alright so I’m on a I’m on a mission to
mobilize an army of outdoor enthusiasts
to make a difference while they play and
I need your help to do it so I’m going
to start a little further back in 2004 I
went out to hike the Appalachian Trail
now this photo up here the one with the
rocks is from somewhere in Pennsylvania
the running joke in the Appalachian
Trail is that the boy scouts come out
every single night and sharpen these
rocks it’s true to their really sharp
and I can attest to that with my bloody
ankles as I had fallen 13 or 14 times
walking across endless rains pretty
miserable three months into my track
with three months more to go and I had
fallen yet again and not a frustration I
picked up one of these rocks and I
chucked it at a tree I took a huge chunk
out of that tree and killed it sorry
everybody well I felt like the lowest
person on earth for doing this it was
really a low point for me and I kind of
vowed in that moment and feeling like
one of the most selfish people on earth
like I would stand up keep walking but
but always make something more of my
time outside like I’d make a difference
while I’m out there so I went and worked
in wilderness therapy for a few years
taking kids who had alcohol and drug
problems up into the mountains and you
know I had an amazing time and learned a
ton about myself and was able to help a
lot of kids that way but it’s it still
didn’t speak to me it wasn’t really what
I was looking for and at the same time I
got pretty burned out pretty quickly I
needed to go take a little walk so in
2006 I set out to Ecuador a tiny town of
Papa Q octa which is just about point
three degrees south of the Equator under
the cotopaxi volcano and I walked south
it’s close to the spine of the Andes as
I could without relying on roads myself
one friend and a couple backpacks and we
ended at the island of Tierra del Fuego
at the very very southern tip of that
island is a little lighthouse that
lighthouse marked the end of our journey
which lasted six hundred and sixty seven
days just under twenty two months or two
years
five countries we covered Ecuador Peru
Bolivia Chile Argentina and we guessed
the track to be about 7,800 miles it’s
kind of hard to say we had a GPS with us
for I don’t know maybe two-thirds of the
time we’d turn it on two to three times
a day so we have straight lines in
between each of our points so we guess
it to be 7,500 maybe 8,500 miles doesn’t
really matter at that point we went
through a lot of hardship on this track
it was tough we went through things like
this turbo field peat bog for four
straight days we covered this each night
we’d set up our tent water would fill
the tent along the way we got Giardia
diagnosed three separate times I had
typhoid fever I got dysentery I got
roundworms I got flatworms pinworms I
even had a warm bore into my heel and
lay about a thousand eggs that was a fun
one well as fun and challenging or is
difficult and challenging as it was it
was also a pretty amazing and on this
journey I was exposed to flora and fauna
like I had never seen before vicuna and
guanaco out in the pompe I fell in love
with this stuff crikey we’ve just
encountered here deep in the Amazon
basin one of the rare bear walk crikey
got to find me look at him isn’t he
beautiful ball we got to see anaconda in
the Amazon we even got to see monkeys
flying over our heads so this was
amazing to me I’ve never seen stuff like
this before and I just fell in love with
everything around me but I realized that
I just didn’t quite know about it like I
wanted to I didn’t understand it like I
wanted to and I knew it all fit together
in this beautiful puzzle so I finished
this track i came home i got a degree
from montana state and ecology within a
year of returning and started working as
a field biologist i went to california
and had the pleasure of tracking owls
through the California forest if you
guys haven’t gone out hooting for owls
in California please do it’s pretty
amazing I got to track links and
Wolverines and grizzly bears up in
Montana I even got to go look at
endangered pallid sturgeon out on the
Fort Peck wet Fort Peck reservoir and
what I learned from all this was that
not only was I making a difference and
playing like I wanted to play but that
it was easy that it wasn’t just me who
could do this stuff I didn’t have any
special skills and so I realized that
anybody could do this so i created an
organization to make that possible
adventurers and scientists for
conservation very simply our mission is
the combination of adventure and science
the two together have coexisted for
centuries but we’re doing it in a little
bit of a different way the reason we
exist is
very clear as you look around our planet
and you cross the oceans and you go over
land no matter where it is we need to
know more I love this quote from all the
Leopold that only those who know the
most about it can appreciate how little
we know about it and it’s so true well
at the same time that that is the case
there are tens of thousands of people
who go outside every day they’re the
hikers the bikers the skiers the
climbers the boaters people crossing
oceans and they truly truly love the
places that they’re playing they want to
do more for those places they’ve had
that same selfish feeling that I did and
now they can through our organization so
we have two main sides of this
organization there’s guided outings and
partnerships I’ll start with our
partnerships today and tell you a little
bit about those before moving on to
those guided outings so the way it works
is people come here to our website you
choose where you want to go what
continent you want to visit we’re in
North America so we’ll choose that today
and we give you a few suggestions up on
our website so some examples of things
that we’ve been doing like diatom
collections and citation sightings so
projects that people can look through
and if you don’t see anything you like
here you can build your own project
anywhere on earth that you’re going in
any spot we’ve got a scientist or we can
find one that needs you to collect data
form so once that happens we’re going to
partner you with that scientist after we
find you a project and you’re going to
get to do a call like this where you’ll
interact directly with your scientist
we’re going to get you through protocols
you’ll be able to ask questions we have
opportunities for you to go into the
field and practice before you go on your
expedition or before you go out on your
hikes a lot of times we have really long
hikes your summer even two years where
people can go and start collecting data
so maybe the first couple days is not
usable data but then once we really fine
tune it and get it dialed we find that
we’ve had a really high success rate
with people being able to collect good
usable data so some highlights from our
first couple years is that we’ve sent
more than 80 people out on the Pacific
Crest Trail to collect data on
an indicator species for climate change
once they enter that data into a website
it shows up on our website and populates
this field you can see research-grade
over there now that research grade means
that it’s been independently verified by
a separate scientist they’ve looked at
the photo they’ve looked at the location
they’ve confirmed it’s a pyka and now
that will stand up to peer review
another highlight ice worms we’ve
collected ice worms from glaciers all
throughout Alaska the Pacific Northwest
these things are super cool I’ve got a
little video to share we’ve had a great
time we had a fantastic trip and it’s
just kind of fun to be able to put some
science in the mix and and get some of
these ice wines collected for us for
some studies so you should be able to
see them right in the bottom there yeah
we got him so one of our favorite
expeditions and one of the things I’m
most proud of is really early on Willy
and Damien banegas from the north face
climbing team we’re able to go out and
collect the highest known plant life on
Earth up at 22,000 feet on Mount Everest
the shattered the previous record it was
around 17,500 feet before this and as
Damian here is collecting this plant
life up at a little tiny granite slab
just above camp two on Everest you can
see he’s really digging for it you can
hear him wheezing in the background but
this moss that he pulled out of the
rocks we knew was there from a previous
expedition to the area but we had never
had a sample of it so pretty amazing
opportunity for us to be able to send
him out there pick up these samples it
wasn’t that Moss itself that we were so
concerned with and so excited by or
rather rusty Rodriguez was so excited by
but rather a fungus that grows
symbiotically with that moss now that
fungus has been found in places like the
Yellowstone thermals it’s been found in
desert conditions it’s been found in
other frost rich conditions and our hope
is that we can grow this ma
symbiotically with agricultural
materials and not need to rely on GMO
foods so a pretty exciting opportunity
with that one all around the world as
you look across all the continents more
than 1,200 athletes have gone out
collecting data for more than a
20 different science projects at this
point and we’ve saved the conservation
and research communities millions of
dollars by doing that some other quick
highlights we did discover for new
species of diatoms this year we’ve had
microbes collected up at 23,000 feet
scat samples from coyotes we’re looking
at hybridization between wolves and
coyotes there’s really no limit to what
these studies in these expeditions can
achieve out there so I also get to take
these journeys in addition to just
sending everybody else out on them I was
a grantee this year from the National
Geographic expeditions Council thank you
guys so much again I got to go to the
northernmost part of Mongolia to the
region called the DAR HOD right next to
Lake off school and our goal was really
to find signs of these guys Wolverines
we have Wolverines in North America but
we didn’t know anything about this
population up in Mongolia and we’re
looking for the signs of these things
when we go out it’s pretty unlikely that
you’re going to go and just find
Wolverine so we look for the tracks and
we collect scats for DNA evidence as we
go so we expected to find one maybe two
sets of tracks as we were out there and
on the very first day an hour into our
expedition we found our first Wolverine
track well then we found Wolverine
tracks every single day from then until
the end of the expedition we skied for
23 days 230 miles or so picks up 27 sets
of tracks collected 33 scat samples
which all go now to the local director
of the conservation area tumor siq who
takes that information and is able to
take his army of 32 guards and manage
that area in a far better way so if
we’re super excited about that it was a
huge accomplishment who knows what this
is shout it out if you know it that’s
right I heard it once or twice so this
is an area where snow leopards were
listed by the iucn as probably extent so
there was no confirmation that they were
there and that’s actually right at the
edge of that area where they were not
supposed to be and where they are so we
were needless to say pretty elated when
we found this set of snow leopard tracks
jumping up and down
driving each other right there in the
field it was a pretty amazing moment for
us and for our expedition to
successfully find these we were more
than elated so I mentioned there’s two
sides of the organization I do want to
talk a little bit about our guided
outings as well so I really like the
idea of engaging everybody so an outdoor
enthusiast doesn’t need to be climbing
Everest they can be somebody who just
loves the outdoors and so along those
lines we work with students we take
military veterans out we take agencies
nonprofits businesses universities
community groups whoever is interested
in joining us in the field we’ve got
projects that we can work with them
students it’s one that is really dear to
my heart working in wilderness therapy
for so long I love working with kids
this past year we were able to take a
group of seventh graders from West
Oakland middle school up above Lake
Tahoe to the desolation wilderness where
they collected the first known evidence
of pyka an indicator species for climate
change and smallest member of the rabbit
family up in this wilderness area it was
an amazing expedition so in addition to
that five days that they got to come out
backpacking with us they also got to be
scientists for the day we had Joseph
Stewart from University of nevada-reno
come out and join us as well so they got
to interact directly with the scientist
to in the olympic national forest we set
up a group of wildlife cams this is a
bobcat here and he’s picking out a
beaver carcass that the FWP had
eliminated this guy was pretty
persistent he spent ten hours picking at
this carcass ten hours straight and this
was the day before we came and rechecked
the camera so we were able to rebate it
the next day we see really cool things
when we do these projects like mountain
lions I mentioned this was in the
olympic national forest we were up there
basically the way it worked is people
come out and they become responsible for
these drainages they become responsible
for an entire period of time so there’s
continued engagement they keep coming
back time and time again so they
essentially learn how to set up the
cameras they learn how to bait him they
learn how to change the batteries and
then they’ll spend the next four months
going out and checking these learning
how to track along the way so it was for
pine marten was our primary species of
interest here but in 2001 the Forest
Service had reintroduced Fisher into
that area and had since lost track of
the Fisher because batteries died on GPS
collars and they weren’t sure how the
population was doing well we were again
elated to be able to find these photos
to be able to prove that fish are still
utilizing this area an outer fringes of
that ecosystem another tremendous
success for us so as you go all around
the world it’s the people like you it’s
the people who love the outdoors it’s
the people who care about the places
they play that have come to us and asked
us to help them make a difference
there’s all kinds of different folks and
I really want to reiterate that you can
all get involved I hope you will all get
involved you can help support our
programs and I hope you come and visit
our website check us out thanks
Oh
mobilize an army of outdoor enthusiasts
to make a difference while they play and
I need your help to do it so I’m going
to start a little further back in 2004 I
went out to hike the Appalachian Trail
now this photo up here the one with the
rocks is from somewhere in Pennsylvania
the running joke in the Appalachian
Trail is that the boy scouts come out
every single night and sharpen these
rocks it’s true to their really sharp
and I can attest to that with my bloody
ankles as I had fallen 13 or 14 times
walking across endless rains pretty
miserable three months into my track
with three months more to go and I had
fallen yet again and not a frustration I
picked up one of these rocks and I
chucked it at a tree I took a huge chunk
out of that tree and killed it sorry
everybody well I felt like the lowest
person on earth for doing this it was
really a low point for me and I kind of
vowed in that moment and feeling like
one of the most selfish people on earth
like I would stand up keep walking but
but always make something more of my
time outside like I’d make a difference
while I’m out there so I went and worked
in wilderness therapy for a few years
taking kids who had alcohol and drug
problems up into the mountains and you
know I had an amazing time and learned a
ton about myself and was able to help a
lot of kids that way but it’s it still
didn’t speak to me it wasn’t really what
I was looking for and at the same time I
got pretty burned out pretty quickly I
needed to go take a little walk so in
2006 I set out to Ecuador a tiny town of
Papa Q octa which is just about point
three degrees south of the Equator under
the cotopaxi volcano and I walked south
it’s close to the spine of the Andes as
I could without relying on roads myself
one friend and a couple backpacks and we
ended at the island of Tierra del Fuego
at the very very southern tip of that
island is a little lighthouse that
lighthouse marked the end of our journey
which lasted six hundred and sixty seven
days just under twenty two months or two
years
five countries we covered Ecuador Peru
Bolivia Chile Argentina and we guessed
the track to be about 7,800 miles it’s
kind of hard to say we had a GPS with us
for I don’t know maybe two-thirds of the
time we’d turn it on two to three times
a day so we have straight lines in
between each of our points so we guess
it to be 7,500 maybe 8,500 miles doesn’t
really matter at that point we went
through a lot of hardship on this track
it was tough we went through things like
this turbo field peat bog for four
straight days we covered this each night
we’d set up our tent water would fill
the tent along the way we got Giardia
diagnosed three separate times I had
typhoid fever I got dysentery I got
roundworms I got flatworms pinworms I
even had a warm bore into my heel and
lay about a thousand eggs that was a fun
one well as fun and challenging or is
difficult and challenging as it was it
was also a pretty amazing and on this
journey I was exposed to flora and fauna
like I had never seen before vicuna and
guanaco out in the pompe I fell in love
with this stuff crikey we’ve just
encountered here deep in the Amazon
basin one of the rare bear walk crikey
got to find me look at him isn’t he
beautiful ball we got to see anaconda in
the Amazon we even got to see monkeys
flying over our heads so this was
amazing to me I’ve never seen stuff like
this before and I just fell in love with
everything around me but I realized that
I just didn’t quite know about it like I
wanted to I didn’t understand it like I
wanted to and I knew it all fit together
in this beautiful puzzle so I finished
this track i came home i got a degree
from montana state and ecology within a
year of returning and started working as
a field biologist i went to california
and had the pleasure of tracking owls
through the California forest if you
guys haven’t gone out hooting for owls
in California please do it’s pretty
amazing I got to track links and
Wolverines and grizzly bears up in
Montana I even got to go look at
endangered pallid sturgeon out on the
Fort Peck wet Fort Peck reservoir and
what I learned from all this was that
not only was I making a difference and
playing like I wanted to play but that
it was easy that it wasn’t just me who
could do this stuff I didn’t have any
special skills and so I realized that
anybody could do this so i created an
organization to make that possible
adventurers and scientists for
conservation very simply our mission is
the combination of adventure and science
the two together have coexisted for
centuries but we’re doing it in a little
bit of a different way the reason we
exist is
very clear as you look around our planet
and you cross the oceans and you go over
land no matter where it is we need to
know more I love this quote from all the
Leopold that only those who know the
most about it can appreciate how little
we know about it and it’s so true well
at the same time that that is the case
there are tens of thousands of people
who go outside every day they’re the
hikers the bikers the skiers the
climbers the boaters people crossing
oceans and they truly truly love the
places that they’re playing they want to
do more for those places they’ve had
that same selfish feeling that I did and
now they can through our organization so
we have two main sides of this
organization there’s guided outings and
partnerships I’ll start with our
partnerships today and tell you a little
bit about those before moving on to
those guided outings so the way it works
is people come here to our website you
choose where you want to go what
continent you want to visit we’re in
North America so we’ll choose that today
and we give you a few suggestions up on
our website so some examples of things
that we’ve been doing like diatom
collections and citation sightings so
projects that people can look through
and if you don’t see anything you like
here you can build your own project
anywhere on earth that you’re going in
any spot we’ve got a scientist or we can
find one that needs you to collect data
form so once that happens we’re going to
partner you with that scientist after we
find you a project and you’re going to
get to do a call like this where you’ll
interact directly with your scientist
we’re going to get you through protocols
you’ll be able to ask questions we have
opportunities for you to go into the
field and practice before you go on your
expedition or before you go out on your
hikes a lot of times we have really long
hikes your summer even two years where
people can go and start collecting data
so maybe the first couple days is not
usable data but then once we really fine
tune it and get it dialed we find that
we’ve had a really high success rate
with people being able to collect good
usable data so some highlights from our
first couple years is that we’ve sent
more than 80 people out on the Pacific
Crest Trail to collect data on
an indicator species for climate change
once they enter that data into a website
it shows up on our website and populates
this field you can see research-grade
over there now that research grade means
that it’s been independently verified by
a separate scientist they’ve looked at
the photo they’ve looked at the location
they’ve confirmed it’s a pyka and now
that will stand up to peer review
another highlight ice worms we’ve
collected ice worms from glaciers all
throughout Alaska the Pacific Northwest
these things are super cool I’ve got a
little video to share we’ve had a great
time we had a fantastic trip and it’s
just kind of fun to be able to put some
science in the mix and and get some of
these ice wines collected for us for
some studies so you should be able to
see them right in the bottom there yeah
we got him so one of our favorite
expeditions and one of the things I’m
most proud of is really early on Willy
and Damien banegas from the north face
climbing team we’re able to go out and
collect the highest known plant life on
Earth up at 22,000 feet on Mount Everest
the shattered the previous record it was
around 17,500 feet before this and as
Damian here is collecting this plant
life up at a little tiny granite slab
just above camp two on Everest you can
see he’s really digging for it you can
hear him wheezing in the background but
this moss that he pulled out of the
rocks we knew was there from a previous
expedition to the area but we had never
had a sample of it so pretty amazing
opportunity for us to be able to send
him out there pick up these samples it
wasn’t that Moss itself that we were so
concerned with and so excited by or
rather rusty Rodriguez was so excited by
but rather a fungus that grows
symbiotically with that moss now that
fungus has been found in places like the
Yellowstone thermals it’s been found in
desert conditions it’s been found in
other frost rich conditions and our hope
is that we can grow this ma
symbiotically with agricultural
materials and not need to rely on GMO
foods so a pretty exciting opportunity
with that one all around the world as
you look across all the continents more
than 1,200 athletes have gone out
collecting data for more than a
20 different science projects at this
point and we’ve saved the conservation
and research communities millions of
dollars by doing that some other quick
highlights we did discover for new
species of diatoms this year we’ve had
microbes collected up at 23,000 feet
scat samples from coyotes we’re looking
at hybridization between wolves and
coyotes there’s really no limit to what
these studies in these expeditions can
achieve out there so I also get to take
these journeys in addition to just
sending everybody else out on them I was
a grantee this year from the National
Geographic expeditions Council thank you
guys so much again I got to go to the
northernmost part of Mongolia to the
region called the DAR HOD right next to
Lake off school and our goal was really
to find signs of these guys Wolverines
we have Wolverines in North America but
we didn’t know anything about this
population up in Mongolia and we’re
looking for the signs of these things
when we go out it’s pretty unlikely that
you’re going to go and just find
Wolverine so we look for the tracks and
we collect scats for DNA evidence as we
go so we expected to find one maybe two
sets of tracks as we were out there and
on the very first day an hour into our
expedition we found our first Wolverine
track well then we found Wolverine
tracks every single day from then until
the end of the expedition we skied for
23 days 230 miles or so picks up 27 sets
of tracks collected 33 scat samples
which all go now to the local director
of the conservation area tumor siq who
takes that information and is able to
take his army of 32 guards and manage
that area in a far better way so if
we’re super excited about that it was a
huge accomplishment who knows what this
is shout it out if you know it that’s
right I heard it once or twice so this
is an area where snow leopards were
listed by the iucn as probably extent so
there was no confirmation that they were
there and that’s actually right at the
edge of that area where they were not
supposed to be and where they are so we
were needless to say pretty elated when
we found this set of snow leopard tracks
jumping up and down
driving each other right there in the
field it was a pretty amazing moment for
us and for our expedition to
successfully find these we were more
than elated so I mentioned there’s two
sides of the organization I do want to
talk a little bit about our guided
outings as well so I really like the
idea of engaging everybody so an outdoor
enthusiast doesn’t need to be climbing
Everest they can be somebody who just
loves the outdoors and so along those
lines we work with students we take
military veterans out we take agencies
nonprofits businesses universities
community groups whoever is interested
in joining us in the field we’ve got
projects that we can work with them
students it’s one that is really dear to
my heart working in wilderness therapy
for so long I love working with kids
this past year we were able to take a
group of seventh graders from West
Oakland middle school up above Lake
Tahoe to the desolation wilderness where
they collected the first known evidence
of pyka an indicator species for climate
change and smallest member of the rabbit
family up in this wilderness area it was
an amazing expedition so in addition to
that five days that they got to come out
backpacking with us they also got to be
scientists for the day we had Joseph
Stewart from University of nevada-reno
come out and join us as well so they got
to interact directly with the scientist
to in the olympic national forest we set
up a group of wildlife cams this is a
bobcat here and he’s picking out a
beaver carcass that the FWP had
eliminated this guy was pretty
persistent he spent ten hours picking at
this carcass ten hours straight and this
was the day before we came and rechecked
the camera so we were able to rebate it
the next day we see really cool things
when we do these projects like mountain
lions I mentioned this was in the
olympic national forest we were up there
basically the way it worked is people
come out and they become responsible for
these drainages they become responsible
for an entire period of time so there’s
continued engagement they keep coming
back time and time again so they
essentially learn how to set up the
cameras they learn how to bait him they
learn how to change the batteries and
then they’ll spend the next four months
going out and checking these learning
how to track along the way so it was for
pine marten was our primary species of
interest here but in 2001 the Forest
Service had reintroduced Fisher into
that area and had since lost track of
the Fisher because batteries died on GPS
collars and they weren’t sure how the
population was doing well we were again
elated to be able to find these photos
to be able to prove that fish are still
utilizing this area an outer fringes of
that ecosystem another tremendous
success for us so as you go all around
the world it’s the people like you it’s
the people who love the outdoors it’s
the people who care about the places
they play that have come to us and asked
us to help them make a difference
there’s all kinds of different folks and
I really want to reiterate that you can
all get involved I hope you will all get
involved you can help support our
programs and I hope you come and visit
our website check us out thanks
Oh
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