Beginning Backpacking Program | Spring 2024

Program activities prepare you for & culminate with a KC-area BP trip.

This is designed for injury-free people with hiking experience or a regular fitness routine who want to start backpacking as a lifelong pursuit or who have already started but see value in a baseline program to help level set.

The classroom day will start with a discussion and then exercises to demonstrate critical skills. We also want you to read and gain expertise through your efforts and will provide you with a reading list and curated content to review. Studying and further reviewing our online content will give you invaluable information to leverage and accelerate your backpacking chops.

You can get a head start.

How Do I Get to Go?

1. Read everything.
2. Join the waitlist, and if we're in sync. we'll send you a Google survey to complete and move forward with additional steps.
3. We have spots for ≈16 people (12-14 participants and up to four instructors). FREE for up to five people in their 20s and 30s! Scholarship scoop. If you're looking to nab a scholarship, RSVP in both places.

Afterward, take it to the next level with additional KC-area BP trips & options for a wide variety of big-league adventures w/ the Nat'l Sierra Club.

You have no Equipment?

We have a program gear lending library with sleeping bags & pads, tents, backpacks & stoves for Sierra Club members & scholarship recipients. Join the Sierra Club (membership as low as $15).

Recommended Donation

$75 if you're not on a scholarship (see above), exclusively contactless via PayPal. This pays it forward, helping to finance the gear library, leadership training & trail maintenance. Instructors are uncompensated volunteers. No refunds < 30 cal. days from the 1st activity - a confirmed RSVP takes a participant opening.

Staying in Touch

We will use Slack to communicate with participants.

Activities

We've streamlined the contact time commitment, optimizing hands-on kinetic learning:

1. 3/23/24 - Class, 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM, Anita B. Gorman Discovery Center, 4750 Troost Ave, Kansas City, MO, 64110. We'll have hands-on kinetic learning through a series of how-to activities, where each participant completes various tasks important to backpacking, e.g. using a water filter, pitching a tent, preventing blisters, hanging a bear (varmint) bag, lighting and using a stove, properly lacing footwear, setting up a sleep system, staying warm at night, using hiking poles (length, hand straps, rubber tip vs. carbide tip), seam-sealing a tent, loading a backpack, etc., and then conduct a several-mile shakedown hike toting full backpacks. If you have your gear, you'll bring that. If you need to borrow our gear, we'll have it there.

2. 4/19/24 - 4/21/24, 8:30 AM - 2:00 PM, BP Trip (place TBA), ≈four hrs. from KC. We try to rotate these locations from class to class. The leader(s) might bring a dog(s). Except for the confirmed gear lending library kit, you'll get and bring everything you need/be self-sufficient, e.g., food, water, gear, etc.
Links to prior programs (see the pics, etc.)
f 2021
w 2021
s 2022
f 2022
s 2023
f 2023

Participants complete a standard participant agreement & medical form in class.

Bring a personal 1st aid kit to all activities.

We will use LNT practices.

The Outing officially begins & ends @ the location designated by Sierra Club, i.e., the trailhead, & does not include carpooling, transportation, or transit to & from the Outing; each participant is personally responsible for all risks associated with this travel. The times shown on Meetup do NOT account for travel to & from the Outing.

There are no vaccine, mask, or testing mandates.

1. If you're sick, please do not attend.
2. If you develop symptoms/illness during the trip, you may be removed for your and others' safety.
3. Knowing the above, it is your choice to attend the outing.