Base Camp

Posts from the Front
Fighting Dirty Against "Nature Deficiency Disorder"


Pikes Peak Community College students were recently featured in the Leave No Trace eNews and online blog for their hard work cleaning up Williams Canyon. Read their story here!
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Kristen, 
Thanks so very much for hanging out with my classes on Tuesday. They have been raving about it for the past 2 days. Although it was cold, I think all of the students really enjoyed your presentation. I keep hearing about how they wish they had prepared better for the trip (pretty powerful lesson!).
-- Kellina Gilbreth, Cheyenne Mountain High School
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PPCC Outdoor Leadership Class, Williams Canyon, CO. 10/18/08

One of the best ways to explore the great outdoors is to crawl underneath it... caving challenges your body, mind and ethics, but the rewards are great. 
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Bailey's Blog

11/28/11: I admit it, I am a slacker with my blog. But there is SO MUCH going on up here in the mountains! Lately, "Estaline" (our wild neighbor the fox) had a litter of kits and one of them has decided to den up for the winter under MY deck! It's very hard to restrain my natural instincts, but so far my barking and poor chase attempts have not scared the little guy off. We're not feeding or encouraging the little fox at all, but it is worrisome that he is so used to being around people -- habituation can be dangerous. However, it was me who moved into his yard, not the other way around, so this winter we'll just give each other a wide berth. I'll try not to encourage his familiar behavior in any way, and in return, I am rewarded with some close up views of the little guy learning to hunt, dig, and make it through his first winter without Mama!

11/15/10: Often I bark and my people don't appreciate it, I assume because they can't smell what I am smelling. Tonight, however, I was justified! I looked out the window to see a very large black bear ambling down the driveway just feet from the house. Luckily my people listened and got to see the bear too. Normally the bears don't hang out around here (probably because they fear my terrible bark), so that just goes to show how active their feeding drive is this time of year. They're packing on 26,000 calories a day to prepare for the long winter's nap. Luckily, we have all of our trash, birdseed, and other goodies bearproofed. We love to see the bears up close -- but don't want to see them get too comfortable with human and dog stuff. 

08/05/10: Phew, it's been a busy Spring and Summer for me, and I have learned a very important lesson: I am not the spring puppy I used to be! Even though everyone expects me to have a never-ending reserve of energy, as I get older I need to be more aware of my own physical limitations. Sometimes I even have to convince my people that, no, I really do need a break! Being honest with myself and others about my abilities, limits and goals is one of the best ways to Be Prepared: that way I won't end up far away, with sore paws or worse, and have to change plans. Unplanned situations usually create avoidable impacts! So now instead of summitting that 14er 20 times over while waiting for my family to catch up, I'll settle with a respectable 10 trips and take it easy. :) 
- Bailey

Why the need for Leave No Trace?

    
People enjoy the outdoors in myriad ways. We explore on foot, kayak, horseback, mountain bicycles, skis, snowshoes and crampons, to name a few, and there are more of us pushing our sports to greater extremes and into remoter parts of the natural world everyday. Our experiences are personally satisfying, but they can be costly to the places we visit and the animals we observe.

-- Taken from the North America Skills and Ethicsbooklet published by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, Boulder, CO. For more information, visit http://www.lnt.org.