Our Mission
With pop culture's embrace of the curative benefits of unplugging and #optingoutside, more and more city dwellers are escaping to the backcountry. As the crowds increase, so does our impact. But a little knowledge can go a long way to reducing our footprint and preserving the outdoor spaces we love. It isn't our goal to make every reader a forest ranger; we simply hope to help demystify backcountry best practices, provide simple routines for everyday needs, and answer those most basic questions like, "How DO you poop in the woods?"
Who Are "We?"
This is me, cracking up on a lake.
Julia Renn, Sylvan Pooper
I live near bustling Boulder, Colorado, where EVERYONE is an outdoor aficionado. When I moved here nearly a decade ago, the extent of my relevant experience was camping at KOAs during road trips in my family’s Ford van. Through the grace of Google, I survived enough backcountry misadventures to call myself competent. I love hiking, trail running, camping, backpacking, and collapsing my gear into tiny, perfectly sandwiching parcels that Tetris into my backpack like a work of modern art.
I'm not a professional outdoors-woman, but since falling in love with backpacking, I've tried to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible. When I'm not toiling away at my 9-5, you can find me patrolling Indian Peaks Wilderness Area as a Forest Service volunteer, expanding my outdoor knowledge through classes at Women's Wilderness Institute, brushing up on Wilderness First Aid, or backpacking with and reading articles by people much smarter than me.
Hopefully my experiences have taught me a thing or two that can be helpful to fellow explorers who may, from time to time, find themselves a little lost.