Eco-Travel in our own backyard
Take only pictures; leave only footprints.
Shelley Seale
Photo by Christian Heeb/Wanderlust Tours
There is an old saying popular with park rangers and campers when enjoying the great outdoors: “Take only pictures and leave only footprints.”
While many of us subscribe to this philosophy, it isn’t always obvious how to make the right low-impact choices when planning an outdoor adventure. As more people become concerned with global warming and environmental damage, savvy travelers are increasingly looking for ways to incorporate green practices into their vacations.
The good news for those of us living in the Northwest is that here, it’s not difficult to do. The Northwest has been the leader in many facets of the green revolution, from renewable energy to home building to travel. A plethora of green vacation options are available without even leaving the area — and contributing even more to the negative aspects of travel with those pesky carbon-emitting flights.
“Green guilt” is a popular pastime, but traveling responsibly is not just about doing your part to save the planet.
“Traveling green is just a much higher quality of experience,” says Jake Haupert, founder of EverGreen Escapes in Seattle. “When you can see and understand the ecology systems of the place, you can experience it much more fully.”
With that in mind, here are a number of fun, planet-friendly adventures that await you in the beautiful Northwest.
A panoramic Snoqualmie Valley spreads out below this hiker on an EverGreen Escapes tour.
On the Mountains
When Seattleite Meilee Anderson, a self-professed “reformed couch potato,” took her first eco-adventure — a hike along Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic Peninsula — she carried her purse on the trek along the jagged peaks covered in snow.
“Seriously, what was I thinking?” she laughs now. “I was accustomed to seeing a place on a website or reading a magazine, but not actually getting out in the big outdoors.”
Anderson, who works at Seattle Southside tourism office, discovered EverGreen Escapes when researching an eco-friendly company to speak about eco-tourism at a trade show. She liked the company’s style so much that she left her city-girl comfort zone to venture on one of their trips.
The mountain treks offered by EverGreen Escapes include half-, full-, and multi-day trips that offer adventures such as beginning rock climbing, snowshoeing, and hikes over cliffs and mountain ridges.
Mount Rainier National Park is one of the best places in Washington for eco-adventures. At over 14,000 feet, the mountain is an active volcano encased in over 35 square miles of snow and ice, surrounded by old growth forest and stunning wildflower meadows. In Oregon, Mount Hood (11,245 feet) is the ultimate outdoor playground, with everything from downhill and cross-country skiing to biking, horseback riding or rafting.
“The best part of the adventure was being so inspired — and empowered,” Anderson recalls of her trek. “The guides entertained and educated us.” Trip highlights, she said, were the outstanding organic food and riding in the cool bio-diesel powered Mercedes vans used by EverGreen Escapes. “It’s a whole new world to go beyond a cubicle and feel the wind on your face, hear the roar of the surf, and touch these amazing places.”
On the Water
Imagine experiencing, up close and personal, waterfalls hundreds of feet high tumbling over granite cliffs into an emerald canyon below, or the geysers at Flaming Geyser State Park fed by underground coal seams, followed by a four-mile rafting trip. Snowshoeing or hiking the Nisqually Vista trail offers spectacular views of lakes, waterfalls and river valleys connected to glaciers, as well as the opportunity to spot birds, marmots, coyotes, elk, deer, fox and black bear in their natural habitat.
Hooking up to pass through the Chittenden Locks in Ballard. EverGreen Escapes Photo
The Northwest coast offers some of the most stunning scenery in the world. Barely two hours from Seattle is the port town of Anacortes where you can visit Deception Pass on Whidbey Island along the way. Accessing the park by water not only avoids the crowds, but also affords a view rarely experienced.
Taking a ferry from Anacortes to any or all of the three San Juan Islands serviced by the Washington State Ferries feels as if you’re entering another world, where you may see a salmon leap and an eagle soar overhead, or hear the snort of a sea lion or the splash of a whale.
Venture south to the 1,270-mile Columbia River, the second largest river in North America running from British Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. The 80-mile Columbia River Gorge divides Oregon and Washington and is lined with spectacular waterfalls — the most scenic and popular being the 620-foot Multnomah Falls.
The Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway in Central Oregon — often called Oregon’s “Highway in the Sky” — follows a path blazed by some of the Northwest’s first explorers, through the mountains, alpine lakes and old-growth forests where many opportunities abound for eco-adventure.
Wanderlust Tours out of Bend, Ore. offers the only guided canoe and kayak trips on the Cascade Lakes, highlighting tucked-away spots on the glassy mountain waters that you may never find by going on your own. Try the moonlight outings for a truly magical experience.
Wanderlust is owned by the husband-and-wife team of Dave and Aleta Nissen, and was started in 1993 with eco-friendly tourism principles, back when few people were thinking about sustainability.
“We hold great respect for the natural surroundings of our tours and hope to introduce people to delicate ecosystems while maintaining a low impact on the environment,” say the Nissens. “People want to see special places within the natural world, but they don’t want their visit to harmfully impact those places.”
In the City
One of the great things about the natural beauty of the Northwest, and its citizens’ dedication to its preservation is that you don’t have to leave the city to have an environmentally healthy adventure kayaking, sailing, biking or hiking.
Salmon Bay in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood is a 20-minute drive north of downtown and accesses some of the most scenic and wildlife rich territory in the entire city. Discovery Park, the largest park in Seattle with 550 acres, boasts two miles of undisturbed beach and a 130-year-old lighthouse. This park is not only a refuge for the urban naturalist, it also contains critical habitat for a diverse range of wildlife — Bald Eagles, harbor seals, salamanders, river otters, ospreys, and much more.
Wanderlust also puts together a fun in-town adventure in Bend. Their Urban GPS Eco-Challenge takes place in this city that was once industrial mill land, now turned into a stunning green belt. Eco-challenge participants learn about the history and natural world of Bend while solving geo-caching clues along a two-mile foot course through the Old Mill District and Deschutes River.
The GPS game challenges both the mind and body while using ingenuity and team skills to complete the course. It is facilitated by professional naturalist guides who bring the area alive with vibrant natural and cultural history interpretation.
Mountain treks at Mount Rainier are offered by EverGreen Escapes.
Voluntourism
When people begin experiencing the outdoors from the perspective of sustainability and respect, it often alters their entire approach.
“I want experiences with positive impacts on me and the environment,” says Seattle’s Meilee Anderson. “How can you care about protecting the environment unless you get out in it and experience it first hand?”
That question is one that Haupert and his partner Dan Moore ask themselves — and strive to answer for their customers.
“You can’t love what you don’t know, and people won’t protect what they don’t love,” says Moore.
The partners began offering a “Giving Back to Nature” escape, where they take clients to Seattle’s Discovery Park to learn about the local ecology while taking part in restoration efforts. Restoration stewards at the park work directly with the “escapists” in removing invasive plants, cleaning up a beach or removing trash that is harmful to wildlife. It’s a behind-the-scenes look that mere visitors to the park don’t get to experience.
Wanderlust Tours collects an optional $1 extra per person on their tours to buy seedlings for reforestation through a partnership with Deschutes Land Trust — and match every dollar received for the project. A nonprofit organization called Leave No Trace is highly dedicated to these principles, and is a great resource for anyone wanting to enjoy the outdoors without harming it.
Leave No Trace is designed to assist outdoor enthusiasts with their decisions about how to reduce their impact when recreating. Their Traveling Trainers provide hands-on educational workshops and trainings across the country, as well as a national program called Teens for Responsible Outdoor Recreation to promote healthy use of our public lands among youth.
This priority on the coming generation seems a priority among many advocates of eco-friendly wilderness activities. Wanderlust Tours has a special focus on family experiences that can work for any age and ability level, and the Nissens also believe strongly in the power of the outdoors to bring families closer together.
“Families are traveling together more these days, trying to have reunions more often and create vacation memories and traditions that will last for years” they say. “That’s hard to do if your 5-year-old is too young to join you on a tour, or nothing’s offered that will appeal to both your ‘coolest’ of teenagers and your parents.”
Such eco-adventures close to home are incredible opportunities to have fun, learn more about the immediate environment we live in, and be kinder to the planet.
“Sustainability is not a trend, it’s not a place in time right now,” Haupert reminds us. “It’s an ongoing, long-term philosophy and practice.”
Resources:
EverGreen Escapes:
(866) 203-7603,
www.evergreenescapes.com
Wanderlust Tours:
(800) 962-2862,
www.wanderlusttours.com
Deschutes Land Trust: www.deschuteslandtrust.org/
Leave No Trace’s Seven Principles: www.lnt.org/programs/principles.php
Shelley Seale is a frequent contributor to Outdoors NW. She has written for National Geographic, Seattle Times and Washington Magazine, among others. She can be reached at http://www.shelleyseale.com
