Archive | Leave No Trace RSS feed for this section
QiWiz Big Dig Titanium Cat Hole Trowel

QiWiz Big Dig Ultralight Titanium Trowel

Whenever I teach people how to dig a cat hole, they’re always amazed at how hard it is to dig one, especially in New England, where the ground is full of roots and rocks. Now imagine you’re in a hurry to get a cat hole dug. The last thing you want is a trowel that’s [...]

Read full story · Comments { 17 }
Backwoods Ethics by Laura and Guy Waterman

Backwoods Ethics: A Guide to Low-Impact Camping and Hiking

Backwoods Ethics is one of my favorite hiking and outdoor conservation books. Written by two legendary New England hikers, Laura and the late Guy Waterman, it was first published in 1979 and is still considered a cornerstone of the outdoor conservation and Leave No Trace movement. If you have an interest in the history of hiking and [...]

Read full story · Comments { 8 }
Meadow of Flowers

Low Impact Stealth Camping and Travel in Wilderness Areas

Have you ever come across a meadow of wild flowers and walked across it? How about tall prairie grass? If you have, you know that it takes very little to create a noticeable path through such an area. Once created, others have a strong tendency to walk along the same route and create a permanent path. The same [...]

Read full story · Comments { 6 }
Durable Surface between Trees

Low Impact Stealth Camping: Planning and Preparation

This is the first post in a series of articles about Low Impact Stealth Camping that explains how you can to minimize your impact on pristine wilderness sites so no one will know that you ever camped there. This takes a little planning to pull off, but it’s a set of skills and knowledge worth learning [...]

Read full story · Comments { 9 }
A Leave No Trace Cathole

How to Dig A Cathole

If you need to take a poop on a hike and you’re not near a composting privy or toilet, it is recommended that you bury your poop in a cathole so that it can biodegrade, animals won’t dig it up, and it won’t disturb other visitors. You’d think everyone knew how to dig a cathole [...]

Read full story · Comments { 23 }
Stealth Camping in the White Mountains

Series on Low Impact Stealth Camping

If you’ve never heard the phrase “Stealth Camping.” I’m going to be posting a series of articles about how to do to it in a responsible, low impact manner over the new 3-4 weeks. I hope you’ll share your experiences, thoughts on the topic, and questions during that time. Stealth Camping  - What is it? [...]

Read full story · Comments { 17 }
Leave No Trace - Don't Create Bootleg Trails

Urban Leave No Trace – Travel on Durable Surfaces

I live near an urban nature reserve that is heavily used by hikers, mountain bikers, and dog walkers. The place has always been big enough, and the users few enough, that we’ve had relatively little impact on the local ecology. Unfortunately that’s no longer true, and the trails in the reserve are starting to show [...]

Read full story · Comments { 5 }