Backcountryoutlet.com Newsletter Articles

At Backcountry.com, we love to play in the backcountry—surprise, surprise. But we know playing has its price: trails deteriorate, high-use areas get littered and eroded, bolts at crags need replacing. To give back a little, Backcountry.com regularly donates to organizations around the world. These various nonprofits help preserve wild places, advocate access to the backcountry experience, encourage people to get outside, and help ensure your safety when you’re well off the beaten path.

In an era when the blank spaces on the map are all but gone, when very little true wilderness remains, and when too many people stay indoors with their TVs, we at Backcountry.com view ourselves as stewards of the backcountry. Our job is to take care of and preserve the places we love. We love being able to make a living by helping people get into the outdoors and we want to keep it that way.

Want to get involved, too? Have a look at what Backcountry.com is doing and what you can do to lend a helping hand.

Khumbu Climbing School

Under the auspices of the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation, this school trains the unsung heroes of extreme high-altitude mountaineering: the indigenous population of Nepal that works as sherpas and porters. These people are superbly adapted to the high, thin air of the Himalayas but are not trained climbers. Among the indigenous Nepalese, even those guides who’ve summited 29,035-foot Mount Everest six times lacked basic safety and climbing skills.

Jenni-Lowe Anker and mountaineer Conrad Anker started the Khumbu Climbing School in order to encourage responsible climbing practices and to increase these Nepali guides’ competency on the big E. KCS teaches technical ice-climbing skills, medical training, and rescue procedures, as well as provides English lessons. Classes take place in January prior to the climbing season, and the students learn from world-class mountaineers on frozen waterfalls.

Backcountry.com donates carabiners, harnesses, and other climbing gear to the Khumbu Climbing School.

Get Involved: Visit the Alex Lowe Foundation and click the Donate Now link in order to give money. If you have new ice screws or ice tools to donate, email alcf@alexlowe.org. Or, if you live in the Salt Lake City area, attend the benefit at Utah’s Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort this August (watch the KCS Web site for details).

More: They might not be as tall as the Himalayas, but Colorado’s fourteeners are nothing to sneeze at. The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative sponsors weekend maintenance projects along fourteener trails. You can even adopt one of the state’s 14,000-foot peaks or become a peak steward, volunteers who patrol high-use fourteeners.

Salt Lake Climbers Alliance

Unfortunately, for geographical reasons, we at Backcountry.com don’t get out to Mount Everest much. But we certainly climb our local crags regularly. The Salt Lake Climbers Alliance promotes climbing opportunities in the Wasatch Mountains, as well as works to preserve access and manage Wasatch climbing areas by maintaining trails and replacing bolts.

Backcountry.com provides the organization with gear and gives bennies to those who attend SLCA events.

Get Involved: Go to Salt Lake Climbers Alliance site and become a member and active participant in various SLCA projects, such as crag clean-ups and trail maintenance, or you can donate cash.

More: To get involved where you live, visit the Access Fund web site for information on how to participate in an Adopt-A-Crag event (trash clean-up, trail maintenance, bolt replacement). Also see how to join a local climbing organization, start your own, or become a regional coordinator.

Avalanche Forecast Center

A U.S. Forest Service program, the Utah Avalanche Center strives to educate the public on how to be safe in the winter backcountry through presentations, avalanche courses, a super-informative Web site, and daily avalanche advisories. Even though the UAC is part of the Forest Service, 80 percent of its funding comes from county, state, and private donations.

Backcountry.com provides lots of support to the local Avalanche Forecast Centers (located in Logan, Moab, and Salt Lake City, Utah, and in Silverton, Colorado). Backcountry.com gave $5,000 to start the Know Before You Go program, donates gear for auction fundraisers, and set up a toll-free number in Utah so you can get the latest forecast.

Get Involved: Go to www.avalanche.org/~uac and follow the link to the Backcountry.com site to do your shopping—by going through the UAC web page, 10 percent of your purchase goes to the Utah Avalanche Center. Contact the Friends of Utah Avalanche Center for other ways to contribute.

More: Through the www.avalanche.org web site, you can also link to avalanche centers all along the Rocky Mountains, in California, and in the East to make monetary donations.

Denali Education Center

This educational organization, located within a stone’s throw of the 6-million-acre Denali National Park and Preserve, leads experiential outdoor programs in the national park for kids and adults. Denali is an ideal classroom in which to learn about the subarctic ecosystem and about the world’s other remaining wild places. Alaska is far from Backcountry.com’s offices, but the education center’s outlook of balancing access with preservation is close to our hearts.

Backcountry.com donates outdoor gear for the center’s annual auction fundraiser.

Get Involved: Contact the Denali Education Center to volunteer during the summer season on projects ranging from gardening to graphic design, or hit the Donate Now link on the web site to give financial help. Attend the fundraising auction in Alaska this August and make your bid.

More: Interested in volunteering in our National Parks? Visit the National Parks System volunteer page for information on how to volunteer as an interpreter, campground host, ranger, or other jobs.

Mountain Trails Foundation

Located in Park City, Utah—where many Backcountry.com employees live—this foundation promotes and preserves trail access for all non-motorized users. This organization works to educate the public on land use, improve trail systems with signage and maintenance, and facilitate trail easements.

Backcountry.com donated $500 to the foundation’s 2007 Flying Dog Trail maintenance project so the organization could create T-shirts for the event (and attract future volunteers).

Get involved: Doing trail maintenance is a great way to see the direct results of your contribution—the dirt on your hands is the evidence that you done good. If you live in Utah, contact the Mountain Trails Foundation or check out the new Utah Backcountry Volunteers organization for trail work opportunities.

More: For opportunities around the country, the American Hiking Society provides links to one- and two-week trail work trips.

Winter Wildlands Alliance

This national organization works on behalf of snowshoers, skiers, snowboarders, winter hikers, and other outdoor adventurers who use their own power to get around in the winter landscape. The WWA’s actions run the gamut from providing snowshoes and a winter ecology curriculum to elementary school students to advocating the phase-out of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.

Backcountry.com gave $1,000 in gear for the Alliance’s fundraiser auction last year.

Get involved: Go to the Winter Wildlands Alliance site to become a member and find out about WWA’s legislative campaigns. Or hit the Take Action link to find out what you can do right now to preserve wintry solitude.

More: Surfrider Foundation works on behalf of surfers, wind surfers, beach combers, swimmers, divers, and other water lovers. The nonprofit environmental organization advocates for low-impact beach access, clean water, and coastal preservation. Visit the foundation’s chapters page to find a chapter near you and volunteer for a beach cleanup or water testing or to write the newsletter or attend city council meetings.

• If you happen to live near a river rather than the coast and love river-running, check out American Whitewater in order to volunteer for river stewardship projects.

Bay Area Wilderness Training

Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, this nonprofit provides wilderness training and outdoor gear to youth agency staff. In turn, these staff members can then take their charges—often kids who’ve never left a city—into California’s wild places. Each year, BAWT raises funds through its Climbing for Kids event.

In June of 2007, Backcountry.com sponsored a climber who summited Mount Whitney.

Get Involved: You can sponsor a climber. Or, you can climb Mount Whitney—or Mount Rainier or Mount Shasta—and raise funds to benefit youth and youth leaders. Visit www.climbingforkids.org to learn how.

More: If you’d rather work directly with youth, join Big City Mountaineers on one of its eight-day backpacking trips with inner-city kids. Trips are in Colorado, California, West Virginia, Washington, Minnesota, and other states.

• If you’re a snowboarder, take kids on the slopes through the Snowboard Outreach Society, which operates at ski resorts across the country, including Heavenly, Steven’s Pass, Mount Hood, Snowbird, Arapahoe Basin, Ski at Santa Fe, Hunter Mountain, and Waterville Valley.

Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective

Cycling gets you outdoors. Plus, it’s a sustainable form of transportation that keeps you and the environment in good shape. The SLC collective teaches safe riding skills and bike maintenance. The collective also provides community services such as access to bike tools and shop space, bike parking at the local farmers market, and Earn-A-Bike program for kids.

Backcountry.com gave gear for the collective’s silent auction fund raiser.

Get involved: The Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective needs people who are willing to fix and refurbish bikes, to volunteer as a bike valet, or to help with programs such as free helmet distribution, and to teach kids about bike maintenance. No skills necessary—the collective will teach you how to work on bikes.

More: If your taste for biking runs more toward the muddy mountain variety or you don’t live in Utah, join the International Mountain Biking Association to learn how to become a trail builder or a bike patrol volunteer in your home state.

Chaco Recycle Program

Backcountry.com is all for wilderness preservation, access, and safety—but what kind of gear company would we be if we didn’t work with organizations that donate gear? Each year, Backcountry.com pairs up with Chaco to collect your old shoes. These shoes then go to monasteries, safe houses, and schools in the Himalayas—last year, Backcountry.com sent 1,500 of your hand-me-downs. In turn, those of you who send us your shoes get a discount on your Chaco sandal purchase.

Get involved: Beginning in May of each year, buy Chaco shoes through Backcountry.com, and then put your old pair in the box and mail it back. Easy. The event lasts a few weeks. This program just ended, so check it out next year!

More: Donate your old gear—last year’s puffy, that third pair of ski gloves you own, or those socks you’ve never worn—to any nearby shelter or send it to The Gear Bank in New York City at the end of the year.

Do you have other favorite get-outdoors-promoting organizations that we missed? Post it on the Backcountry blog, and we’ll include it on a list on our Web site with links.