In recent years, it’s been increasingly common to see Idahoans in regions experiencing rapid growth—the Boises, McCalls, and Teton Valleys—tagging their photos on social media with “Iowa.” It’s a 21^st century joke that stems from an older one, in which, for most of the country, Idaho and Iowa (and sometimes Ohio) were essentially interchangeable. Today, those locals would gladly have you trade their state for somewhere in the Midwest. Or anywhere else, really.

It’s all part of a broader “Tag Responsibly” movement, which asks that social media users refrain from highlighting the specific locations of their scenic shots. That movement comes in response to unprecedented growth in the Mountain West, whose cities occupy many of the top spots for skyrocketing populations and property values and whose parks see record-breaking visitor numbers year over year. The Tag Responsibly movement simply asks that social media users use discretion when highlighting sensitive backcountry areas where increased traffic could be disastrous.

The counter-argument suggests that concealing one’s location is a form of gate-keeping, of flaunting one’s privileged access to the best spots. But there’s a difference between gate-keeping and hanging out a neon sign, a difference between studying a map or guidebook or a local’s time-tested suggestions and baby-birding backcountry beta.

I used to sit on a state grant committee that allocated funding for, among other things, maintenance of public recreation sites. In 2017, the land managers for a subalpine lake in the Central Cascades that shall not be named came in front of the committee pleading for increased maintenance funding. They showed us photos of vehicles overflowing the trailhead parking lot and stretching more than a mile down the road.

Then they showed us a graph of visitor numbers: it looked like the tip of a pencil. Traffic to the lake had increased exponentially in the middle of the decade; land managers attributed it almost entirely to Instagram.

I’ve made a vocation out of guiding the public towards desirable trails and destinations. I often feel conflicted about that. On the one hand, many people can’t love and cherish wild places—and, in turn, advocate for their protection—without seeing them firsthand.

On the other hand, all those firsthand visits have resulted in places being loved, if not to death, at least to life support. But, divorced of all context, an endless scroll of location-tagged photos is nature’s clickbait, exploiting both the viewer’s curiosity and the landscape at the same time.

Many Central American churches prohibit photography within their walls, a practice stemming from Mayan beliefs that mirrors (and, by extension, cameras) steal a piece of one’s soul with every exposure.

In the same way, our wild places lose a bit of their soul with every location tag, diminishing what attracts us there in the first place—a form of backcountry gentrification.

The solution may lie less in tagging responsibly than recreating responsibly, picking our destinations not for their social media value but for their intrinsic value—for their ability to engage us rather than their ability to generate engagement.

After all, not everywhere can be as immediately attention-grabbing as Iowa.

Aaron Theisen has contributed to a number of mountain bike magazines, including Freehub, Mountain Flyer, and Dirt Rag. He wrote about biking in the Methow valley for the July/August Out There.

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I don’t have a bucket list, per se, but there are a few things I’ve always wanted to do and some I’ve been afraid to try. Solo backpacking fits both bills. There’s a self-sufficiency about being alone, off the grid, miles from civilization that’s both exhilarating and terrifying.

With unexpected time off this spring as I transitioned to a new job, I planned a solo adventure to Desolation Wilderness, a 64,000 acre stretch of rugged mountains west of Lake Tahoe. Leading up to the trip, I fixated on details like food and camping gear. But as my departure approached, a new anxiety crept in. Five days. Alone. What would I do with hour after hour of my own thoughts?

My hike began on the Sunday before Memorial Day. The trail was busy with day hikers enjoying the 80-degree weather. As the afternoon wore on, traffic thinned. The sound of hikers’ conversations gave way to the crunch of my own footsteps, the jingle of bear bells, and the forest’s chatter.

The solitude hit me that first evening. My body was tired, but the sun still sat high in the sky. I settled into a shady spot by the lake to journal. After a few minutes on the rocky ground, my butt fell asleep. I got up and stretched. Seconds seemed to crawl past. I couldn’t sit. I was too tired to explore. It was too early to sleep. My brain ached for the distraction of a social media feed, a Netflix show.

Dinner, a bit of reading, a short walk along the shoreline, and finally, the sun dipped behind the western mountains. A few stars blinked to light. I’d survived my first day of desolation. I crawled into my sleeping bag, exhausted and relieved.

The next day presented my most challenging hike, up and over Dick’s Pass at 9,400 feet. Spring snow covered the last mile up the shady north slope. The boot prints I’d been following faded into the slush and steep terrain. I strapped crampons onto my boots and started bushwhacking, following my GPS.

Finally, the terrain flattened as I reached the pass. Exhausted and sweaty, I dropped my pack on a sun-warmed boulder. Endorphins flooded my body. Here was the pleasure of solo hiking. Finding my own way. Overcoming a challenge at my own pace. Looking down both sides of a mountain pass I’d surmounted.

That afternoon, as my feet fell into an easy downhill rhythm on the dry, south-facing side, I noticed my mind following their example. My thoughts sometimes wandered, rehashing the past or planning for my return to civilization. But more often, they returned to the dusty trail, the cool stream, the relief of a moment’s shade beneath a gnarled sequoia.

My routine that night was similar to the night before. I swam in the cold water of another lake. I cooked. I read. I journaled. But the quality of my mind had begun to change. The craving for distraction had lessened. I was able to sit longer in nature’s stillness.

Over the next three days, this feeling intensified. On my final night, I reflected in my journal on the terrain I’d covered, the wildlife I’d seen, but more than anything, I considered the way just four days away from the distractions of modern life had affected my mind. Tomorrow, I’d have voicemails to check, emails to return, feeds to scroll. But the wilderness had given me a reprieve. A reminder. A reset.

This is perhaps what time in the outdoors can provide better than any other pursuit. My trip is an example, but as the sun slipped once more behind the mountains, I realized I don’t need to spend five days alone in the wilderness to find that stillness.

I can turn off my phone and walk the trails of Riverside State Park or savor a summer evening in my own backyard. Five days in desolation reminded me that I don’t need to travel to spend time with myself. I’ve been here the whole time.

Originally published as “Five Days In Desolation: Solo Backpacking California’s High Sierra Wilderness” in the July-August 2021 issue.

Chris Maccini a writer, editor, and audio producer living in Spokane. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from EWU where he was Managing Editor of “Willow Springs.” He once lived with his wife and dog aboard a 28-foot sailboat on the Puget Sound and now enjoys travelling, backpacking, sailing, skiing, and mountain biking. This is his first article in Out There.

For more backpacking stories, visit the OTO archives.

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And all too often, those people would camp at free sites and leave their garbage behind. With thousands of first-time users flocking to the outdoors in our region, many don’t know what to expect and are ill prepared for things as basic as packing out their own garbage.

“When everything is brand new,” Farrell says, “it can be daunting.”

And let’s face it. For all of us, it was new at some point. For example, when I was 23, I first heard the term “cryptobiotic crust.” Part of a group of photography students, mostly from the east coast, we found ourselves caught between protecting nature and capturing “the perfect shot.”

We learned that, to step off the trail in a seemingly lifeless and arid desert, meant destroying thousands of years of delicate crust that protects the land from erosion and contains an amazing and diverse ecosystem, beautiful in its resilient intricacies.

At 25, I learned to “swill,” using tea or water to clean food particles out of my camping dish, and then drinking it rather than dumping out my food waste in the water or on the ground where it would have unintended consequences.

Ten days of canoeing in a protected wilderness area as a master’s student opened my eyes to a new kind of low-impact recreation, governed by Leave No Trace.

Now, at 40, witnessing my favorite places of solace, silence, and seclusion being overrun by people learning what I have, that the wilderness is amazing, these skills are critical. But not just for me.

With millions of people flocking outdoors, one thing is certain. Our pristine natural areas and wildlands can’t stay that way if we don’t all make some changes, and make them fast.

Backcountry Etiquette Tips

Here are some practical tips for your next backcountry adventure. Please share a copy of this article with anyone you know who might be new to the outdoors or may need a backcountry etiquette refresher.

1. Pick Up All Trash: Always carry a trash bag and some latex gloves. The tiny corner you rip off your Clif Bar wrapper might seem inconsequential, but microtrash adds up. Make sure you take everything out that you brought in. Even better, take out other people’s garbage too.
2. Tread Lightly: Stay on the trail and camp on durable surfaces like rock, sand, or grass. This might mean you can’t take the best Instagram shot, or that your TikTok video doesn’t have the background you want, but you’re a guest in nature. Act like one—one who wants to be invited back.
3. Use Social Media Responsibly: Stop geotagging stuff on social media. You know Mystic Falls in Spokane’s Palisades Park? It’s tiny. But it’s a near-urban waterfall that’s been geotagged to death. Where once there was one trail to access the falls, now canyon walls are crumbling from day users who have a geotag leading them straight to it. It’s ok for some things to remain secret, or at least a little obscure.
4. Treat Water With Respect: Do you drink your dishwater or shower water? Me neither. So don’t wash your dishes, or yourself, in the river or lake. Maybe your soap is biodegradable and not a problem and you think the fish will love your food leavings, but neither of those things are true. Don’t introduce chemicals and compounds to the waterways that don’t belong there. Instead, swill your dishwater or bury it away from your camp and bodies of water.
5. There Is No Poop Fairy: Bury your poo (or that of your pet) or pack it out. “Wag bags” that allow you to cleanly and sanitarily capture and contain your waste for packing out are easy to find online or at outdoor gear shops. No one enjoys carrying their poo around, but removing that bacteria from the backcountry protects wildlife, waterways, plants, and other hikers who share the space. Carrying a designated dry bag to put the waste bags will eliminate the smell if done correctly. If for some reason you can’t pack out your waste, burry it at least 6-7 inches deep in a cathole at least 200 feet from water, trails, or camp. No one wants to happen upon waste that’s been left behind (pun intended).
6. Limit Overcrowding: Check trailhead cams, weather conditions, and ranger stations. If the trailhead is full, find another place to go. If the weather looks nasty, pick a different spot. Rangers can tell you about local wildlife, make trail recommendations, tell you what to avoid, and help you choose an adventure that fits your fitness and skill level.
7. Stay on Public Land: Augment your favorite crowd-sourced trails app with to make sure you’re on public land. Many apps like AllTrails, TrailForks, and Mountain Project do a great job of helping people explore and share their favorite places. But often, information that’s posted is not thoroughly vetted. OnX keeps an up-to-date database of land ownership and will help you determine if you’re allowed to be where you’re going, or if you might be trespassing.

“If users can help us be good stewards,” Farrell says, “that would be wonderful! If you see something you can help teach someone in a positive way, do it. We all started from nowhere and had to learn what we know.”

Protecting our backcountry spaces and waterways is a vital responsibility for all of us who recreate outdoors. Sometimes, that means making uncomfortable sacrifices, packing a little more weight, or finding adventures beyond our “normal.”

The outdoors is for everyone and being good and respectful stewards ensures that these beautiful places will stay that way for generations.

Originally published as “Backcountry Etiquette for the Masses” in the July-August 2021 issue.

Carol Corbin is an enthusiastic outdoorswoman and professional conservationist. She wrote about summer trip ideas in the May/June issue of Out There and may regret including too many of her favorite places.

For more stories about Leave No Trace, visit the OTO archives.

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Wanting to get a better sense of the world of backcountry and alpine running, I contacted Ken and Stephanie Eldore, who own Priest Lake Multisports. Their organization puts on many backcountry races each year.

“We both got really interested in trail running instead of road marathons because that’s where we live in North Idaho,” Ken says. “We’ve got all of this beautiful terrain and backcountry.” Out in nature, runs are naturally quieter, more serene. Trail races have a different feel, Ken says, because runners are more spread out over the course. You’re not elbow to elbow. “Runner density gets really spread out on a trail race…It’s you and the cedar trees and the huckleberry bushes.”

“Once I did my first trail 50k I kind of never looked back,” says Stephanie, who is now training for 100-milers and is a member of the Altra Red Team. The increase in distance and shift to trails has been a really fun progression she says. “I much prefer the trails, the beauty of it, the challenge.”

There’s something special about both the terrain and the people you encounter in backcountry running. “When I’m in a road race, surrounded by so many people, aid stations, cars, I don’t really have time to relax and unwind and kind of let go of things,” Stephanie says. “When I’m out on a trail, whether I’m in a race or not, it’s been very therapeutic for me. I can process grief, process life stresses.”

Trail running is also lower impact. “I notice my body handles it a lot better—my knees, my stomach, everything,” says Stephanie. The people they’ve met through trail running and organizing backcountry racing make up a community they treasure too. “I also really love the group of people you meet at trail races,” says Stephanie. “It’s kind of a mellower, lower key group of people. It’s very supportive.”

Ken agrees. “Trail running affords somebody to take on more of an individual athletic pursuit. It’s common for people to do more of a hiking combination with running, versus trying to beat the clock,” he explains. People seem to enjoy trail races more for the feat itself than their finish time. It’s about “the challenge of the individual doing it—their own self-accomplishment and not to PR the clock out there somewhere.”

New trail runners can start small, looking for local loops or out and backs without a lot of elevation gain. Make sure to pack your own hydration and fuel, a whistle, and bear spray, and be prepared to handle your own navigation. Though she’s never felt a sense of danger from animals, Stephanie has encountered plenty. “I’ve seen bears and I’ve seen moose, all sorts of critters. Just carrying [bear spray] gives you a little extra confidence.”

Chances are you might become just as hooked as the Eldores have—and you could also find yourself quickly plugged into the trail running community. “One of my first trail races I headed out on my own,” says Stephanie. “Within five miles I met a group of ladies. We ended up running the whole race together and we just became literally lifelong friends. You end up meeting likeminded people. I’ve just really loved it.”

To register for one of Priest Lake Multisports’ events (which range from 5ks up to ultras), go to priestlakerace.com.

Sarah Hauge is a Spokane-based runner, writer, and editor.

For more Run Wild column stories, visit the OTO archives.

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Gold Hill

This trail, on Bottle Bay, just south of Sandpoint, is one of the area’s venerable close-to-town rides. The trail climbs steadily for three miles through a hardwood forest that wouldn’t look out of place in the Northeast. The descent is quick, with plentiful side hits and root drops. Gold Hill is popular with hikers, dog-walkers, and trail runners; time your ride for off-peak hours.

Brush Lake

Built with bikes in mind and traversing beautiful hardwood forest and open meadows around its namesake lake, the 6-mile Brush Lake loop, north of Bonners Ferry, Idaho, makes for an excellent shoulder season ride. The free campground and a lake perfect for paddling make it an inviting destination for a summer weekend with tent and bikes in tow.

Mineral Point

Situated on a bluff overlooking Green Bay on Lake Pend Oreille, south of Sandpoint, Idaho, the Mineral Point trail network consists of six miles of cross-country riding amidst a dramatic lakeside landscape. Like Brush Lake the location makes for prime shoulder-season riding. Also like Brush Lake, Mineral Point doubles as a foundation for a bike-centric camping weekend, in this case from a base at Green Bay campground.

Ruby Ridge

One of the classic backcountry rides of the Idaho Panhandle, Ruby Ridge, north of Moyie Springs, boasts more than 4,000 vertical feet of brake-burning descending over the Moyie River valley. And with a mostly paved forest road—a rarity in a region of rough backcountry roadbeds—providing access to the trailhead at Keno Pass, it’s ideal for shuttling.

Sheldon Mountain

Built entirely by locals, the Sheldon Mountain trail, just outside Libby, Montana, offers the town’s only frontcountry riding opportunity. An at-times-grueling five-mile dirt-road climb deposits riders at the communication towers near the top of Sheldon Mountain. From here, two miles and 1,400 vertical feet of descending follow, first on fast sidehill singletrack and then on old roadbed-turned-trail. 

Originally published as “Mountain Bike Rides On The Way To The Yaak” sidebar in the May-June 2021 print edition for the feature story “Twenty Miles of Boondoggling: Backcountry Mountain Biking in the Yaak Valley.”

Aaron Theisen is an outdoor writer and photographer based in Spokane and longtime freelance contributor to Out There Venture magazine.

For more biking stories, visit the OTO archives.

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The short answer: more than was realistic. We’d intended to bike up over Bunker Hill, in northwest Montana’s Yaak Valley, and then continue along the Pacific Northwest Trail to Mount Henry and beyond, through some of the region’s most remote country. But after talking to the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) thru-hiker, and listening to our screaming calves, it became clear our ambition was losing a race against daylight. The even shorter answer: “let’s keep boondoggling.”

A few years ago, I was sitting in the Yaak River Tavern—one of two competing watering holes that make up this town in the far northwest corner of Montana—when I struck up a conversation about the area’s lakes with one of the patrons. “Oh, it’s just about 20 miles of boondoggling to get there,” he helpfully replied.

It was the first time I’d heard “boondoggle” used as a verb, but it wouldn’t be the last time I’d hear that term, or a variation of it, to describe adventures around the Yaak. Perhaps it’s the thick, trackless timber—the old-growth inland rainforests of the Yaak Valley were one of the flashpoints of the infamous Timbers Wars of the 1980s. Bushwhacking and misadventure are baked into the language.

As Erin and I discovered on our exploratory biking and fishing trip to the Yaak, the riding is legit, with miles of rough, seldom-used trails accessing larch-ringed alpine lakes and loam-filled forests. I’d hiked many of the trails in the region in years past and thought they’d make excellent bike trails, thanks to dreamy soil and long, open ridgelines. Of course, holding imaginary handlebars is a lot different than the real thing.

From a base camp on a bend in the Yaak River, which was quiet even on a long holiday weekend, we’d started our exploration in the Northwest Peak Scenic Area, just south of the Canadian border—as close as us Americans were going to get to BC for the foreseeable future. Hike-a-biking across talus slopes and negotiating narrow, root-strewn sidehills, we connected old roads with short stretches of singletrack that accessed high-elevation lakes. At the first of these lakes, we encountered a couple of chatty locals hiking out with the day’s catch.

“There’s so much boondocking to be done up in these mountains,” claimed the husband. Reminded of that years-ago bar-stool conversation, I instituted it as a mantra for the weekend: do you even boondoggle?

The mantra served us well the next day on the PNT. Faint even by the standards of backcountry Montana, the trail here was more of a suggestion than singletrack, like a thumbnail pressed into an orange peel. After several hours of granny-gear grinding interspersed with hiking, we topped out on Bunker Hill. Acres of gray snags greeted us, as did the tiny lookout tower on Mount Henry well beyond our reach.

Realizing we’d never make it there and back before dark, we settled on a backup plan, shortening our loop with an exit out Fish Lakes Canyon. But we forgot all thoughts of an aborted mission on the descent, where the only thing checking our speed was the need to keep an eye out for grizzlies.

After negotiating the bramble-choked talus slopes of Fish Lakes Canyon, we arrived back in Yaak, desperate for post-ride beverages. Seeing the activity at the Dirty Shame Saloon spilling into the street, and preferring to keep our misadventures to the trail, we didn’t stick around.

The next day, rain awakened us—quite literally, as we had to jump out of the tent to unfurl the rain fly. Things had been uncommonly crispy for a region that’s essentially inland rainforest. Along with much-needed moisture came a wind storm that, as we came to find out, stacked matchsticks of timber on the trails.

That day’s ride, the last of the trip, was otherwise unusually straightforward for the area. A dozen miles west of town, an hour-long gravel grind accesses Redtop, which drops 2,000 feet in two miles and has clearly seen some bike-friendly trail maintenance. After several days of bushwhacking and bike-carrying, we relaxed into an easier riding rhythm, surfing loose duff and shouting “tree!” when the lead rider encountered a downed log.

That is, until one downed log turned into three, then four, then an entire stretch of trail buried. In the Yaak, trees define everything, from the sounds—the ghostly sigh of snags, the disconcerting creaking of leaning trees—to the soft duff of the trail and the glorious shade. They define the economy and the way neighbors, next door but miles apart geographically and maybe politically, interact.

They force you under, over, around, and sometimes well off track. They always have the final say, and sometimes what they say is: how much were you planning on riding, anyway?

Originally published as “Twenty Miles Of Boondoggling—Backcountry Mountain Biking In The Yaak Valley” in the May-June 2021 print edition.

To complement a roadtrip to Montana’s Yaak Valley, Aaron Theisen’s recommends these 5 trails on the way.

Aaron Theisen has contributed to a number of mountain bike magazines, including “Freehub,” “Mountain Flyer,” and “Dirt Rag.” He wrote about biking at Beezley Hill for the November-December 2020 issue.

For more biking stories, visit the OTO archives.

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Here are some ways to start rounding out your backcountry skills:

• Ski seasonal roads. If you’re new to the sport or don’t have any snow-science education, seek out low-angle slopes away from avalanche danger and side-country options. The Summit Road at Mount Spokane State Park is a good place to start.
• Buy a beacon and practice. Even if you’re not heading into avalanche-prone terrain, it’s a good idea to build good habits.
• Read safety information and watch avy education videos online. The Northwest Avalanche Center has online education modules. The Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center also has tutorials on topics like how to read an avalanche forecast.

Find more Out There Venture’ mountain safety stories.

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Listening to the rolling hum of the creek while being swallowed up by the Sapphire Mountains delivers at least a couple moments of Zen. Fishing there in the fall, as the yellowing aspens and cottonwoods quake around you in a prophetic October breeze, is the closest I’ve ever been to feeling metaphysically transcendent. I craved that feeling, and so I drove four hours east with no plan and nothing more than my rod, reel, and a sleeping bag. 

Though I had fished the water a few times, as I took the exit just pass Clinton, I thought it best to pull into the Rock Creek Fisherman’s Mercantile for flies and a few last words of wisdom. It was a chilly and somewhat breezy morning, a day for sleeping in and watching the weather report. My car was the only one in the parking lot, and I was the only customer in the store.

“Can I help you?” The old woman from behind the counter asked. I stopped short of the flies, and stared with widening eyes at the bear spray canisters.

Holding up a bottle, I responded, “Um, I’m fishing alone. Will I need this stuff?”

“Well, you might run into a bear, but I’d be more afraid of running into a moose.”

“What should I do if I run into a moose?”

“If you’re fishing alone, talk louder to yourself.”

“Oh.” 

Armed with her advice, I decided the $40 bear spray would be best left for someone else.

Rock Creek has more than 30 miles of skinny road cutting through the Sapphires, and although I had planned to drive deep into the valley to fish a section I had never been to, I found myself pulling into the big dirt parking lot off Valley of the Moon Road just 2 miles past the Mercantile. The lower section of Rock Creek, and especially Valley of the Moon, hosts quite a few fishermen over the season. It’s easy to get to, and the trout see so many more offerings they become pickier about what they’ll bite. Normally I wouldn’t stop there, but I doubted I’d see a moose or bear in a place that was normally busy.

 Cutting down the well-worn path, I reached a plot of secluded bank. Cast after cast scuttled across the water. A quick shot under the false bank across from me; a gentle lay down upstream while mending line above a deep pool. A rainbow, a brown, even a brookie would make this day a success. I walked the banks and waded into the middle of the creek, hoping that a different angle might lead me to success. Hours went by.

Deciding it was a better tactic to change my fly than my location, and being too lazy to stumble across the smooth submerged rocks of the river to do so, I set to work snipping the streamer and trading it for a purple haze patterned fly. It was in this vulnerable position that the sound of sticks cracking came from the thicket upstream. 

I surveyed the dry creek bed that led into the tangle but saw nothing. Turning my attention back to securing a knot around the new bug, the slow breaking of brush was again audible. “Hello?” I said. No answer. Knowing the water was too deep to get to the other side of the creek, but that I didn’t want to come face to face with a moose or bear, I did what I had been instructed to do. I began singing loudly to myself.

“Now I’m free, free falllllliinnnn’… Now I’m freeee! Freee falllin’!”

Out of the bushes popped an older gentleman, perplexed by a man up to his waist with hands full of gear, singing Tom Petty in a cracking and nervous voice, staring right back at him. 

I nodded at him. “Thought you were a moose.”

He waved an obligatory hand toward me, but shook his head side to side as he ambled down the creek toward fish un-spooked by my karaoke. That day, I never did land a fish, but I did gain another tale in a storied place. Sometimes, that’s just as good—especially when you are unbothered by the black bears and moose.

Steve Hitchcock has been amassing stories for years in his time working for the SuperSonics, serving as a teacher, and going on a variety of outdoor boondoggles. He is the winner of this year’s Get Lit! and OTO Outdoor Writing Contest.

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