You’ve just finished packing up your gear and made sure that your favorite secret camping spot is in better shape than when you arrived. You’ve disposed of your waste properly and minimized your impact.

Suddenly, someone stumbles out of the tree line with a couple of sidekicks, tosses down a backpack and pulls a smartphone out of their cargo pants.

Two dozen photos and a short video later, all three cram their cell phone back in their shorts and excitedly speak how pristine the spot is. “This is great! And there’s hardly anybody here,” one of them says to another. “I can’t wait to post this stuff on Instagram and show everybody where we camped this weekend!”

With the advent of texting, tweets, drones with really good cameras, and phones that can take and post 12-megapixel photos and 4K video — along with their coordinates — it’s obviously past time to consider a nondisclosure agreement for Mother Nature’s treasured and off the beaten path locations.

The simple fact is wilderness (and the backcountry in particular) is taking a beating. And we all know what happens when Mother Nature isn’t happy.

Scientists Battle Location Giveaways on Social Media

Here’s a real-life example of why nature needs a nondisclosure agreement. I was guiding a research scientist on a trip to find an ancient bald cypress tree for his research. We spent hours paddling around to find the old tree, and when we did, the scientist wrote down the coordinates. He didn’t even share those coordinates with me in fear I might geotag a photo and post it online.

When I asked him to explain his clandestine actions, he told me that an enormous amount of damage has been done to ancient trees because coordinates have been posted along with pictures. He now refuses to geotag any of his posts.

And he has an excellent point. Close your eyes for a moment and picture that favorite spot that you found in your local woods, secret climbing crag, or untapped surf location. Now imagine dozens of billboards advertising those treasured spots, each boasting a million views and offering exact directions to each.

I can hear your screams from here. Can you hear mine? You would be angry on a volcanic level.

Strange and interesting things are afoot in the human-powered outdoor recreation community, and if you’ve been paying attention to issues surrounding the use of wilderness areas lately, what follows here might not come as a surprise.

What has emerged is a growing division among outdoor enthusiasts as to whether or not mountain bikes should be allowed in designated wilderness areas. The question, which has turned controversial as of late, fosters fears that mountain bike organizations are beginning to align themselves with companies, organizations and politicians insisting on making their way into wilderness areas for resource exploration.

Photo by Patrick Hendry | Sourced from Unsplash

But first, a brief description of how the U.S government defines wilderness:

“The Wilderness Act, signed into law in 1964, created the National Wilderness Preservation System and recognized wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” The Act further defined wilderness as “an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.“

That description also specifies that

We’re sure the good folks over at the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics know this, but tt was Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, the father of Boy Scouting, who coined the phrase, “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.”

This retired British Army officer and founder of the scouting movement was adamant about improving the environment back in 1910 — especially on the trail — and his rule was later revised to, “Always leave the campground cleaner than you found it.”

We here at The National Center for Outdoor Adventure & Education (NCOAE) are big fans of this “First Chief Scout,” who among many other wilderness rules, principles and musings, once said, “A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room.”

Figuratively speaking, that’s a page right out of our own curriculum.

Experiencing the outdoors outside far surpasses any classroom study or indoor book reading on the topic of

Here at The National Center for Outdoor Education & Adventure Education (NCOAE), we recently welcomed three new field instructors, a climbing instructor and a program coordinator to our outstanding team of staff members.

Earlier this year, these five candidates — two women and three men — successfully completed our Winter 2017 Instructor Candidate Training Program, becoming part of a staff treasure trove that annually attracts some of the best outdoor and experientially-based wilderness educators in the country.

Much of the success of our Instructor Candidate education goes to our training program, where NCOAE instructors work directly with candidates who — on their own steam — are highly qualified outdoor educators.

Many of these candidates have worked for top-drawer wilderness organizations, and our training serves as a means of taking their experience and fine-tuning it to fit NCOAE’s extremely comprehensive curriculum.

Our candidates tell us that despite their prior instructor training and experience, an intensive week of training at our North Carolina headquarters only serves to ratchet up that experience, giving them something more meaningful when guiding and instructing in the field with NCOAE’s students and participants.

But enough about us. Let’s meet these five new NCOAE staff members:

As 2016 comes to an end, we’re honored to take a moment out from our end-of-year activities to say thank everyone for their continued support and encouragement of The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE).

When our founders Zac & Celine Adair started this organization in 2009, their mission then for NCOAE was as clear as it is today — improve people’s self-confidence and interpersonal relationships through the teaching of a core curriculum emphasizing teamwork, environmental stewardship and the acquisition of technical outdoor skills. We’ve come a long way since 2009, and guided by that same mission, 2016 has been another year of phenomenal growth.

A few key highlights:

More and more individuals, families and outdoor organizations are going to great lengths to enjoy wilderness experiences in our national forests, but with this exploding trend, how are we addressing the impact on natural resources? What does the future hold for outdoor recreation areas and natural setting outdoor classrooms?

As professional members of the outdoor industry, we are constantly trying to increase the numbers of programs and the number of students who participate in outdoor recreation and adventure programming endeavors. We look for course areas that are pristine — mostly because no one else is visiting those areas — yet. But the reality is this: If we are researching an untouched course area for our organization, you can bet there are a hundred others doing the same thing.

As educators and outdoor education administrators, we know that in order to appreciate and protect a natural space, have to engage with it. To be shaped by the beauty of the outdoors, you must be given the opportunity to live in it. How can you appreciate and protect something you’ve never engaged with or seen?

The outdoor industry has been working with the

What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education, we’re expanding our outdoor educator-training program on a global scale and announcing a month-long training expedition that culminates in a Thanksgiving celebration in Patagonia — a remote region at the southernmost end of South America that is shared by Argentina and Chile.

That’s a large leap from our outdoor educator training programs in North Carolina on the Eastern seaboard and Oregon and California out West. But we’re excited to be spreading our wings, and we’re even going a step further by planning a second overseas training expedition next spring — this time to Kenya for a 33-Day Outdoor Educator Instructor Training – East Africa.

But first, back to our Patagonia training. The 31-Day Outdoor Educator Instructor Training – Patagonia is co-ed and targets college students, classroom teachers and novice outdoor educators who are 18 years and older. Tuition is just $6,600. We fly from Houston, Tex., and land in Santiago, Chile, where our local team has already worked out an invigorating itinerary.

Chile is a land of extremes, from the snow-capped volcanoes of Patagonia and dizzying heights of the Andes, to the driest desert on earth and the extensive southern glacial fields. We’ll be exploring some of the most beautiful mountains and rivers in the world, and we’ll see it with fellow explorers who have the same enthusiasm and zeal for the outdoors and education that you do.

And when it comes to gaining the experience and knowledge to become an outdoor educator, there are few better “classrooms” than Patagonia and the

It must have been about a year ago that we first wondered aloud if it’d be possible to put our backcountry knowledge and experiences on display for the benefit of the folks in our local community. As a national organization, we tend to think and operate big (visit our website and you’ll find NCOAE courses being offered in destinations like Hawaii, Wyoming and Oregon — all of which are thousands of miles from our world headquarters in Wilmington, N.C.). And the programs we do offer locally… well, they’re expensive and not the type of thing someone just signs up for out of the blue or on a moment’s notice.

Interested though in giving back to the community that has been so great for our nonprofit, we recently approached the good folks over at the Great Outdoor Provisions Co. to see if they’d be interested in having our founders, guides and instructors offer free workshops to their customers at their Wilmington store. After a few conversations about topics, dates and logistics, we got it all worked out.

Starting in January, NCOAE will be presenting the following monthly “Campfire Conversations” — free workshops and talks — at the Great Outdoor Provisions Co. store in Wilmington:

• January 5, 2015 (6-8pm)— Understanding Leave No Trace: The Leave No Trace Awareness Workshop
• February 2, 2015 (6-8pm)— One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Everything you need to know about choosing women’s outdoor gear
• March 9, 2015 (6-8pm) — Cooking In The Backcountry: Tips, tricks and warnings for beginners to sous-chefs
• April 6, 2015 (6-8pm) — Backpacking With Kids: How to prepare and pull off a great backcountry experience with your kids
• May 2015 (date & time TBA) — Your Weekend Adventure Awaits: Three-day trips that are local, affordable and well within your reach
• June 2015 (date & time TBD)— Wilderness Medicine: What you need to know to be safe, confident and helpful in emergency situations in the backcountry

If you’re really interested in making the wilderness your home office, there are few programs that can get you started that are as basic and important as our Leave No Trace Trainer Course.

Even if you have experience as a wilderness guide or outdoor educator, this two-day training gets you to a point where you can enthusiastically acquire, endorse and practice the seven principles that make up the successful Leave No Trace (LNT) philosophy.

Best news yet: We’ve still got space available for our Sept. 4 and 5 LTN Trainer course, which takes place in Wilmington, N.C. We’ve worked with LNT to ensure this course is ideal for educators, guides, agency employees and other outdoor education professionals. Successful graduates gain skills to teach Leave No Trace techniques and ethics to their co-workers, clients, friends and family.

Ours is a short and simple course — unlike the more advanced Master Educator LNT Training. And that’s not a bad thing, because as a result, it’s