Leave No Trace: Managing Human Waste in the Outdoors

This is a story about poop. It’s about the principles of Leave No Trace camping not changing exactly, but evolving in the way we need to apply them. Because we are loving our wild places to death by treating them like giant toilets. The focus here will be on ‘frontcountry’ areas which I will define as relatively remote yet road-accessible areas with little or no services, typically managed by the National Forest Service (NFS) or Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These playgrounds are among the crowning jewels of the mountain west and some of the finest rewards for anyone seeking the freedom of the Great American Road Trip. There’s little more satisfying to a vagabond van-lifer than seeing a brown wooden sign that reads “Entering [insert name] National Forest”, knowing…

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Bolting Climbs: The Ethics of First Ascents

Evaluating the ethics behind first ascents begged the question of whether or not we’re creating safer climbs by “conquering routes”. Were we providing positive accessibility by bolting walls? Or just flaunting our abilities?

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Paring it Down to the Essentials: A Guide’s Gear for a Three-Day Mountaineering Trip

As a guide with the American Alpine Institute on Mt. Baker, I often end up working with clients who try to bring all the appropriate gear but end up bringing just a tad more than necessary. In this post, I will talk about the gear I bring with me on a 3-Day Baker Skills and Climb trip and how I pared it down to its current amount. I hope this will help you on your fast-and-light adventures! 58 Mountaineering Essentials To start out, here’s a standard list of what I bring on a Baker 3-Day… Climbing gear: Crampons Harness Ice axe 1 ice screw 4 locking carabiners 6 non-locking carabiners 20-foot cordelette 2 double-length slings 2 pickets 1 rope Waist and foot prusiks Helmet Clothes: 1 pair soft shell pants…

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