Twelve years ago, I headed to the south rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado with my then boyfriend. We had just moved to Colorado after graduating from college, and I wanted to . At the time, I knew very little about hiking. Sure, I had some outdoor-education experience under my belt鈥擨 had been to summer camp and gone on group hut trips in the of New Hampshire. But when it came to being self-sufficient on the trail, I was a total newb.

The Black Canyon鈥檚 steep walls plummet over a thousand feet straight down, creating an awe-inspiring scene amplified by the thundering Gunnison River below. The trail we chose to hike鈥斺€攕tretches 1.8 miles down a loose, scree-filled gully that drops 1,700 feet to the banks of the river. For the well-initiated, those stats tell you that this is no walk in the park. In fact, the route requires scrambling and even has permanent chains installed to assist with the steep sections over loose rock.

But we were none the wiser, and on a hot August afternoon, we set out.聽

The trail started with a series of switchbacks before it dove directly down the loose, boulder-ridden gully toward the canyon floor. I felt nervous looking down the barrel of a rock canyon. But we happily picked our way toward the bottom.

Eventually, we reached a section that had a long chain installed into the rock. The idea was to hold the chain, turn into the hillside, and slowly walk backward down the section of scree. From there it looked as though the canyon bottom was just within reach.

But as I stepped down off of a rock to grab the chain, I slipped and fell, twisting my ankle over the loose terrain. Yelping in pain, I rolled in the brush, whimpering.聽

鈥淵ou鈥檙e all right,鈥� my boyfriend said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e almost there.鈥�

Even though , I was feeling the pressure from him to , so I slowly grabbed the chain and scooted down the scree. We kept descending until we finally reached the canyon bottom. At this point, we had run out of water and the sun was getting low on the horizon. Fortunately, another nearby hiker gave us a bit of water for the hike out.聽

I knew that we were teetering on a bad situation. With very little聽water and an increasingly stiff ankle, I realized getting back up would take some time. We started the long climb out and learned our first lesson of canyon hiking: what goes down must come back up. I was struggling hard to scramble up the rocks (had they grown in size, or was it just me?). Each step felt more painful than the last, and my pace slowed to a crawl鈥攁t times literally.

About halfway up the canyon, my boyfriend, who had been pestering me to move faster, gulped the last of the water, turned back to me, and said, 鈥淚鈥檓 leaving. You鈥檙e moving too slow.鈥�

It doesn鈥檛 take an expert to know that you shouldn鈥檛 leave an injured person behind without any water. Before I could say anything in protest, he turned around and scampered up beyond the bend.

Too exhausted to move, I slumped over next to a scrub oak and took a break. I felt like this was all my fault. If I hadn鈥檛 been so slow, I wouldn鈥檛 be stuck here, even though my gut was telling me it wasn鈥檛 OK to leave someone behind.聽

I knew I had to get moving, but I was exhausted and thirsty, and my legs screamed in protest. Defeated, I slowly stood myself up and glacially walked up the remaining hillside, about a third of a mile or so, praising the sky when I finally saw the roof of the visitor center come into view. At this point, I was utterly parched. Fortunately, there was a spigot of water at the visitor center. I plunged my face into the spigot and drank until I puked.

As I hopped my way back to the campground, I blamed myself for the bad day. How could I be so slow that my own boyfriend just left me there? I told myself that I wasn鈥檛 in good enough shape. Not strong enough. Not good enough at hiking.

I swore off hiking for three full years after that. When friends would ask me to go on a hike, I鈥檇 simply reply that I was a bad hiker.

But here鈥檚 the thing: There is no such thing as a bad hiker, just bad partners. No one should leave anyone behind, especially someone who is hurt and out of water. It took me three years to realize that I wasn鈥檛 a bad hiker, I just had a crummy boyfriend鈥攚ho, don鈥檛 worry, I definitely dumped. I didn鈥檛 get back into hiking for about four and a half years, when I eventually met some friends (and a better boyfriend) who were

Safety鈥攂oth physical and emotional鈥攊n the outdoors is absolutely essential. A great hiking partner is prepared to turn around and never pressures you to keep moving when you鈥檙e hurt. They stick around and make collaborative decisions instead of acting individually. And under no circumstances do they leave someone behind without any supplies.

When you鈥檙e , always ask about their expectations. Are they driven to make it to the finish line, even when it means taking risks? Or are they more concerned about listening to each other鈥檚 needs and having fun? Choose a partner that aligns with your comfort level and shares your views on staying safe.聽

The joke is on my (now ex) boyfriend. Since that fateful day in the Gunnison, I鈥檝e gone on to become an expert hiker, trekking through Nepal, summiting over 55 peaks (some of them technical), and backpacking over 120 miles of the Colorado Trail. I didn鈥檛 return to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison for 12 years after that trip, but when I did, I was there to confidently climb those impressive granite walls.

The post My Worst Hike: My Boyfriend Left Me Injured on the Trail appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

A few months ago, I decided to collect all the plastic my household produced for 30 days聽by聽hoarding it in separate trash bags. I wanted to know what the impacts of an active lifestyle are聽on the waste stream. Our two-person, one-dog, highly active family聽reuses Ziplocs, avoids plastic bags聽when we shop (even while traveling), never buys overly packaged goods, and steers clear of the single-use produce bags聽you find in聽the grocery store. But one week in, I realized that the problem was bigger than I thought.聽On average, my home added three to five items per day to the pile of plastic.

After the month was over, I sorted through the plastic I鈥檇 collected. I felt sick that we filled two 13-gallon bags with waste. About 35 percent of the mountain was recyclable or reusable, primarily consisting of food containers, health care products, and a few broken household items.聽And 65 percent was nonreusable, single-use plastic, a whopping 88 percent of which came from food products. I may be聽a die-hard practitioner of Leave No Trace, but much of the plastic I collected鈥攇ranola bar wrappers, chip bags, polybags,聽and more鈥攃ould all be traced back to weekends in the wild.

I set out to learn how I could use less plastic outdoors鈥攅specially when聽snacking.聽Plastic still reigns king for protecting food and maintaining shelf life, making it a go-to for plenty of instant meals or individually packaged snack foods. But Daniel Kurzrock, CEO and founder of ,聽a company that creates meal bars from spent beer grains and wraps the bars in compostable film, says,聽鈥淣o one in the food business talks about how they are the future trash industry.鈥�

Kurzrock believes the issue involves the entire supply chain process, from raw materials to the consumer, and industries need to come together聽to identify a solution. But he鈥檚 quick to point out that compostable wrappers aren鈥檛 a silver bullet. Yes, they鈥檙e petroleum-free compared to the typical film wrappers, but even they may end up in the landfill and not break down聽properly. 鈥淎re compostable plastics the answer?鈥� Kurzrock asks. 鈥淢aybe not. However, when we consider that they don鈥檛 use petroleum like traditional wrappers, that鈥檚 still progress.鈥�

The only 9.1 percent聽of U.S. plastic is actually recycled, compared to its more eco-friendly brother,聽aluminum:聽75 percent of all U.S. aluminum ever produced is . Because of its sustainability, several aquariums and zoos recently adopted products like , a business that markets聽aluminum-bottled water so the products they sell better align with their message of conservation.聽Nicole Doucet, founder of Open Water,聽says they鈥檇 like to see the national parks join the movement, especially after the Trump administration reversed the ban on plastic-bottled water in many of America鈥檚 parks in 2017.

But聽what about the plastics we can鈥檛 see? Many people who adventure outside聽rely on synthetic materials聽in our clothes and gear聽(think: nylon, polyester, spandex, rubber, neoprene, and others). Those materials seep into our environment every time we step outside聽in the form of microplastics.聽The Outdoor Industry Association (OIA)聽flagged concerns as I tried to figure out how many micromaterials聽my household produced聽during my monthlong experiment. 鈥淲e just don鈥檛 know,鈥� says Beth Jensen, OIA鈥檚 former director of sustainable business innovation. 鈥淐urrently, we are working with both outdoor and fashion brands to develop standardized testing methods to determine how much shedding a particular synthetic product yields over its lifetime.鈥�

Abby Barrows, a microplastics expert and principal investigator for , aims to shed light on this issue. Barrows spearheaded the Gallatin Microplastics Initiative, a survey conducted in the remote Gallatin River, a headwater site for the Missouri River. More than 50 percent of the samples in these remote locations contained microplastic pollutants, many of which could be connected to outdoor recreation, like neoprene from kayakers and rubber from mountain bike tires.

鈥淭丑别 impact of microplastics is still under discovery,鈥� Barrows says.聽鈥淭丑别se micromaterials are ingested, even by large creatures like baleen whales. The buildup causes large blockages and lacerations that eventually kill the animal.鈥�

We know more about how many microplastics are released into the water when you wash these materials, but it鈥檚 also believed that every time you go outside with them, they鈥檙e shedding some amount there as well. The problem is聽we don鈥檛 know at what rate and how much is too much. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know if these tiny pieces of plastic are leaching chemicals or how much they are bioaccumulating, and that鈥檚 scary,鈥� Barrows says.

The development of testing methods gives the industry a standard at which it can begin to control the problem, or at least bring consumer awareness to how their purchases affect the environment聽in ways they might not consider.

An ongoing study about microfiber shedding from the University of California, Santa Barbara () cited ways consumers can make a positive聽impact. One main takeaway was to wash synthetic materials less often, a simple solution for the dirt lover in all of us. The study also found that front-loading washing machines tend to make clothing shed seven times less than top loaders. (Front loaders also use less energy and 13 fewer gallons per load than their top-loading counterparts.)

My whole experiment left me disheartened. There was no 鈥渁ha鈥� moment and no simple solution. Now聽all I see are mountains of plastic waste everywhere鈥攊n the grocery aisles, infiltrating my home, at my favorite outdoor gear store. Not to mention the immense amount of plastic I can鈥檛 see without a microscope that I shed simply by existing.

Despite that聽helpless feeling, my habits evolved. Every action we take outdoors has an impact on the environment. Now聽I research the gear I buy before committing to a purchase. I replaced sandwich baggies with reusable, non-petroleum-based silicone versions. If I do end up with a single-use plastic baggie, I聽reuse it until it鈥檚 rendered useless. When I reach for that bag of chips on the way to the trailhead, I ask myself if the convenient snack is really worth filling the landfill聽with more plastic聽and often opt for a homemade option instead.聽Will I stop doing the things I love in hopes that my fleece sheds a little less on the environment? Probably not. But the small decisions add up.

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