Photo of the Week 10.30.11

Cholla Cactus Garden at Joshua Tree National Park.

Be intentional, not conventional.

Mark and Tara

The Air of Angels

Last week we continued working with local college students at both Lake Tahoe Community College and Sierra Nevada College. With programs dedicated to experiential outdoor learning it was a perfect setting to get a pulse of the student vibe regarding responsible recreation.

Over the weekend e-tour broke their bikes out of storage and hit the trail for some mountain bliss. With cooler temperatures, leaves changing, and recent precipitation keeping the dust at bay, better conditions could not have been found. Although sections of the Tahoe Rim Trail and Flume Trail are multi-use we found users' eager to 'Be Considerate of Other Visitors'. A good thing too, as hikers and bikers here can attest, the Flume Trail is quite narrow with a precipitous drop off toward the lake below.

See you in SoCal!

Mark and Tara

Explore Your Parks: California

This past Friday the e-tour wrapped up the Explore Your Parks 2011 series made possible by The North Face, Good Solutions Group and Angel Island State Park. A perfect setting to teach local school children, Angel Island easily illustrated the importance of learning to 'Trash Your Trash'. With the waves lapping nearby it became very apparent where any loose litter would end up. The groups were also treated to a ranger led interpretive tour of the immigration station, a defining piece of American history. Warm sun and calm seas made for a fair weather ferry ride where onlookers soaked in visits from harbor seals, porpoises, cormorants, pelicans, and terns. Certainly a field trip to remember!

Be intentional, not conventional.

Tara and Mark

Photo of the Week 10.24.11

Back home in Lake Tahoe, Mark cannot resist a quick mid-Fall dip.

Tara and Mark

Boys and Girls Club of Lake Tahoe

Yesterday afternoon the e-tour visited the Boys and Girls Club in South Lake Tahoe, CA. Although we've been living out of Big Blue, our e-tour Subaru, Tahoe is where we feel at home. Educating youth in our own community is a supremely rewarding experience. We focused on two issues here by the Lake; the importance of meadow habitats, and the impacts associated with user created side trails, and worked them into several spirited games of 'Step On It'.

Be intentional, not conventional.

Tara and Mark

We're Not in Kansas Anymore...

...but last week the e-tour stopped in to visit their title partner The Coleman Company in Wichita. Getting to show the folks at Coleman a snapshot of what they make possible for us on the road was a real treat. We joined employees for a barbeque and had candid conversation about life as the e-tour team. Strolling the humming factory floor we could not help but imagine the millions of camping memories being crafted there before us. It reaffirmed the importance of the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics. We hope that the faithful owners of this camping gear will enjoy the outdoors responsibly. Thank You Coleman.

Mark and Tara
e-tour team

Of Raptors and Rapture - Barn Again

Dateline: Lyons, CO

The Colorado Tour

The harbingers of winter (read: Snow and Ice!) are making us keenly aware that our Colorado sojourn as Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers is drawing to a close, and that it's time to head for the barn once more. We reflected on this year's Colorado Tour as we hiked local landmark, Rabbit Mountain, a critical raptor nesting ground and cultural crossroads near Lyons, Colorado. We can't help but feel fortunate for the opportunity to experience the rich diversity of people and places we've encountered along the way. For the past six weeks, we've lived a nomadic life, sleeping in our tent by night and delivering Leave No Trace workshops and outreach by day. Throughout our 36 events and nearly four thousand-mile perambulation of the great state of Colorado, we've been enraptured by the state's wide variety of natural and cultural resource treasures, and equally impressed by the love and appreciation that Coloradans hold for this precious heritage.

Rabbit Mountain - enraptured beneath the raptors!

As we lead our trusty Colorado Tour Subaru into the barn for the winter, we're hoping that this is but another episode in our Leave No Trace travels, and that we will meet you yet down our nomadic trail, perhaps in another clime and another season, seeking to Leave No Trace as the story continues...

Special thanks go to Xcel Energy for supporting the 2011 Colorado Tour, and additionally to Coleman, Inc. and Subaru of America who continue to be dedicated champions for the Subaru/Leave No Trace Traveling Trainer Program and the Center for Outdoor Ethics. Of course, incalculable thanks go to our Traveling Team colleagues and the extraordinary folks at the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics for their dedication, support, and joie de vivre.

...along the Colorado Trail,

Peggy and Barrett

Horse Sense

Dateline: Colorado Horsemen's Convention, Denver, CO
The Colorado Tour

Peggy Rounds-up Her Leave No Trace Posse

The Colorado Horse Development Authority and the Colorado Horse Council (CHC) organized this year's inaugural Colorado Horsemen's Convention in order to learn and share ideas about growing the horse industry in Colorado. We jumped at the invitation to address the convention gathering on environmental and recreational impact topics, and to discuss our long-standing collaborative partnerships with various industry players such as the Back Country Horsemen of America and the American Horse Council. As the first winter storm of the season raged outside, we manned our busy outreach booth within the warm and comfortable confines of Denver's renowned National Western Stock Show Complex, the center of the horsemen's universe.

Colorado Horsemen's Convention

In addition to engaging an interesting variety of folks throughout the day at our booth, we had an opportunity to present an hour-long session where we talked about the genesis of the Leave No Trace program, the history of the Center for Outdoor Ethics, and the challenges of educating folks about the foundation principles of good, responsible outdoor stewardship. We were particularly pleased by the discussion that our presentation fostered about the need to promote constructive engagement and dialogue between diverse outdoor resource user groups (horseback, mountain biking, hiking, trail-running, hunting, fishing, etc).

Rhinestone (Leave No Trace) Cowgirl

CHC executive director Bill Scebbi and his staff put together an excellent program, and we really appreciated the opportunity to participate. We hope that the Colorado Horsemen's Convention becomes an annual forum for exchanging ideas (and good, old-fashioned horse sense) about how best to conserve and promote sustainable outdoor values for all types of horseback recreation.

...along the Colorado Trail,
Peggy and Barrett

Poster Kids: 7 on 7

Dateline: Lakewood, CO
The Colorado Tour

Poster Presentations at Carmody Middle School

The 7th grade students at Carmody Middle School welcomed our Colorado Tour with a bevy of posters and Powerpoints on the 7 principles of Leave No Trace, which they eagerly presented to us one by one. After Kathi Smith's class threw us their best pitches, it was our turn to talk about human impacts and engage the students in our traveling road show. We presented our always compelling array of human waste disposal tools and techniques, discussed durable surfaces and played a round of "Step on It," and got the students to form a living time-line of trash in our "How Long Does It Last?" activity.

7th Graders and the 7 Principles

We wrapped it up by challenging the students to think about having a positive impact that might last one million years... yep, picking up that carelessly, thoughtlessly, and negligently discarded styrofoam or glass bottle will do just that, become a positive impact that lasts virtually forever.

...along the Colorado Trail,
Peggy and Barrett

Leaving the Right Kind of Trace

Dateline: Fort Collins, CO

The Colorado Tour

Our hearty breakfast at a Fort Collins eatery, the Farmer’s Table, was topped with fresh-cooked apples from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) project.  It was a sustaining meal that gave us a good foundation for our workshop with Dan Dannahower’s class at Poudre Community Academy.  The Academy is a non-traditional (alternative) public secondary school that focuses on a blend of academics, experiential learning, and community service. We were amazed at the variety of learning and service experiences that the group (ages 14-20) talked about during our visit, and we're definitely impressed by the positive impacts that their efforts have on the surrounding community: work involving local trail maintenance, campsite rehabilitation, trash cleanup, and assistance at CSA farms (like the ones that supplied our breakfast meal).

Class members raise a cheer to a Leave No Trace icon.

The "traces" left by Poudre Community Academy have been positive for community and students alike… definitely an approach that could benefit mainstream, traditional approaches to educating kids.

...along the Colorado Trail,

Peggy and Barrett

Front Range Views

Dateline: Fort Collins, CO

The Colorado Tour

Front Range Country: Experiential Learning Happens Here...

Professor Jennifer Lee’s Wilderness Skills class at Front Range Community College is a feisty mix of outdoor enthusiasts – fishermen, hunters, mountain bikers, hikers, climbers, horse packers, kayakers… and in Colorado, most any of the winter snow-dependent activities are included without saying. The course covers a host of wilderness topics, including land management policy and regulations, plant identification, leave no trace skills and ethics, and winter survival techniques. Our time with the class passed quickly, as we had spirited discussions about the impacts of discarded fish visera (“guts” by any other name), dogs-off-leash, trail etiquette, and raucous disturbances of wilderness tranquility.

Later this semester (when the nearby mountains are in the cold, snowy grip of winter), Jennifer will take her 28 students on an overnight snowshoe trip to a backcountry campsite where they will stay in yurts and hone their wilderness survival skills in the wind-whipped, sub-zero setting. Now there’s a practical motivation to study hard for the final exam…

…along the (chilly) Colorado Trail,

Peggy and Barrett

Fall into Autumn...

Living outside has it's perks. The change of the leaves this year so far has been stellar. Moving from the Northwoods of Wisconsin and Minnesota down through Iowa, and into Kansas has shown us some brilliant Fall colors. It reminds us also that we are traveling with our summer wardrobe. With this in mind, we encourage outdoor enthusiasts to 'Know Before You Go'. As temperatures and leaves alike move to lower ground it is important to check local forecasts and engage local knowledge concerning the areas you are visiting. The fire in the Boundary Waters burning for well over a month is a vivid reminder, although caused by a lightning strike, of how ravaging wildland fires can be. Taking the time to be sure that your coals are cooled can make or break an ecosystem. Be safe out there, and enjoy every minute of it.

Be intentional, not conventional.

Mark and Tara

Freewheeling in the Right Kind of Way

Dateline: Bear Creek Lake Park, Lakewood, CO

The Colorado Tour

The Morning Briefing at TKMBD

Over 80 kids and at least that many more parents were ready and raring to roll on Saturday for the annual “Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day” (TKMBD) at Bear Creek Lake Park in the Lakewood community on the southwestern outskirts of Denver. Each participant was assigned to one of four teams, and each team visited four mountain biking workshops: skills, maintenance, rules of the trail, and wildlife encounters.

Wildlife Encounters

The principles of Leave No Trace were an essential part of each workshop, and it was great to see kids, from those with mountain bike training wheels all the way up to singletrack-savvy teenagers, actively engaged in learning new mountain biking skills, safety, and etiquette from enthusiastic, kid-friendly instructors.

Dressing the Part: The COMBA-IMBA Instructors Were Enthusiastic Teachers

After rotating through all four workshops, it was time to ride! Bear Creek Lake Park offers a terrific variety of trail conditions for both first-time and experienced riders, and the beautiful weather and eager volunteers made the day memorable in the right kind of way. The Colorado Mountain Biking Association (COMBA: the local chapter of the International Mountain Biking Association) hosted the event, and we look forward to being included again in the future. Only next time, we'll be riding for sure!

Colorado Tour Gives Thumbs-Up to Mt. Biking LSU Fan 

...along the Colorado Trail,

Peggy and Barrett

Angel's Loft...

There's a lot of buzz these days about reclaimed, reconditioned, recycled and restored materials going into construction projects. Perhaps it's the quest of procuring an interesting mix of old and new. It might be the warmth of historic barn timber, or the quirky flavor of hand forged square nails that brings together the atmosphere of home for you. For this avian friend it is something different entirely. We found this bird nest built with an infusion of used toilet paper in the backwoods of Maryland. Now, put yourself in this home owner's talons for just a minute. It's not junior's laundry that stinks, it's the walls of your humble abode. One more reason to 'Dispose of Waste Properly'. No wonder our feathered friends target your freshly washed ride. Payback.

Be intentional, not conventional.

Mark and Tara

Raptor Ambassadors Under the Cottonwoods

Dateline: Pueblo, CO
The Colorado Tour

Nature and Raptor Center Ambassadors

We arrived early on Friday at the Nature and Raptor Center of Pueblo (NRCP), located on the banks of the Arkansas River in the shade of Cottonwood trees shimmering gold in their fall foliage. Our workshop was with a passel of energetic kids who were enrolled in the Center's weekly nature camp. We started the workshop with a basic intro to Leave No Trace principles in the the Center's yurt, as spacious and comfortable a classroom as we've enjoyed. After "talking the talk" indoors, we moved outside and into the beautiful autumn day where we could literally "walk the walk" regarding durable surfaces and choosing the right trail. As we explored the Center's grounds, the kids developed a clear understanding of the durable and resilient materials underfoot, and the consequences of choosing to travel on sensitive materials of low durability. We ended our walkabout with a game of "Durable Hop, Skip, and Jump," which we chalked out in front of the yurt.

Durable Hop, Skip, and Jump

After lunch, it was the kids' turn to treat us to a tour of the Center's raptor rehabilitation facility, where injured and orphaned birds of prey are nursed through recovery and prepared for release back into the wild. In fact, we were able to witness the release of a beautiful great horned owl that had come to the Center as an orphaned owlet earlier this past summer. Director John Gallagher and his staff run a fascinating program that appeals to all ages with its message of responsible environmental education and decision-making.


...along the Colorado Trail,
Peggy and Barrett

Outdoor Experiences for Urban Kids

Dateline: Pueblo, CO
The Colorado Tour

Boys and Girls Clubs Staff Training

On Wednesday, we crossed over the Continental Divide and followed the Arkansas River down from Poncha Springs to Pueblo where we had a date with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Pueblo County. First, we ran a Leave No Trace Workshop for a couple of hours with an engaged group of Boys and Girls Club staff. One of the highlights was an ethics discussion during which staffers passionately elaborated on their pet-outdoor-activity-peeves. From fishing and picnicking to hiking and trail running, these folks shared both their appreciation for special outdoor places and their disappointment with inconsiderate trashing of these same places. These are complaints that most of us can recite, all of which could be avoided if we take time to reflect on the impacts of careless or thoughtless behaviors. These staff members were committed to pass on their Leave No Trace training to the kids that they teach and mentor in the Boys and Girls Clubs.

Under the Cottonwoods at the Nature and Raptor Center

Later that same afternoon we met with two groups of Boys and Girls Club members (ages 7-16) at the Nature and Raptor Center of Pueblo (NRCP). Even though these 25 kids have had limited experience adventuring in the outdoor wilds, they jumped right into digging catholes, figuring out how to get into a bear-proof food canister, and practicing wildlife-watching rules of thumb. The NRCP is located in a readily accessible urban-wildlands interface, part of a diverse riparian ecosystem along the Arkansas River. It's a great place for these urban kids to experience the out-of-doors,

...along the Colorado Trail,
Peggy and Barrett

Photo of the Week 10.3.11

Somewhere in Missouri...

rock, paper, scissor, power line.

Mark and Tara

"Training" the Trainers

Dateline: Antonito, CO
The Colorado Tour

Aspens turning gold along the route in Southern Colorado

Many might wonder how we "train" as Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers... In Colorado, we have found one truly reliable "training" regimen, and that's on the historic narrow-gauge Cumbres & Toltec Railway from Antonito, CO to Chama, NM. Everyone on board got a serving of Leave No Trace (especially on the cultural heritage topics), including the LSU fans that we encountered from our hometown of Baton Rouge. The trip was highlighted by our race with a herd of 14 elk, which happily managed to cross the tracks just yards ahead of our engine as we barreled along at 12 mph.

Elk cross the tracks in the nick of time!

All aboard!

...along the Colorado Trail,
Peggy and Barrett

Not Just Good... They're Great!

Dateline: Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Mosca, CO
The Colorado Tour

Mind boggling... it's just down right difficult to comprehend the scale of the massive dunes of sand at this place. Measuring 750 ft. above the surrounding San Luis Valley and covering thirty square miles, the Great Sand Dunes have astonished visitors throughout history. Now, count the Colorado Tour in that number...

This national park is staffed by a crew with exceptional esprit de corps. We were warmly welcomed by the entire staff, new rangers and veterans alike for our staff "Train the Trainer" program. We also were able to help celebrate National Public Lands Day at the park and participate in a service project. How appropriate for us: picking up trash along one of the scenic drives into the park. And you never know when random trash can be so useful...

Tin roofing trash provides personal ramada

...along the Colorado Trail,
Peggy and Barrett