2009 LNT - Leave No Trace Annual Train the Trainer Trip

In this year's trip we did something completely different, we had the annual LNT training at a private property in Grass Valley, CA!   We still prepared everyone pre-trip with maps, gear lists, and warning of possible heat!  Each person was assigned a Leave No Trace principle to teach and asked to talk about how it applied at Burning Man.

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The Trainig - The Beginning

We decided to have this year’s LNT training in Grass Valley due to its beauty and accessability. This location is much closer to the Bay Area and much more accessable to folks in Southern and Central California than the Black Rock Desert. Along these lines we had many more folks express interest in the trip this year and even had to turn away a few last minute requests. Having at a rural property also kept the focus on the training, rather than backpacking and also gave us the opportunity to provide shade, refreshments and other items making it a much more comfortable event.

We started the trip with introductions and several LNT videos at the House. Here we also had our first class of the day - Plan Ahead and Prepare. Laz, with input from our LNT masters, gave a great class. LNT Masters Karina, Nancy, and new Master, Mike Pruente, aka Loki were along to lead the training. The presentation got us going on a great discussion regarding a what each of us considers is essential for Burning Man. We followed this talk right into Dispose of Waste Properly.

The River

This year's class site was located close to the Bear River, so when it started to get into the hotter part of the day, we loaded up and headed down to the river for our classes by Cathey and Max on Camping and Traveling on Durable Surfaces. The surfaces here, trails, sandy beaches and rocks provided many good examples of resiliant surfaces. We also found a teachable moment and had an interesting discusison about an overflowing trash can at the beach.

To gain some shade for our third class, Leave What You Find, we moved to the back porch by the garden. During his talk, Kearce covered many aspects of the topic, which is important to both Burning Man and wildernss sites.

Loki Loaf

That evening we shared wine, beers, chips and salsa, spegatti, salad , garlic bread and the Loki Loaf pictured here. Yes, that's bacon wrapped around a sausage log. Then our inner burners came our for the class on the fourth principle, minimize campfire impacts. For this class, Zabriel and Marelyn didn't actually set up a fire. However, Zabriel shared many stories about his experience working for the Forest Service and interacting with participants both in that capacilty as an Earth Guardain Toxic Avenger.

Sunday Fun and Wrap Up

Another beautiful day in Grass Valley greeted us Sunday morning and the smell of bacon was still hanging in the air. While we were waking to coffee and breakfast, everyone took down their tents and naturalized their sites. Thanks to the resiliant grasses and our camper's efforts, it was quite difficult to locate the exact location of their tents!

Then the group connected for the last two talks before the temperatures heated up. Mandy got us on our feet for her talk on Respecting Wildlife. We all had cards representing different animals and tossed strings back and forth to represent connections between the wildlife and other parts of the ecosystem(e.g. downed log, fly, etc).

The next presentation that morning was by Britt 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 being back in Grass Valley, enjoying great converstation, sharing an awesome happy hour and dinner, hearing each others experiences, and drinking frothy beverages and making new friends from the EG camp and volunteer teams. Our annual LNT training 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. Next year we are considering additional locations close to the Bay Area. 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 lnt @ burningman (dot) com. See our new class of crazy super hero trainers below!