Join Bigfoot, and Support Leave No Trace

A fortuitous encounter with “Mr. Bigfoot” is motivating us to practice Leave No Trace sasquatch-style.

How? The furry guy has asked us to challenge this community to live up to his standards as an environmental activist. By showing your support for Leave No Trace you have the chance to show Bigfoot you’re up to the test. He’s been doing it for years, and so can you!

Per Bigfoot’s request, we are offering a creative way for you to support Leave No Trace. By donating $15 you will receive some gifts to help warm up the holidays: a limited-edition Bigfoot pint glass (for your favorite holiday beverage) and a warm, cozy hat!

By donating to the cause, you are joining a nationwide conservation movement to help minimize recreation impacts on the outdoors. Show your support and let Bigfoot know you are up to the challenge!

Rocky Road

We facilitated a Leave No Trace Trainer Course in Acadia National Park earlier this year. It was a great course with lots of discussions about outdoor ethics! One conversation that came up during the principle of "Leave What You Find" was the practice of rock stacking. It was the first time that this issue had ever been brought up during one of our courses and opinions ranged from finding rock stacks beautiful to offensive. At the time, we had not given much thought to the carefully balanced rocks we had occasionally seen along trails.

So, why months later are we still contemplating the question of rock stacking? Well, we recently had the opportunity to hike in Bryce Canyon National Park and came across a portion of trail that was covered with thousands of rocks balancing upon each other. The sight immediately brought to mind the "Leave What You Find" conversation we had back in Acadia National Park and we could see why there had been such varied feelings towards the activity. While one artfully balanced rock stack can be quite beautiful, seeing these stacks in such a large quantity in a national park felt somewhat disconcerting.

What are your thoughts on rock stacking?

Ascending the Giants Receives the Leave No Trace Award at the Adventure Film Festival

Adventure Film, a dedicated partner of the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, recently hosted its annual Adventure Film Festival in Boulder, CO earlier this month. As a local partner, it was a great opportunity for staff members to get hands-on in the great outreach AF is doing the community. Many of us volunteered our time to help with ticket sales, distribute flyers and posters, and staff booths at the festival. A true highlight for me, however, was seeing the film that received the Leave No Trace award this year: Ascending the Giants.

From the Adventure Film website:

Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics is Adventure Film’s 2009 Nonprofit Partner.

The world’s greatest stories play out in the wild places of this earth, and those wild places are a limited and delicate resource. We are all key players in preserving this stage for future generations. In the Spirit of adventure and conservation, we recognize “Ascending the Giants” as recipient of the 2009 Leave No Trace Award, for upholding a mission of empowering people to be the solution to environmental impact by educating communities worldwide on the skills and ethics of sustainable recreation.

The Klootchy Creek Sitka Spruce Tree on the Oregon Coast was the largest of its kind. In December of 2007, it toppled during a fierce windstorm, leaving the designation of largest Sitka spruce in Oregon up for grabs. With just a handful of contenders for the title, Brian French and Will Koomjian spent several months measuring the candidates. Join them as they travel to four massive Sitkas, each with its own unique personality and growing conditions. This short documentary features stunning cinematography from both ground and canopy that captures the excitement of climbing these proud behemoths.

Watch the trailer:

No Impact Man

This past weekend I had a chance to see a very unique and thoughtful film called No Impact Man. The 90 min documentary was part of the Adventure Film Festival in Boulder, of which Leave No Trace was the nonprofit partner.

The film followed a Manhattan family (dad, mom and baby daughter) as they attempt to live an entire year in NYC - creating no environmental impact. The real irony became evident in the first few minutes, when the family admitted that they are both addicted to retail and reality t.v. Not only was their New Year's resolution going to be challenging, it was going to give their lifestyle a complete 180.

From cutting out all new purchases, to buying only farmer's market food, turning off the electricity and attempting to create a refrigeration system out of terracotta pots, sand and water (really fascinating!), the family's efforts were really commendable.

It was interesting to me to watch the family struggle with some of the same issues that we as an organization do. For instance, they received a lot of criticism along the lines of "How can you really create no impact? That is impossible, it's too extreme, and it gives the environmental movement a bad name."

The point, though, was that as the family conducted this environmental audit on themselves, they realized how interconnected everything was (trying to cut out one thing led to another and another), which made them more aware, and more "global" citizens. Most importantly, they learned that altering their lifestyle, even just a little bit, could create measurable change.

Leave No Trace is the outdoor recreation version of No Impact Man and his family. A specific program, it as part of a much larger environmental education landscape that promotes awareness, social responsibility and activism.

If you haven't had a chance to view this film, I highly recommend it! I look forward to hearing your comments.

Poaching in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Such senseless acts are often hard to comprehend. From the Charlotte Observer:

A Granville County man is suspected of illegally shooting a bull elk in Great Smoky Mountains National Park - the first case of elk poaching in the massive park, officials said Monday.

Rangers found the dead elk on Friday. He was one of the largest and most majestic breeding bulls in the herd that was reintroduced to the park's Cataloochee Valley several years ago, park officials said.

Read the full story here.

Auraria Campus Sustainability Fair

The Campus Sustainability Fair at the University of Colorado Denver and Auraria campus was held Thursday November 12th. Attended by hundreds of students and local community members, the fair involved several local organizations dedicated to promoting environmental responsibility. With several eco-oriented organizations present, many facets of sustainability were represented. In addition to Leave No Trace, some of the participants included the Woodbine Ecology Center, Denver Urban Gardens, Learning Landscapes, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Bands for Lands, just to name a few. Many exhibits included an electric car display, a beekeeper, a solar oven, and numerous green demonstrations by students and local companies. The Sustainability Fair was excellent way for Leave No Trace and similar environmentally oriented organizations to deliver a message about sustainability in all aspects of life. Modifying some of humankind’s most destructive unsustainable habits, such as energy consumption and overexploitation, is vital if we are to preserve our beautiful planet for its own intrinsic value. Adopting innovative strategies to curve our consumption habits, and promoting public education on how to do so, are ways that we may begin to accomplish this objective.

Do you know who's land you're on?

Sounds like a simple question but the answer is not always obvious. With so many different land management agencies - National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, USDA Forest Service, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers, countless state parks, hundreds of local municipalities, etc. - it can be very confusing for the average outdoor enthusiasts. Not to mention the dozens of different land designations - Wilderness, national park, wild and scenic river, national monument, - just to name a few.

One must ask - why does it even matter who's land I'm on? Well, it does matter, and in some cases it matters a great deal. There are things you can do on USDA Forest Service lands (hunting for example) that you can't do in many National Parks. You can mountain bike on lots of land that the Bureau of Land Management manages but you can't mountain bike in federally designated Wilderness. What it boils down to is that recreationists need to know what is and isn't allowed on the lands where they hope to spend time.

Land management agencies have different classifications of land in order to manage for one thing or another. Whether it's solitude, resource extraction, water resources or recreation, land managers do their best to ensure that we properly steward public lands in the U.S.

The first principle of Leave No Trace, Plan Ahead and Prepare, encourages outdoor enthusiasts to do some research to find out about what is an isn't allowed on the lands they intend to visit. This seemingly simple step is critical for a quality recreational experience, and is very important for protecting the limited recreational resources we have to share.