Marjorie 鈥淪lim鈥� Woodruff

Empty plastic bottles move down a production line to be turned into Dasani bottled water at a Coco-Cola bottling plant on February 10, 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

We all know plastic is nasty stuff, so why do I find so many empty bottles on the trail? (抖阴ap)

January 27, 2026 at 10:59 a.m.

On trails in Grand Canyon National Park, I mostly pick up empty water bottles. It seems a job that will never be obsolete. Shouldn鈥檛 we have learned by now that...

Rafts in a cathedral of stone and water. (Photo by Eva Syrovy/Special to The Denver Post)

I once found a sealed urn in the Grand Canyon, and other examples of failing to ‘pack it out’ (抖阴ap)

September 11, 2025 at 9:55 a.m.

"Some of the things I鈥檝e found this summer lead me to wonder what the John Muir they were thinking." -- Marjorie 鈥楽lim鈥� Woodruff

In this photo taken Sept. 23, 2018, a mountain biker pedals past a No E-bikes sign in the San Bernardino National Forest near Big Bear Lake, Calif. (AP Photo/Brian Melley)

Must e-bikes go everywhere an old-fashioned bike goes? (抖阴ap)

July 2, 2025 at 5:46 a.m.

Where is it written that everyone must be able to go everywhere by any means necessary?

Hikers head up the Lookout Mountain and Beaver Brook trails at Windy Saddle on Lookout Mountain March 25, 2020. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)

抖阴ap: Doesn’t everyone else find small talk on hiking trails annoying?

August 20, 2024 at 2:27 p.m.

"An annoying question is 'Everything OK?' Why are they asking this? Admittedly I have more gray hair than brown, but do I look so decrepit that they are concerned about...

Enough excuses! This one piece of trail etiquette is crucial. | 抖阴ap

September 5, 2023 at 2:21 p.m.

"Yes, we all get hot and sweaty and cold and tired and exhausted and hungry and thirsty, but we can still be polite." -- Marjorie 鈥淪lim鈥� Woodruff

A screenshot of the Virtika Instagram account.

抖阴ap: 鈥淚nstagram tourists” lead their copycats into the wilderness

July 19, 2023 at 12:06 p.m.

Perhaps I could start a trend: Down-and-dirty influencing. Sweaty, beyond tired, what it really looks like to have hiked up to that cliff. Think it would catch on?

Guest Commentary: The “look at me” culture is leaving too many marks on our public lands

February 5, 2021 at 10:53 a.m.

Let抖阴ap hope that selfies in the great outdoors lead to a good thing: As visitors record themselves standing next to rock art, they might keep their hands off it.

Writers on the Range: Organic litter is still litter

September 7, 2018 at 4:30 p.m.

Would the two young women who were tossing that sandwich have done so in their own living room? Certainly not.

Woodruff: What nice people leave in the great outdoors

May 4, 2018 at 12:48 p.m.

Leave No Trace means just that: Travel as though you were being followed by IRS agents, and you don鈥檛 want them to ever track you down.

A bomber drops slurry on the Cold Springs fire northeast of Nederland last Sunday. Two men are accused of starting the fire when they didn't properly put out a campfire.

Writers on the Range: Do you really need a fire at that campsite?

July 15, 2016 at 3:45 p.m.

In 1972, Grand Canyon National Park outlawed campfires in the backcountry. Backpackers like me considered this an outrage.

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