Name: Jake PerryLocation: Pyeongtaek, South KoreaTerm: Fall '18Favorite Wild Place: Great Sand Dunes National Park Jake's experience as a Wild Keeper has positively impacted his life in more ways than one. Originally from Lake Erie, OH, he discovered a passion for the outdoors about 3.5 years ago while living in Nebraska.  Currently, Jake is living in South Korea, with his wife Sara, who is stationed in Pyeongtaek with the Air Force. As a reservist for the military, it was necessary for Jake to defer a year of service to join her, but the experience has been worth it. Though it...

Name: Halle HomelLocation: Riverside, CATerm: Fall '18Favorite Wild Place: Sequoia National Park This is Halle’s first term as a Wild Keeper. She’d been following us for a while, and she loved seeing all of the work we were actually doing, so she decided to apply. Growing up, Halle’s parents would take her hiking, but she didn’t always love it. However, she does think that’s where her appreciation for the outdoors started. Now, she loves hiking, connecting with other women from her group, and exploring new trails. Since, being a Wild Keeper, she has felt so inspired. Halle has loved connecting...

Name: Alex NachmanLocation: Chandler, AZTerm: Fall '18Favorite Wild Place: Lee's Ferry (Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona) This is Alex's first term as a Wild Keeper, and she says that her experience thus far has been pretty amazing. She has gotten to do a lot of cleanups at the Beardsley Boulder Pile. Becoming a Wild Keeper has changed how she thinks about hiking and being outdoors. She was blind to the trash that she was passing on a daily basis, but now she sees just how much there really is. Alex has lived in Arizona for nearly her whole life, and...

Today's topic covers the easy part of going through your closet. I mean, the purge is the hard part, right? The process of deciding what to actually get rid of is always so difficult for me. Now, onto the fun part - upcycling or finding a new home! But first, some stats. So, you're clothes are totally recyclable. They can be used for lots of different things - like carpet padding, home insulation, and stuffing for pillows, car seats or toys. However, the EPA reports that 5% of the landfills in the US are thrown-away clothes, and only 15% of...

They say spending time outside is healing for the soul, but does it also have physical health benefits? Study after study is showing that this is true... From improving short-term memory all the way to lowering your overall risk of an early death, being outside has quite a few health benefits. 1. Spending time outside is great de-stressor. Nature is a common place to go to get away from it all and decompress, but biology is showing that time spent in the outdoors truly does lower stress levels. For example, a study found that both heart rates and cortisol levels...

Name: Josh NobleLocation: Seattle, WATerm: Fall '18Favorite Wild Place: Emerald Lake (Yoho National Park, British Columbia) Josh is a first-time Wild Keeper this fall term. He knew he had to apply after his friend in Missouri was Wild Keeper over the summer. He also comes from a family of volunteers, and he was taught from a young age to give back. When he found out about the Wild Keeper Program he was excited to join a community of like-minded people. Once the term started, he was surprised and so excited to see the large impact all the Wild Keepers could...

You hear it everywhere... Reduce, reuse, recycle. Today, we'll be focusing on the most fun and exciting R (in my opinion) - REUSE! These are a couple of fun DIY projects that you can make with items you may have just lying around. So instead of pitching them into the trash, upcycle them into an awesome craft! Coffee Sleeve Jewelry (Project and photo from Saved by Love Creations) There's no feeling guilty for that daily Starbucks run anymore. Instead of throwing away every single coffee sleeve you get, turn them into all sorts of jewelry. From necklaces to bracelets to...

We don’t quite know why people litter… but they do. Since 2016, with the help of thousands of volunteers, we have removed over 135,000 lbs of litter from nature! That’s a lot of plastic water bottles, food wrappers, random articles of clothing, and cigarette butts. If you didn’t know already, we have an ambassador program for individuals all over the world who have a collective goal of making the world a better place. We call them Wild Keepers and they commit to achieving our goal by getting outside, cleaning up any litter they find, and sharing it on social media....

There's nothing worse than the most amazing hike you've ever been on ending with a giant poison ivy rash. Nothing. Worse. So I put my Girl Scout cap back on, and I compiled the ultimate guide to avoiding poisonous plants in the first place. Some quick basics - there's three common plants to watch out for: poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac. They all share the same irritant, which is an oily sap called urushiol. Just one nanogram can cause a reaction, and it coats all parts of these plants. So, here's what to look for. Poison Ivy Think,...

The site is described as a "best kept secret," and holy cow - it really is. We originally booked the site because it's so close to Zion... but we never actually made it to the park. We just couldn't tear ourselves away from the beauty and stillness of the campsite. Not sure what the bigger surprise was - the hundreds of thousands of wildflowers, or the fact that we were the only ones there. "My favorite part was how it seemed like a place you would want to spend the summer as a kid. Tons of wide open space, a...

Happy October! The month of spooky scaries, pumpkin flavored treats, and the prime-time of leaf-peeping (which is an actual term, by the way). It's my favorite time of year, which is why I rounded up the best places in the US for those magical fall colors. Ozark National Forest, Arkansas This forest is home to 1.2 million acres of fall wonderfulness. There's no shortage of reds and yellows among that white oak, shortleaf pine and river birch that live in the Ozark National Forest. Along with that, there are plenty of mountains, springs and rivers to keep you buys for...

October 10th is World Mental Health Day, and all day long, we’ve been having a conversation about depression and anxiety and other conditions. And we’ve been trying to figure out how the outdoors fits into that conversation. Let’s start off with some stats… In the US, 43.9 million adults have or are currently experiencing mental illness (that’s 17.9% of the adult population) 18.1% of adults and 25.1% of children experience anxiety 9% of children have ADHD The average American is seated for 7.7 hours a day (and that doesn’t include sleeping) The average American kid, ages 0-12, spends 25-42 minutes...