Top Ten Zero Waste Camping Tips

I posted Friday about Subaru’s Zero Landfill Initiative in Grand Teton, Denali and Yosemite National Parks. Since we’ll be visiting two of those parks on our National Park to Park Highway Tour, I thought you might like to know how we’ll camp without producing trash. We’re not perfect no waste campers, but these top ten Zero Waste Camping tips will reduce the garbage we put in the National Park bin.

1. Refill Water Bottles – Instead of buying water bottles at gas stations along the way I refill our reusable bottles in their soda stations. At camp we set out the five gallon water container we bring from home as a water station and refill our water bottles at the spigot. Several National Parks including Zion and Grand Teton no longer sell disposable water bottles at all. Instead they’ve installed prominent water refill stations throughout the park.


2. Pack the Pantry – Bring your food in the containers you use at home instead of buying convenience snacks and treats. A jar of Gummi Bears from the bulk section of the grocery store is just as tasty as a bag you’d buy at a gas station.

3. Be Cooler Conscious – Instead of buying ice wrapped in plastic, make your own or use reusable ice blocks. Pack meat frozen to keep it cold longer and make sure to put other food in waterproof containers. Soggy egg cartons and wet butter aren’t very appetizing.

4. No Pain Propane – Most camp stoves require propane tanks to function, but used tanks are some of the hardest waste to properly dispose of. Instead of using the green 1 lb throwaway tanks we have a small refillable propane container and a conversion kit hose. Not only does it last longer, we can refill it every time we camp.

5. Double Duty Food Prep – This BioLite Wood Burning Campstove turns wood into energy so you make your food and charge your devices at the same time. It’s really cool. We’ll be using it on our National Park to Park Highway trip this summer.

6. Compost on the Go – If your campsite doesn’t have a critter problem try burying your food waste. Some campsites won’t allow this, but I’ve done it at primitive sites or on BLM land. Or refill an empty glass jar or food container with your compost and put it in your pile at home.

7. Wash Dishes – Bring reusable kitchen items like the Sea to Summit 3-Piece X Setdishes. Not only are they reusable, they pack flat and the Sea to Summit X-Pot Set is really cool. See how the bottom is metal but the top is foldable silicone? Seriously awesome. See www.seatosummit.com for more info. I’m stoked to be using them on our National Park to Park Highway trip this summer!

8. Bandanna Like a Bad Guy – It is surprisingly convenient to keep a handkerchief or bandanna in a pocket or day pack while camping. I use it to wipe off just about anything – hands, face, table, utensils and even a kids bum. Don’t worry, I put it in the dirty laundry after that one. We used to use baby wipes and paper towels A LOT while camping, but the switch to cloth has been relatively painless.

9. Camp Towels – We like having lightweight, packable, quick dry towels like the Sea to Summit DryLite. They’re good for drying people, dishes or wet gear, plus they dry out fast. But my favorite camp towel is actually a LUNATEC Self-cleaning Travel Washcloth. They’re rough enough to scrape out food but soft enough to wash just about anything and when you’re done you just rinse it clean.

10. Stuff Recyclables in Stuff Sacks – People often throw out easily recyclable items like drink containers because the recycling bin isn’t conveniently located. Keep those recyclables separate from your garbage, by repurposing a sleeping bag or camp chair stuff sack.

And here’s a bonus for all of you daring parents of babies:

11. Cloth Diaper – We have a bed wetting situation in our household. It is not fun as a parent (or as a child) especially when out in nature. But we’ve found that camping is just an extension of our every day life. So in addition to Baby L’s cloth diapers we have bedwetter training pants and waterproof sheet protectors that we use nightly, even when camping. It is more difficult to use cloth diapers when flush toilets and running water are limited so sometimes we go disposable, but over all I try to use cloth. Pioneers did it. So can we, but I’m bringing along a waterproof dry bag
dry bag to use as a laundry hamper.

Spending time in nature should help us think about our environmental impact, but often the stress of traveling causes more impulse buys, more convenience packaging and more waste. Since last October we’ve been trying to reduce our waste at home so it makes sense to extend that mentality to our travels. 

Now that I’m aware of the massive trash issues the National Parks has to deal with, I can’t go back to how I was before. I guess that’s how it is with all change.

If you liked this post, you might like these as well:

Zero Waste Camping on the National Park to Park Highway

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This post includes affiliate links. I receive a small commission if you purchase something by clicking through these links. Thank you Sea to Summit and BioLite for sponsoring gear for our 2016 National Park to Park Highway Tour. 

Motherhood Moments: How to be a Mountain Mom


What does it take to be a Mountain Mom?

1. Have a kid

2. Get outside

Okay, maybe that’s an over simplification, but loving the outdoors with your kids really can be easy. Whether it’s celebrating Kids to Parks Day May 21, 2016picking up trash along a river trail or camping in your backyard, spending time with kids outdoors makes memories for the whole family.

This Mother’s Day I wanted to share a photo essay of some of my favorite outdoor moments with my kids. You may not see the packing, wrestling, bribing and crying that went into some of these moments, but to be honest once I’m out on the trail I don’t see those things either. Happy Mother’s Day! Enjoy!

You might also like these Mother’s Day Posts from some blogger friends:

OutdoorsMom.com – What it Means to be an Outdoorsy Mom

TravelingMel.com – Mother’s Day and Pine Creek Lodge and Yellowstone

Tanya Koob of FamilyAdventuresintheCanadianRockiesMother’s Day Glamping Weekend

TalesofaMountainMama.comQuick Gift Ideas for Mother’s Day

Zero Waste Camping on the National Park to Park Highway

Zero waste camping
 
On our weekly Go Green litter pick up hike.

Zero Waste

I’ve been interested in Zero Waste living for a while. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Zero Waste is a movement of drastically reducing the amount of trash you generate through composting, recycling, reusing as much as possible and making more package free purchasing choices. Basically it’s being aware and taking action to reduce the amount of garbage in your life.

After reading the book Zero Waste Home: The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying Your Life by Reducing Your Waste by Bea Johnson, I made several changes in our daily life to reduce the amount of trash we generate. I now bring reusable produce and grocery bags to the grocery store, shop in the bulk section and cloth diaper Baby L. But camping? That’s a whole different beast.

Think of your last camp out. Paper plates, propane containers, plastic water bottles – all that rubbish has to go somewhere. Yes single use items are super convenient, but once they’re used the remains are shipped away to rot in a landfill, and in the case of plastic items they’ll stay there long after we’re gone.

Mountain Dad and Baby L picking up garbage on our local trail.

Think of how much trash you generated then multiply that by the 300 million – the number of visitors the National Park Service had last year. In Grand Teton National Park alone 1800 TONS of garbage is generated every season.

Subaru’s National Park Zero Landfill Initiative

As a sponsor for the 100 anniversary of the National Park Service and an industry leader in Zero Waste practices, Subaru has partnered with Grand Teton, Denali and Yosemite National Parks to reduce their garbage footprint. These three parks are part of a pilot program aimed to curb the amount of trash visitors produce in the parks each year.

This video from the Subaru website was really interesting:

Grand Teton National Park is the first stop on our National Park to Park Highway Route. That means the pressure is on. Will we be able to live a Zero Landfill lifestyle for seven weeks while driving more than 5,000 miles?

Nope. But that doesn’t mean we won’t try.

What’ll make our Grand Teton visit easier is staying with our trip sponsor at Togwotee Mountain Lodge. Their cabins have mini kitchettes, meaning preparing food will be as easy as it would be at home. Plus access to laundry facilities and flush toilets will make cloth diapering so much easier. That may be more than you want to know, but we’re doing everything we can to reduce the amount of trash we use. What about you?

This post includes affiliate links. I receive a small commission if you purchase something by clicking through these links.

Stage 1: National Park to Park Highway Tour

This summer 2016 we’re taking a seven week road trip to tour the National Park to Park Highway. But before we even get there we wanted to make sure we could do it. So we’ve divided our National Park to Park Highway Tour into two parts. Part one will be a one week tour of Utah starting May 30, 2016. 

George A. Grant, Photographer (NARA record: 1226390– U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

Zion National Park
Zion National Park was part of the original National Park to Park Highway. The 1920 road followed the Arrowhead Trail from southern California into Utah. Unfortunately the 1920 Auto Tour group never made it to Zion National Park because of poor road conditions.


We wanted to visit because not only was Zion National Park the only National Park in Utah in 1920, it’s a beautiful place! We’ve visited before and especially enjoyed biking the Pa’rus Trail, Riverside Walk and swimming in our secret swim spot on the Virgin River.

In addition to Zion National Park we’ll be visiting Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument on stage one of our National Park to Park Highway Tour. Although Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks weren’t part of the National Park to Park Highway, they still have an interesting history.


Utah Parks Company
In 1923 the Union Pacific Railroad formed a subsidiary, The Utah Parks Company, in order to promote tourist travel to Zion, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks National Monuments. The railroad built a spur line from Lund to Cedar City, Utah and from there employed white touring buses to take tourists to these remote locations. 

Image from desertpearl.com/en/story/history

The Utah Parks Company built lodges and cabins in Zion National Park, the then Bryce Canyon National Monument and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in the 1920s. Their financial investment in the parks was substantial. Some sources report the Utah Parks Company discriminated against private automobile travel to these parks because of the large stake they held there. Luckily that is not an issue today. With the popularization of automobile travel and improved roads now more people than ever can visit these uniquely beautiful places.


Our Utah Parks Company Tour
Visiting Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and Cedar Breaks National Monument seemed like the perfect “dry run”  camping trip to test our sage brushing (1920s term for car camping) skills. Although this tour technically came after the 1920 National Park to Park Highway tour, it included some major sites that we did not want to miss on our adventure.

On May 30th we’ll set off with our Woom Bikes and Burley Bike Trailer for some biking on Zion National Park’s Pa’rus trail. We’ll be hiking Navajo Trail and Queen’s Loop in Bryce National Park and enjoying a Star Party at Cedar Breaks National Monument. And we’ll be letting you know how it goes every step of the way.

We’d love to have you along for the ride on our National Park to Park Highway Tour. We want your input on what adventures we should include. Do you have a favorite hike or bike ride in one of the National Parks on our route? What adventures do you recommend? Leave a comment or contact me on instagramtwitter or facebook. We’d love to hear from you!