Earlier this week, we returned the keys for the 2019 Subaru Ascent we lived and worked out of since January to our employer, Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics. However, we will pick up keys to a 2019 Subaru Ascent again from Leave No Trace the first week of June … That’s right, we…
Justin & I have a goal of visiting all the national parks. Which, on a side note, has increased to 61!! So now we are at 46/61 (still close). But I digress. National Parks are just one of the types of units in the National Park System. There are also National Monuments, National Historic Sites,…
Justin & I wrapped up a week’s worth of Leave No Trace work in northern Arizona/southern Utah (and are now in the mountains for back-to-back Winterfest events). The Arizona trip had multiple purposes. We were shadowing another Traveling Trainer team to learn some of the ropes, like video-making, but also for outreach in a heavily…
Happy New Year everyone! We are definitely ready for 2019. 2018 was such a mixed bag for us, although, in the end, we wouldn’t trade the year and experiences for anything!! Here’s our “best of” list for 2018. Biggest Risk Leaving our role as property caretakers and environmental educators at Fenton Ranch in New Mexico…
We’ve been back to Colorado and are just about wrapping up everything with our Subaru/Leave No Trace Zero Landfill Initiative Summer Tour (giving back our Outback Monday!!), but before I summarize the entire summer, let me focus on our 4 weeks in California. To go from Alaska to California was like night and day (literally??).…
Justin & I do not like to boast, but when it comes to backpacking, we eat miles for breakfast. So I think we were both a bit surprised when our most recent backpacking trip gave us a major kick in the butt. Let me back it up. Knowing we’d have all of September in California…
There are a 9 national parks in California (not to mention many more monuments, historic parks, etc) and the last 2 on our list to visit were Sequoia and Kings Canyon. A few weeks, we took a short road trip south to them from our home base in Yosemite National Park. While the eastern side of…
For my 40th birthday, we decided to celebrate in style by visiting one of the many obscure and remote National Parks in Alaska: Katmai National Park. If you’ve ever seen those iconic pictures of bears catching salmon, the source is most likely Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park. Let me just say, pictures don’t even…
Before I get into storytelling mode, here is the overall summary of our single backpacking trip we took in Denali National Park: Unit 9 – East Branch Toklat River Total mileage: 15.2 miles Elevation Gain: 1578 feet Elevation Loss: 1567 feet Max Elevation: 3465 Number of Nights: 2 I was equally nervous as I was…
I already boasted about day hiking in Denali National Park in my last blog post and we are definitely NP lovers, but if you are looking for some less crowded hidden gems, the place to go would be Denali State Park. The State Park has 300,000+ acres and borders the east side of the National…
Justin & I tried to balance our time while working Denali National Park in Alaska a little better than we did in Wyoming. The long daylight hours really made for no excuses, because we could actually work and still fit in a hike, even if it were at 10pm! Denali National Park is a unique park…
Currently living/working in: Still working on the road as the Subaru/Leave No Trace Zero Landfill Team. We wrapped up in Grand Teton National Park July 5, drove 8 days to Alaska, and we’ll be in this state until August 22. You might hear me professing my love for Alaska a million times in this and…
Warning: Picture-heavy post ahead! When you think of the whole United States, most people don’t realize just how far north Alaska is. Go take a look at a geographically correct map. Cue collective “WHOA” There are only so many ways you can drive to Alaska and most journeys take days (even the ferry). And while…
We are *almost* to Alaska! Middle of nowhere Canada actually!! But, in an effort not to get too backlogged on posts, let’s just pretend we are still in Wyoming. Because I want to recap our hikes from our 3 weeks there. I’ll keep it short and sweet (with lots of pictures!). With its regal 40-mile…
Justin and I have thoroughly loved working at Fenton Ranch teaching kids K-5 about nature. We try our darnedest to impart everlasting knowledge, particularly Leave No Trace lessons on the young minds. Maybe out of the 50+ kids in every grade level, 3-5 learn something. Maybe they don’t retain the facts, but I am comforted…
We have always used travel to weddings as an excuse to explore a new area. And while we had a heap of weddings every year through 2008ish, there’s been a dearth since. Until this year. Our calendar includes more weddings this year than we’ve had in the last 4 years! So, when we realized we…
Over the years, we’ve spent A LOT of time in Colorado, but only I had been to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. And in our quest to visit all 59 of the national parks, it doesn’t count until we’ve been there together! We finally visited it together last weekend, making it number 42.…
After our backpacking trip in Michigan, we continued to hug the Canadian line to drive into Minnesota. Another national park lies in this far-reaching section of America: Voyageurs National Park. Voyageurs is a HUGE park, something like 200,000 acres. It has 3 (maybe even 4?) visitor centers/entrances. We knew we wouldn’t be able to spend…
There’s a reason Isle Royale National Park is the least visited park in the lower 48. It has nothing to do with its beauty. It has to do with the fact that it is WAAAAAAAAAAAY up north in the middle of nowhere. Allow us to entertain you with details about our 45.3-mile backpacking trip across…
Once again, we realized we could take a “short” side trip, “not too far out of our way” on our drive from Vegas to Salt Lake City. So we visited Great Basin National Park in Eastern Nevada! Great Basin is now our 7th national park of this summer’s road trip. We certainly did not see…