Allow me to take you on a journey…

Look around and you’ll find yourself in a gorgeous alpine meadow.

Your pack feels light as a feather because—didn’t you know?—You are currently on your trip with She Treks.

Wild flowers dance on either side of the trail; a creek babbles somewhere close by.

It is the end of a long day and, being that it is summertime in the rockies, you are not surprised by the ominous clouds stacking up over the surrounding peaks. You wonder if you should have left the safety of the forest a half mile back…

Shivering against a sudden breeze under a quickly darkening sky, you know it’s time to find a place to camp.

Thunder rumbles. A sense of urgency strikes you.

Let’s talk about Leave No Trace.

There are 7 Leave No Trace Principles and while the word “principles” typically has the power to put people into a stupor, this discussion doesn’t have to be dull.

In fact, it could be the most interesting conversation you engage with all day.

Because it has everything to do with you and your upcoming adventure in the backcountry.

LNT ensures that everything goes as awesomely as possible for all parties involved, including the environment and, well, the bears, porcupines, and any other life forms you might encounter—other humans too.

So… You’re in an alpine meadow and there’s a storm rolling in!

What do you do?

The answer is NOT panic.

You’ve already done one thing right! And that is:

• Plan ahead and prepare

  • This step was done before you even landed at the trailhead (if you are traveling with She Treks, we took care of a lot of this for you!) It involved planning out your meals and packing extra food in case you get delayed, bringing extra layers incase you find yourself cold and wet, planning your route, and deciding how you will communicate with the outside world incase of emergency.

You are reassured by your preparedness for all hell to break loose, and you ponder the lovely forest you left behind not ten minutes back, realizing it was, in fact, the perfect place to camp for the night.

Turning on your heel you march back the way you came—I know, I know, backtracking is unbearable—until you reach the safety of the trees.

Now it is time to find a place to build your home for the night. You reason that it makes the most sense to:

• Camp on durable surfaces (and travel on them too!)

  • Storm aside, the fragile nature of alpine meadows does not make them a good first choice for pitching a tent. You would not only crush the wild flowers beneath the footprint of your tent, but also everywhere else you walked while camping there.

  • In addition, back in the meadow you had heard the sound of running water and intuitively knew that you shouldn’t camp within 200ft (70 adult steps) of it in order to avoid polluting it with food waste or human waste.

So you settle for a spot in the woods on a cozy patch of pine needles, out of sight of the trail in order to:

• Be considerate of other visitors

  • You do not want to be disturbed by noisy hikers passing by, and neither do they want to see your tent marring an otherwise pristine slice of wilderness.

After you’ve built your home, you walk roughly 100ft away and scope out a spot for your kitchen. You know that you are the real visitor here, and that there are plenty of critters who might be curious when they catch a whiff of dinner cooking.

By choosing to eat well away from your tent, you make a conscious effort to:

• Respect wildlife

  • You are doing your part to avoid unwanted visitors. Animals are rarely interested in people; they are attracted to our food smells, waste, and garbage.

After dinner, nature calls. And being the expert wilderness traveler (who planned ahead and prepared for this very moment) you already know which direction you want to walk from camp to dig a cat hole.

Being that you were trained by a She Treks professional, you know exactly how to:

• Dispose of waste properly

  • Digging a proper cat hole is a guaranteed part of life in the backcountry. You need good soil, rich in microbes and soft enough to dig down 6-8 inches. Choosing a spot that is likely to get some sun doesn’t hurt either! The UV rays can kill bacteria even through a few inches of soil.

  • In the event a cathole is not “proper”, you know you must use the wag bag, opsak system (more on this in later blog)

Night is now upon you and the storm has passed. You are too tired to build a campfire, but even if you did have the energy you wouldn’t have built one because the area you are traveling through has a fire-ban in effect.

When it comes to fire building, your goal is to:

• Minimize campfire impacts

  • Most of the time that means not having a fire at all.

After a solid night’s sleep, you wake to a breathtaking sunrise. Once you pack up camp and hit the trail, you are blown away by the dew covered flowers leaning into your path.

You want so badly to pick one to take with you, but you know its only right to:

• Leave what you find

  • You take a picture instead, because it lasts longer.

That wasn’t so bad! Right?

We just covered all 7 principles of LNT and if you are reading this, that means you’re still engaged!

In a perfect world, the story unfolds as it does above, and we do everything right all the time. But you and I both know that life rarely goes according to plan.

We commit to doing our best.

Interested in reading about some mishaps from my early days in the backcountry?

Check out:

Trail Tales: Animal Encounters

For more information on Leave No Trace, visit: https://lnt.org