2007 LNT -Greening Your Burn Annual Backpacking Trip

This year's trip was expanded to include greening as well as LNT information - our first annual LNT/Greening Your Burn backpacking trip.   We prepared everyone pre-trip with maps, gear lists, and warning of possible cold!  Each person was also assigned a Leave No Trace principle to teach and asked to talk about greening tips.

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The Trip - The Beginning

We picked the Black Rock area for this year’s trip due to its historical and geological significance. This location also gave us the opportunity to cache shade, refreshments and other items making it a remote, yet comfortable trip.

We started the trip with introductions and several LNT videos at the BLM House in Gerlach. Here we also had a quick breakfast and our first class of the day - Plan Ahead and Prepare. Barb gave a stellar class, which required us to get up and get our blood flowing with skits with reminders on many items that we needed to include in our pre-trip preparations. After that we loaded up the vehicles and drove down the road to the 12 mile playa entrance, where we left the pavement and dropped onto the playa surface.

Our first stop was the Black Rock hot springs and trails west marker for the emigrant trail. While at this historic stopping place, we had our second class on Leave What You Find. We talked about different ways to illustrate how the puzzle that archeologists must construct from clues left at a site quickly becomes impossible to put together once a few key pieces are missing. We also shared stories of our own past experiences with items who've lost their power once removed from their homes.

After the class we headed back in to the vehicles to drive across the two microplayas on the way to the trail head. At the trail head everyone grabbed a snack before loading up packs to go covered up before heading up the trail.

The Camp Site

This year's camp site was a pleasant walk from the trail head. We had the advantage of walking up a truly durable surface, the road, and complete our second class, "Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces" in between the trail head and the camp site. We had some teachable moments as we moved from the road to the wash with our backpacks, avoiding the rich cryptobiotic soils which were thick just off of the road.

The campsite (see top of page) had an awesome large surface area with desert pavement which offered many tent sites with minimal disturbance. Once everyone got settled with their tents, we began with our fourth class, "Dispose of Waste Properly". Sarah's talk covered all aspects of disposal, and import topic as we were far from any restrooms at this point. Her talk also got us inspired to talk about many different aspects of the event and the contributions which we can all make.

Golden Hour, Happy Hour, Good Conversation and Fire!

Once the day's temperatures had cooled down, some of the group went to get supplies for dinner while others explored the area. Soon the sun poked it's head out for a few minutes of golden light around our camp site.

That evening we succeeded in out doing previous trips with a happy hour which started with margaritas with ice (thanks to Dan who brought in a small cooler full of ice! That was soon followed by chips and salsa, pita and cheese spread, and olives. We thought of our missing EG's in action (Freddy, Nancy, Ray, Larry and Loki) as we shared our Burning Man experiences and projects for this year. Happy Hour was followed by filling potluck dinner which included Katmandu curry, hot dogs, yummy green beans and imported chocolate! We've learned the importance of good food to keep us happy and give us energy to respect the environment.

After it got dark, our inner burners came our for the class on the fifth principle, minimize campfire impacts. For this class, Canyon spirit set up three different campfires to see how the different techniques worked. She also set up a sample fire ring to encourage discussion on when to leave and when to dismantle fire rings. She also shared her funny experiences collecting the mercedes hubcap and the protective fire cloth obtained from the local fire departments.

Sunday Morning Hikes

Since Jai slept in on Sunday morning, I got to get an early start to the day with a quick early morning hike above the camp site. I managed to get a good view of both microplayas and the large playa before most campers made it out of their tents. After returning and breakfast, we did a home and garden tour of the camp site. Thanks to the good camp site and our camper's efforts, it was quite difficult to locate the exact location of their tents!

Then the group connected with a last group hike before the temperatures heated up. Following James' directions, we watched for signs of local wildlife as we proceeded up the wash. We must have seen 5 lizards, hear various birds, and imagined appearances of horses and other local creatures based on sightings of scat around the campsite.

The second presentation during the hike, and the last one of our trip was on "Being Considerate of Other Visitors. We had a group discussion of many different aspects of how this applies to Burning Man. We had many shared experiences where the principle could have come into play.

Highlights

Highlights of this year’s trip included seeing the historic Black Rock, enjoying camp shade in our new tent, sharing an awesome happy hour, dinner and campfire, hearing each others experiences, and drinking frothy beverages back at the trail head and at our latest find, Black Rock Pizza in Sparks. Our annual backpacking trip has been an awesome way to meet burners from many different volunteer groups and theme camps at Burning Man and introduce them to how Leave No Trace principles and Greening concepts apply to our event. As we incorporate our own younger Earth Guardian (Jai) into the training, we will continue to make the trip more family friendly and comfortable, in hopes that more participants will feel that they are able to participate. If there are other ways (short workshops, etc) that would be more useful to Burning man volunteers and participants on evolving LNT techniques, please let our trainers know! Email us at earthguardians (at) burningman (dot) com.