2004 LNT Train the Trainer Annual Backpacking Trip

Four Earth Guardian volunteers (Karina O'Connor, Tony Guerra, Larry Breed and Nancy Abodeely) all LNT Masters., agin led this year's  group, with help from LNT Trainers Mike Pruente, Mark Giannuzzi, Sarah Ainsworth and James Green.  Everyone was prepared with maps, gear lists, and warning of possible snow!  Each person was also assigned a Leave No Trace principle to teach.

The Trip - The Basics

We stayed in the Calicos again this year’s trip, this time on the northen side of Morman Dan Peak. This route was exceptions since it provided a great camp site within a short walk from the trailhead, which was especially helpful since once of our masters was 5 months pregnant for the trip.

We began the trip at the 12 mile playa campground, with introductions, the pretrip video, a talk on planning ahead and preparing, and breakfast under a popup shade structure. From here we loaded up the vehicles, proceeded to the trail head, unloaded the vehicles, and strapped on our packs and coolers (the benefits of a hosrt walk!).

A short walk to camp, resulted in an early lunch and our second talk of the day, dispose of waste properly! We quickly set up our tents and headed off to explore the area via a day hike.

Highlights of this year’s trip included hiking back into a tree lined canyon and great views of the playa, sharing a great dinner and campfire, hearing inventive principle presentations and drinking frothy beverages at the trail head after the trip.

During the Saturday day hike, we had a fun time with our Leave What You Find interactive presentation with everyone involved. We had a great demonstration of no impact campfires in the eveing, then interesting and entertaining talks on Respecting Wildlife and Being Considerate of Other Visitors.

Our annual backpacking trip has been an great way to meet burners from many different volunteer groups and even other Black Rock Users. One of our trainees this year was a representative from the Reno Sierra Club who's also a burner. He's now giving LNT training workshops for his fellow Sierra Club campers, thanks to Burning Man! .

If there are other ways (short workshops, etc) that would be more useful to Burning man volunteers and particiapants on evolving LNT techniques, please let our trainers know! Email us at earthguardians (at) burningman (dot) com.

Welcome to our 2004 Training Class!