Leave No Trace ...

Among outdoorsmen, which I now proudly consider myself, there is a repeated mantra known as "Leave No Trace." Leave No Trace is essentially a formalized list of instructions on how to do outdoor things without trashing your environment. The fact that there exists a "Leave No Trace" organization and countless books and teaching programs designed to advanced this philosophy, goes to show just how disconnected we are as a people with our environment.

In generations past, our survival depended upon the health of the environment and the creatures that lived in it. Today, we just synthesize most of what we need and simply take the rest from other people, so preserving the environment is not a priority for many of us. And sadly, this is evidenced by the sheer amount of trash located out in the wilderness where you least wish to see it. Now I'm not just talking a beer can or two thrown into the bushes. I'm talking white trash people who back their trailers up into the woods and unload old washers and dryers, sleeper sofas, urine-stained matresses and every other piece of garbage they've been storing on their property over the past six months.

"Leave No Trace" is an admirable philosophy and should carry over into all areas of our lives. Ever go into a big-box "Mart" retailer on the weekends? It's almost as if the goal for each person was to take one item, preferably two items, from each department, and hide it in another, completely unrelated department. Five pounds of ground beef gets deposited in the women's underwear department, 24-pack of Coke is left in the auto parts aisle, and the 2-pack of mullet hair-styling brushes is left in the meat department...in the ground beef section, just to provide some continuity.

It's sad, really, how little we care.

Since I started preparing for my journey, I have come across the "Leave No Trace" philosophy countless times and it's taught in many outdoor camping and skills training classes. It's mostly common sense, but it's also about learning how one small act or inaction can cause a chain of problems resulting in something much worse happening.

A plastic bottle cap left on the ground, for example, can be eaten by a bird which chokes to death on it. The dead bird begins to decay which can generate a cesspool of bacteria which can be poison to other animals that happen upon it, tainting water supplies leading to other sick and dying animals, etc. Nature eventually takes care of itself, but the process is often not pretty, sweet-smelling or particularly pleasing to the eye when a stinking, fetid corpse of an egret blocks your path while it squirms with a slimy pool of ants and shiny maggots.

So use your common sense, and strive to leave your environment more pristine than when you found it. And as the Leave No Trace philosophy dictates: Take lots of memories, leave only footprints. In actuality though, some would say that even footprints should be left to a minimum.

For more information, check out the official "Leave No Trace" website at http://www.lnt.org

Even their short website URL is helping cut down impact on the environment. :)

Ron