The Seven Leave No Trace Principles to Practice on Every Adventure
Hiking among wildflowers, bagging epic peaks, surfing choice waves, or road tripping the Pacific Coast Highway–no matter the adventure, we have a responsibility to respect these wild spaces, to keep nature’s well being in mind, and to ensure others get to have just as amazing experiences too.
A series of seven principles were established with nature’s preservation in mind. Leave No Trace is a framework of minimum impact guidelines that, when practiced, preserve our natural spaces for generations to come. These guidelines include planning, preparing, and on-trail practices that reduce our environmental impact, encourage safety in the outdoors, and promote an inclusive and respectful environment for all who visit.
In this post, we’ll dive into each of the Seven Principles with tips on how to incorporate them into our everyday adventures.
Table of Contents
1. Plan Ahead and Prepare
A little prep can go a long way! Planning ahead by checking trip reports, weather conditions, and fine tuning your packing list can ensure a safe and epic trip for everyone. It can also help minimize damage to natural and cultural resources while you’re out and about!
When you’re planning and preparing for your trip:
Write down your trip expectations and goals.
Try to understand your adventure buddy’s skill levels and plan your adventure accordingly.
Research the area you plan to visit. Consult maps, guides, and hiking apps like AllTrails or Gaia. Check the weather, terrain, trail elevation, regulations, restrictions, private land boundaries, and trip reports–know everything you can about your adventure before heading out.
Bring the appropriate equipment and clothing for comfort and safety.
Understand your food and water consumption. Try to avoid having any leftovers if possible.
Pack only one-pot meals and lightweight snacks for minimal packing and preparation time, a lighter load, and less garbage. They also eliminate the need for a campfire.
Journal your experience after you trip. Take note of what worked, what didn’t, what you wished you brought, etc.
2. Travel & Camp on Durable Surfaces
Traveling on durable surfaces helps protect areas against unnatural erosion, contamination, and wildlife extinction.
Travel on Trails
Land management agencies create trails to concentrate foot traffic to one area. This allows the surrounding flora and fauna to flourish. Trails are there for a reason!
Travel Off Trails
Any travel not on a man-made trail is called “off trail.” This includes traveling in remote areas, walking to find bathroom privacy, exploring around your campsite, etc. When traveling off trail, walk only on durable surfaces or vegetation that can take the impact.
Examples of durable surfaces:
Gravel
Sand
Rock
Snow
Ice
Some dry grasses. Avoid trampling vegetation whenever possible–they take a long time to grow back.
Take note of your group size–could that many people traveling off trail negatively affect the landscape?
Non-durable surfaces that should be avoided at all times:
Desert puddles and mud holes: All wildlife needs a water source–avoid walking through or disturbing these precious resources at all costs. There are also little animals that call these places home!
Living soil: Deserts have living soil that may look durable but are actually teeming with wildlife. Foot traffic could cause irreparable damage to its ecosystem.
Always Camp on Durable Surfaces
Look exposed bedrock, sandy areas, or other areas that have already lost vegetation cover.
Camp at least 200’–or70 adult steps–away from any water source so wildlife feel safe approaching their drinking holes.
Camping in Remote Areas
Some areas (like National Forests) allow remote camping. If you plan on camping in remote, pristine areas, avoid repetitive traffic routes, spread out your tents, and move camp every night. Repetitively tramping these natural areas can cause irreparable damange.
Look for large rocks or other durable areas to cook on, and wear soft shoes to be as kind to the surrounding natural vegetation as possible. I bring these knock-off Birks to wear around camp–they’re lightweight rubber and comfortable as all get out.
When breaking down camp, make it look like you were never there! Brush out footprints and replace any natural vegetation. This will help the site recover, and will discourage future campers from setting up in the exact same spot.
3. Properly Dispose of Waste
Waste can mean many things: human, food, water, etc. You’ve probably walked into a campsite to find a fire pit full of last night’s shenanigans. Pretty gross, isn’t it? Wildlife thinks so too. Waste is extremely harmful for the environment and the animals that call these spaces home. Here’s how to dispose of different types of waste while on the trail.
Human Waste
In most destinations, burying human waste is totally acceptable. Check in with the local parks offices to understand best practices for wherever you’re visiting, because it changes between park to park and even trail to trail.
If you’ll be burying your waste, dig a “cat hole” about 6” deep at least 200’ from a water source. Pack out all toilet paper.
If camping with a large group, spread out your cat holes over a wide area. If possible, dig them on an elevated area and in maximum sunlight.
Urine: Try to pee on pine needles, rocks, or gravel or any other hard surface. If the rain doesn’t wash it away, animals might try to lick up the salt. We want to avoid them digging up vegetation in the process.
Tampons: Always pack out your tampons (just like toilet paper). Bring along a composting bag to store these items throughout your hike. Try using a menstrual cup as an eco-friendly and transportable option on the trail.
Other Waste
Pack in, pack out is the mantra for all other trail waste. This includes wrappers, leftover food, bacon grease, cigarette butts, fishing line, and anything else that doesn’t inherently belong in nature.
Waste Water
Carry water a minimum of 200’ away from a water source to wash. Always use an environmentally friendly soap. I avoid soap all together, rinsing with water at the campsite and giving it a proper wash once I return home.
Bring water to your washing station to rinse. Do NOT rinse in lakes, rivers, streams, etc. It could cause irreparable damage to those delicate ecosystems. This goes for lotions, sunscreen, and other things you introduce into these bodies of water.
4. Leave What You Find
Leaving what you find lets everyone have an enjoyable experience on the trail, and helps preserve the ecosystem too.
If you clear a space for your tent or camp kitchen, replace them before leaving.
If a fire ring was built, leave it as is, and only build your fire within that ring. It was probably built by a land management agency that deemed it the least disruptive space to build a ring.
Avoid hammering stakes into, tying tents to, carving initials into, or chopping down trees.
Stop and smell the wildflowers, but don’t pick them! Leaving them be will ensure they’ll be around to enjoy next year too.
Leave cultural artifacts where you find them. It’s illegal to remove or disturb archeological sites, historic sites or artifacts such as pot shards, arrowheads, structures and even antique bottles found on public lands.
5. Minimize Campfire Impacts
Before building a campfire, ask yourself:
Are there administrative restrictions from the agency that manages the area?
What is the fire danger for the time of year and the location you have selected? Is there a burn ban?
Is there enough wood so its removal will go unnoticed?
Can the are supply enough wood regeneration to keep up with the demand for firewood?
If you can swap out a campfire for a camp stove, that will be the most eco-friendly and environmentally safe option for on-trail cooking.
If there isn’t much wood available (such as in higher elevations), avoid creating a campfire to preserve those natural resources.
The best place to build a fire is in a pre-existing ring where wood is plentiful.
Keep the fire small and only burn it while you’re enjoying it.
Burn all wood to ash.
Put out fires with water, not dirt, to make sure the fire is completely extinguished.
Avoid building fires next to rock outcrops where the scar will remain for years.
Never use a standing tree for firewood (dead or alive, they’re wildlife’s homes).
Use small pieces of wood found on the forest floor collected over a wide area away from camp. Dead and dry wood burns best and limits your impact.
Don’t bring firewood from home.
Scatter unused wood.
Pack out campfire litter like plastic wrappers. These should never be burned.
6. Protect Wildlife
We love a good bear or moose spotting, but if you want them to stick around for the long haul, give them some space and stay quiet. Loud noises can cause stress to animals and force them to leave.
That said, the last thing we want to do is sneak up on a bear. If you have reason to believe a bear is close, have a loud conversation with your hiking buddy or sing to yourself so they know you’re coming.
Sharing is caring, except when the buddy is a wild creature. Always stow your food properly. Bear canisters don’t just keep out bears, they also keep food away from mountain goats, deer, raccoons, and other curious animals. And how sad would it be to wake up to find that your coffee and oats are scattered all over the campsite? You don’t want to see me without my daily caffeine fix, I’ll tell ya that.
Always keep 200’ (70 adult steps) between any water source and your camp to allow wildlife to visit these sources freely and without worry.
7. Be Considerate of Other Adventurers
Many adventurers head outdoors to enjoy nature. We can respect others by following a few simple courtesy guidelines while on the trail:
Keep music low or use earbuds instead of speakers. If it’s loud enough that someone hiking behind you can hear it, it’s too loud and could disturb another’s experience.
Keep pets close. Check to see if dogs are allowed and leashes are required on your hike.
Take breaks and set up camp on durable surfaces.
Hikers going uphill generally have right of way, and those heading downhill should step aside for uphill hikers.
In many places, hikers are expected to yield to equestrians and bikers yield to both hikers and equestrians.
Always pick up dog feces.
Visit lnt.org for more on how to leave no trace on every adventure.