Leave No Trace for Groups

• Ensure leaders are experienced in outdoor skills, teaching, and Leave No Trace practices.
  • Consider enrolling your group leaders in Leave No Trace and Wilderness First Aid courses to hone their knowledge.
• Understand group size limits. Along most of the A.T., these are generally:
  • Day hikes: 25 people, though it may be less in areas like designated wilderness.
  • Overnight trips: 10 people, including leaders.
    • If your overnight group is larger than 10, plan to split into smaller groups and travel and camp separately.

• Make an honest assessment of your group’s capabilities and experience. This will help you choose terrain and distance to match.
  • General rule of thumb: One hour of hiking for every three miles, plus an additional hour for every 2,000 feet of elevation gained. However, factors like the group’s overall experience, age, physical fitness, and weather will impact hike time as well.
  • Maps and guidebooks will show elevation profiles to help you plan.
• Choose off-peak times for your trip, especially to popular areas. Visit mid-week if possible.
  • We encourage groups to avoid Georgia and North Carolina in February, March, and April due to large crowds of northbound thru-hikers.
• Check with the land management agency (Forest Service, National Park Service, state park, etc.) to know their regulations and see if there are any limitations on group use or if permits are required.
  • Ask the ATC or the land manager about suitable overnight sites for your group. Not all campsites along the A.T. can accommodate groups of more than five people.

• Register your hike on ATCamp.
• Pack enough tents or tarps for your group so you can leave shelters for solo hikers.
  • Be sure to know the camping requirements, group size limits, and itinerary required by your permit if you need one.
• Plan meals and repackage food to reduce trash and food waste.
• Bring gear that facilitates low-impact camping:
  • Trash bags to pack everything out.
  • Camp stoves to avoid campfires.
  • Trowels to properly bury human waste.
  • Strainers to pack out food scraps from dishwater and bear canisters.
• Leave wood tools like axes and hatchets at home.
• Educate group participants on Leave No Trace guidelines.

• Pack out all food scraps, even those that are biodegradable/compostable.
  • Any food left behind can attract all types of wildlife, even food that is buried. Food scraps can take many years to fully decompose in the woods (even longer at high elevations). And since millions of people visit the Trail, these “scraps” quickly add up, especially at campsites and popular viewpoints.
• Do not burn any trash, including paper and cardboard.
  • Besides the general impacts that campfires have on the Trail, burning trash can be doubly harmful. Burning trash that’s been in contact with food can attract wildlife. Burning trash can release harmful chemicals into the air, and partially burnt trash is too often left behind.

Think carefully about the maturity of your group when considering how you’ll dispose of human waste. With children and novices, you’ll need to be extremely diligent about instruction and compliance, and it’s usually best to camp at a site that has a privy (outhouse).

• Wash dishes, bodies, and clothing 200 feet (70 big steps) away from water sources.
  • This includes dispersing toothpaste, cooking water, and dishwater.
  • You will help reduce odors from liquid wastes and decrease the likelihood of wildlife being attracted to camp.
• Use biodegradable soap sparingly, or not at all.
  • Never put soap in rivers, streams, lakes, or ponds on the Trail. Even a tiny bit of biodegradable soap can disrupt fragile aquatic ecosystems.
• Strain dishwater to remove food scraps and pack the scraps out with the rest of your trash.

Before leaving break spots or camp in the morning, have your group do a final sweep of the area for trash and food scraps (and your gear like tent stakes and pieces of rope). Turn it into a game with kids by giving a reward for the most pieces of trash/food collected, no matter how small!

• Use stoves for cooking. Substitute candle lanterns for campfires, or experience nighttime without any lighting and enjoy the stars.
• Keep campfires small and burn them for a short time to conserve wood.
• Leave hatchets and saws at home—collect only dead wood that’s on the ground and that you can easily break by hand. Larger dead wood provides essential nutrients for the soil as it decays.
  • Tip: Teach your group the “4 D’s” of collecting firewood.
• Don’t try to burn trash, including foil, plastic, glass, cans, tea bags, food, or anything with food on it. These items do not burn thoroughly, can create noxious fumes and residues, attract wildlife like bears, and make the area unsightly.
• Avoid burning large quantities of paper. Burnt pieces of paper are more likely to get blown out of the fire, creating more risk of wildfires.

• Burn all wood and charcoal completely to ash before putting the fire out.
  • Verify that the campfire is cold and all the way out before leaving it unattended.
• Leave fire rings clean by removing others’ trash and scattering cold coals and ashes 200 feet away from camp.

• Be aware of others. Move off the Trail to a durable surface for breaks and allow other hikers to pass.
• Remember: a group size limit of 10 means that your group never congregates in numbers greater than 10. If your group is larger than the area’s group size limit, break into smaller subgroups to travel and camp.
• Visit and enjoy, but don’t monopolize, water sources, viewpoints, or other areas of interest.
• Leave your campsite better than you found it before leaving in the morning. This means returning logs, rocks, etc. to where you found them or back to the woods and cleaning all trash from the campsite.

• Gather and camp as a large group only in locations out of sight and earshot from other visitors.
  • Groups should not stay inside of shelters (except in areas that require it, like in the Smokies) and should camp away from shelters whenever possible.
  • Be sure to tent on durable surfaces that have been used by other campers!
• Let nature’s sounds prevail. Remind your group that voices can travel long distances.
• Don’t talk on the phone or play sounds from a speaker within sight or sound of other hikers. Keep phones and other devices silent. If you choose to listen to music, use headphones.