As a human race, we have a plastic addiction rooted in consumerism and fossil fuel extraction. Collectively, we continue to remove vast amounts of carbon from the Earth to create products that are over-consumed and eventually, the resource-intensive products get thrown out as waste.

It’s likely you’ve seen photos of trash filling our oceans, strangling wildlife, and piling up on shores. What was once considered pristine areas of our planet are now filling up with our trash from all over the world. We are all connected by and responsible for this global plastic problem. Depressing, right?

Fortunately, Patagonia is paving the way for a more environmentally-conscious clothing industry with a variety of solutions to combat waste.

Aside from how rewarding those first human-powered turns felt, the thing I remember most from my first time alpine touring is that I was hot -- ripping off layers and unzipping vents at a pace much higher than I had expected -- and then I was cold -- really, really, finger-freezingly, bone-chillingly cold.

After that first time out, I thought that maybe skinning just wasn't for me. I couldn't handle the swing from high-output climbing, to standing dead still, to zipping downhill in temps capable of frostbiting cheeks or a nose in just a few minutes. Fortunately, I found it in myself to take the plunge into the backcountry a couple more times. Over the course of a couple more tours, I found out that it was not that I was simply not cut out for alpine touring, but rather that I didn't really know how to properly layer my clothes for such a wide range of needs and experiences.

We’re in business to save our home planet.

At Patagonia, we appreciate that all life on earth is under threat of extinction. We’re using the resources we have—our business, our investments, our voice and our imaginations—to do something about it.

Feeling inspired? Here's what can you do:

1. Text "DEFEND" to 52886 to find out how to contribute to this important fight for public lands.

2. Watch, re-watch, and share the full feature film now (below).

3. VOTE for public lands and the planet - elect climate leaders now: 
Click here to learn more.

4. Help measure the impact of the Public Trust screening tour:
Click here to provide feedback.

JOIN US AT THE DRIVE-IN
for a special screening of Patagonia's new documentary Public Trust

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15

Food is an influential part of my life. Knowing where my food comes from, how it's grown and who is growing it, is important to me. Locally sourced, environmentally friendly and fresh food helps keep me happy, healthy and supports my local food system to boot.

When you choose to support a local farm you stimulate your local economy and small businesses. Something that is so important in today’s global economy - and now more so than ever. The other big part of supporting local relates to the environmental impacts your food creates. Food from local growers has a much smaller carbon footprint than traditionally grown and sourced food. It doesn’t have to travel thousands of miles, be cleaned, packaged and shipped and finally delivered to your local supermarket. Not too mention most small scale farming operations have a smaller impact on the environment in which they are growing.

This past Thursday, Patagonia Burlington hosted Patagonia Action Work's Snow Activism Tour with two film screenings and a discussion about fighting the climate crisis in your own backyard. Patagonia ambassador Nick Russell hosted the event and asked the audience "What Would you do Without Winter?".

This issue was top of mind as Vermont was coming off a weekend of 55 degrees and heavy rain, a huge loss of snow pack in the mountains. January thaws typically happen every year, but this was extreme.

Ironically, the following Thursday on the day of the Snow Activism event, Vermont got a few inches of heavy snow and then a significant drop in temperatures the next day. Then a snow storm hit over the weekend and the mountains gained another 6-10". Vermont dodged a bullet and we quickly got our winter back! Vermonters and tourists here for the holiday weekend rejoiced - but the elephant in the room remained.

My resume of trips for the past few years include:

• 2012: Biking, backpacking, and working on a farm in Ecuador for 3 months.
• 2013: Solo backpacking for 3 months through France, Italy, and England.
• 2014: Hiking across England on the 200-mile Coast to Coast trail.
• 2016: Hiking 130 miles on the Long Trail averaging ~20 miles/day
• 2018 Hiking 108 miles on the Long Trail averaging ~20 miles/day

Based off this, what would you expect me to be doing this year?

This year (2019) I went the coast of Maine and stayed on an island that was half a mile long. I can hike half a mile in 15 minutes, and instead spent 672 times as long within that half mile distance. I spent my mornings drinking coffee, eating meals, reading, playing cards, exploring rocky tidepools, collecting mussels to cook for dinner, and walking around the island’s perimeter. I spent my afternoons and evenings doing the same, but ending sans coffee instead having a beer by a fire. This trip, though drastically different than my laundry list of prior trips, was just as rewarding and rejuvenating.

The scarcity of jewels ensures their worth,
so now we search the earth in earnest for
the items left unloved awhile ago
when great abundance led us to ignore
resources now more precious than before.

I was born and raised in Burlington. When I was a kid, the Intervale was a scary wasteland that people used as a junk yard. When the beltline went in around 1971, you could drive through it and still see parts of old cars around, some even hanging from the cliffs to the west of the wetlands. It was kind of creepy cool to see from a car, but not a place that made you want to get out and walk around.

The Long Trail spans from the Massachusetts/Vermont border 273 miles north to the Canadian border along the Green Mountains.

Having backpacked only once before moving to Vermont and subsequently falling in love with the sport/lifestyle within my first week of living here, it was only right to cap off my college career with a thru-hike of Vermont’s Long Trail (LT).

People often ask me how I ended up here in Vermont, having grown up outside of Chicago. When the college search began, my mom asked me what I wanted my chosen home to look and feel like. I loved this question and knew that what I wanted most was to be surrounded by mountains. I wanted to be in a landscape that inspired me. When choosing between going east or west, my sister being in Boston drew me to the Green Mountains.