Last week, I was off work recovering from surgery (I said goodbye to Gary the Grumpy Gallbladder and his stoned band).
Once home from the hospital, I had a post-surgery brain that left me literally staring at the wall for disturbing lengths of time. So, by Day 3, I decided to distract myself with an online course
I ended up taking two free : 101, and Backcountry.
As someone who has camped and hiked literally since I was an infant, I figured there wasn’t much I could learn, which would be fine given my wall-staring brain state. And given the negative impact humans are having on the Sea to Sky Corridor, it seemed like a worthy endevour.
I was wrong. There was much to learn!
Here are 12 points from the courses that stopped me in my tracks:
•Fewer than 25 passes hiking on sensitive vegetation can permanently damage sensitive plants.
•15 centimetres (six inches) of compacted snow protects plants during winter from hikers’ impacts.
•As little as 40 decibels of noise will alter wildlife behaviour. (A stream or refrigerator hum is 40 db.)
•When the trail is covered in puddles or mud, we want to walk right through it to prevent it from widening.
•Over 100 types of bacteria and viruses have been identified in human waste.
•Orange peel takes two years to decompose.
•Aluminum takes 100 years to decompose.
•Diapers take hundreds of years to decay.
•A glass bottle might take 1,000,000 years to biodegrade.
•Plastics never biodegrade.
•The thumb trick for viewing wildlife: Aim your thumb at the wildlife you see. If you can cover the entire animal, you are an appropriate distance away. If not, back up slowly until you can cover them.
•Heading out, it is important to have 1/2 litre of water per hour of activity.
Even if you haven’t been sidelined by your own Gary the Gallbladder, I recommend taking the Leave No Trace courses. You might be as surprised as I was by what you can learn.
Go to to sign up.
