The Beginning of Footprints Running Camp

I spent two weeks in Juneau, Alaska with Geoff Roes in June 2018 and had the best time ever. The mountains up there are absolutely stunning and the quality of the mountain running is unparalleled anywhere I’ve been in the world. The best part, though, was the camp. Geoff organizes two or three camps each summer that each last a week and take runners all over the trails above Juneau. I got to be part of one of these camps and the part I was most impacted by was how positive the group was, and how much fun we had together. I got to meet a lot of people from many different places and everybody had an interesting story and a diverse perspective. As soon as it was over, I decided I wanted to organize something similar.

But it didn’t make sense to me to simply recreate Geoff’s camp somewhere else. I think Geoff was one of the first runners I knew to organize a camp, but now it seems like everybody’s organizing one. If the only reason I wanted to organize a camp was to spend a week running in a cool place with good people, I could probably just reach out to all my friends who run camps and ask to be a guest runner at one per year. That way I’d get to do it all the time! But I realized that wouldn’t accomplish my larger goals in life, which are nearly all focused on promoting environmental stewardship in various forms. That, I came to understand after thinking long and hard about it, was my niche. An environmental camp would be my way to create a positive impact in the sport.

What led me to this conclusion was not so much the running part of the camp; instead, it was the camaraderie. A group of people who knew each other not at all spent a week together and became close friends. By sharing challenging but uplifting experiences, people create connections. That is my definition of context, and context, more than anything else, is the theme of this camp. If I tell you to drive less or eat local so that you’ll have less of an impact on the planet, you might be able to categorize that information in your brain with your general understanding that in order to survive we need healthy water and crops, and that means we need a stable climate and so on and so forth. But it has almost no relation to your daily life. If you’re like me, your desire to help the planet is almost entirely based on an academic understanding of basic Biology, not on personal experience. Because of this, it’s very easy not to take action.

The goal of Footprints Running Camp is to contextualize environmental action in such a way that it is directly applicable to something we care deeply about. In this case, that context is running and, more generally, the outdoor industry. But the context could literally be any shared interest that brings people together. Of course, the motivation to take action may initially come from an academic understanding of environmental issues rather than personal experience, but that’s enough to get motivated people going. At our camp, we aim to get a bunch of people who are willing to devote time and energy to combat environmental issues into the same room, and at that point we’ll have a shared interest in both those issues and in running. Then we will spend a week learning from scientists who understand these issues more deeply than almost anyone else, and they’re going to teach us about both what’s going on from a scientific perspective as well as how to take action on these issues within the context of the outdoor industry. In the end, we hope to create specific environmental solutions tailored to the outdoor industry, then tell the story of what those are and how they came to be. If everything works out, they’ll be both understandable and inspiring, and people around the world will reproduce our solutions or create their own in the same manner.

If you’re wondering what those solutions are, the answer is that I don’t know yet. That’s the point of the camp. To enter the camp, each applicant must come up with their own solution to an issue in their own community, then present it to us. We’ll choose the ten we think are the best fit for the camp and invite them to join us in Silverton, Colorado next July 19-26. At this point we’re focusing on college-aged runners between the ages of 18-24, but in the future we aim to expand this to many other demographics. As the camp progresses we will continually update the world with what these projects are and what actions we’re taking on them, and at the end of the camp each participant will present their project to the world through various media. We hope to compile these presentations into a series of short films as well as a possible book. The end goal is to basically do the opposite of what most businesses do and tell the whole world exactly what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how.

We have now launched the website, the fundraising page, and the application process. The permits are being processed. The Opus Hut is reserved for our dates. We have wonderful sponsors supporting us and the help of thousands of committed runners from around the world. If you think we’re doing a good thing, please consider donating or purchasing a hat or a t-shirt. Also, reach out to let us know what we could be doing better - we welcome constructive criticism. This is meant to be a collaborative process, and we want as many people on board as possible. Thanks for checking out the site and taking an interest. Now go outside and do something you love in a beautiful place, and while you’re doing that, think about something you can do to protect that place. We all have a role to play.