My name is Travis and I’m the Director of Trip Operations at The Venture Out Project. I use he/they pronouns and I identify as a transmasc/non-binary person. I have been designing and leading overnight adventures for TVOP since 2015. We often get the question: “How do you come up with your trip ideas?” The short answer: I have a history with these hikes, and I always look at them with the potential to be a TVOP trip with other queer folks! The longer answer lies below.

First backpacking trip - Bigelow Mountains, Maine 1997

Tam and Travis finish a South Bound (SoBo) Long Trail Thru-hike, Vermont

The Venture Out Project, born in Massachusetts in 2015 by founder Perry Cohen, has led trips all over New England, The Pacific Northwest, The Rockies, and now the Canadian Arctic. When I discovered TVOP, I had just moved from Boston, MA to Portland, OR to play in the Cascade Mountains and explore the Pacific Northwest. A friend in Oregon posted about a new queer outdoor group in MA. Filled with shock and excitement, I quickly researched and discovered that Perry, a fellow queer & trans outdoorist, had just started this non-profit. It happened to be only 100 miles West of where I had been living for the past 13 years.

First off, how did we not know each other? A few Skype calls later and I was invited to guide TVOP’s first week-long trip on The Long Trail. This is the same trail I eventually thru-hiked with my best friend Tam in 2016. Tam is a TVOP instructor and a Certified Forest Therapy Guide - not to mention, founder of Toadstool Walks (check out our Queer Forest Circle Retreat - 2020). The story of our my first trip with TVOP is a fun one, and we often use it as an example of how far we’ve come as an organization. We had two participants and three guides.

Travis at 16. Working on my skater bangs like the guys in Gleaming the Cube

So where did this journey all begin? Well, I grew up as a troubled tomboy in the small coastal mountains of Down East Maine, where life as an androgynous person was challenging. While there were a few failed camping attempts in my family's young life, I didn’t really start to hike until my father gifted me the AMC Maine Mountain Guide on my 16th birthday in 1993. Down the road lay Acadia National Park, where I took it as a personal challenge to hike every mountain in Acadia; recording notes in a journal such as date, who I was with (often my father or sister), and if I enjoyed that particular hike. My favorite was “the ladder” trails. In particular, a specific Acadia ladder trail, The Beehive, was our trail of choice on our Maine: Summit to Sea Tour - 2017.

First water after an exposed, hot, waterless 8 miles on Mount St. Helen’s Loowit Trail, Washington

Later that summer I was invited to join my high school boyfriend and his family on their annual trip to Mount Katahdin, Maine’s tallest peak, and the end (or beginning) of the Appalachian Trail. On my first summit attempt of Mount Katahdin, with Tony and his father, we took the Helon Taylor trail and headed towards Pamola Peak and the Knife's Edge. My inexperience and exhaustion led me to run out of water by the time we reached the boulder field below the summit. Throat bone dry, panting, and totally exposed, a storm rolled in. Between my water problem and the fear of the cliffs that loomed close by, I was terrified. We hunkered down under a huge granite boulder which Kathadin offered as shelter. Eventually, a ranger found us and instructed us to turn around - no summit was to be had that day. However, the storm left behind beautiful gifts of water in pockmarked granite. I drank freely at every puddle I could find. Since then, I’ve been a conservative water drinker to a fault. Ironically, I would find myself in a similar situation 25 years later on the Loowit Trail circumventing Washington’s Mount St. Helens which would lead to the Mount St. Helen’s Experienced Backpacking Trip - 2016.

Winter Ascent Mount St. Helen’s, Washington

This summit attempt of Katahdin only left me thirsty for more. I returned to Baxter State Park the next summer. Since that first attempt in 1993, I have summited Katahdin several times; hiking every trail that leads to both Pamola and Baxter Peak. Mount Katahdin is a special and rugged place, and it was amazing to lead a trip there for our Maine: Summit to Sea Tour- 2017.

The mountains provided me with a goal, it felt good in my body to climb. As a tall, gender weirdo, I felt safe. Even better, there were no bathrooms, which left me feeling stress-free and distant from the usual harassment.

Baxter Peak Summit w/ Sarah - Mount Katahdin, Maine

Mountains informed where I chose to go to school and live. Once I was in college, I would go on to discover backpacking and deepen my love of snowsports, which led me to live in Gunnison, Colorado for a semester (Colorado Ski Weekends 2018 & 2019). While in the area, I hiked the first 200 miles of the Colorado Trail, and although it doesn’t go through Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado is an incredible place to backpack (Classic Backpacking Rocky Mountain National Park Colorado 2019).

After a short hiatus from the woods in my early 20’s to enjoy being a punk musician and skater in Boston, I invited my best friend Tam to join me on a hike of Mount Washington. This trip with Tam kicked off years of experiences with my most devoted adventure partner. With our mutual friend, Kael, we started calling ourselves the “Fruit Booters” and we shared many adventures on the high peaks of New Hampshire.

I had summitted Washington years before in college and went snowboarding on Tuckerman's Ravine. After spending a frozen, teeth catering, sleepless night with no sleeping pad at the Hermit Lake Shelters at the base of the Ravine, I learned the true purpose of a sleeping pad (hint, it’s not for comfort!). This trip and several returning trips to the Presidentals, including a full traverse in 2011 with the Fruit Booters and hiking to the Lakes of Clouds AMC Hut, eventually led to Mount Washington Backpacking 2019- 2020 & NH Winter Hut Summit - 2020.

In 2012, I discovered canoe camping with an amazing group of queer friends from Boston. Together, we planned a nine-day journey on The Allagash, a wilderness waterway of lakes and rivers in Northern Maine. These nine days quilted together a daily life of solitude, exploring the river banks, pulling up to campsites, swimming, bellowing loons, full-sized guitars, a campfire stove in which I was able to BAKE upside down pineapple cake, and plastic totes full of equipment. We were truly unhindered by what we could carry on our backs. Since this trip, my desire to bring canoe camping to TVOP has finally come to fruition: TVOP’s first canoe trip is this June (Classic Canoe Camping 2020) - a journey down the Connecticut River in Western Mass.

Of course, there was a learning curve from turning a personal adventure into a group experience. We hit some bumps along the way, mostly in the form of trail length, because what works for two people traveling, does not work for a group.

Through many years of guiding trips we have come to learn that regardless of the group’s experience (be it first-time backpackers or experienced thru-hikers), groups move at a mile-per-hour pace. If we’re tackling five miles that day, then we plan on hiking for at least five hours. This doesn’t include multiple water and bathroom breaks along and ample time for lunch. In other words, a full day of backpacking!

Overall - our mantra is now: Less is More!

A few other things we keep in mind when choosing the best location:

Is the trail an out-and-back, a point-to-point, or a loop? (Note: bonus points for a loop!)
Is there ample parking at the trailhead?
Is group travel permitted?
- Are we able to obtain said permits?
How far away is the trail/area from the closest major airport?
What are the interesting features/majestic views?
Trails:
- How many miles between each camping area?
- What is the elevation gain?
Campsites:
- Ample water flow, even in late summer?
- Plenty of tent camping spots, even if there are others there?

Ask for the story behind a TVOP trip and I’d be happy to indulge you by a campfire - Like how my friends and I carried our snowboards and piles of wood to the summit of Doublehead Mountain in NH for a snowy overnight which is now the location for our Youth Backpacking 2017-2020, or the years I spent exploring the Pacific Northwest which inspired the Classic Oregon Backpacking 2016 on the PCT between Mt. Hood and the Columbia River Gorge, or the “Semi-Pemi” backpacking trip in the rugged Pemigewasset Wilderness in NH with the Fruit Booters. This was the infamous trip where I lost my favorite pair of yellow Crocs, and we spent 14 hours in our tent at Liberty Spring Campground next to Mount Lafayette eating dry ramon because it was raining so hard and we couldn’t cook. That experience would later lead to the Advanced NH Backpacking - 2016. Sometimes we set out intentionally to scout for a TVOP trip and it doesn’t work out - like the the time Perry and I hiked a section of the PCT in Central Oregon through miles of burnt trees, chocking on fresh smoke from whatever was currently on fire.

Besides the Canadian Arctic, almost every trip of TVOP is based on a trip I have dreamed up, planned and organized with friends, and shared with them from the time I started my love of the mountains in 1993 to when I joined TVOP as an Instructor.

This coming weekend, I’m skiing hut-to-hut at the AMC Mountain Huts in the glorious Northern Maine woods. My desire to explore the woods and mountains with friends remains, and I hope to continue to bring these trips to The Venture Out Project for years to come.

Photos by Kael Parker, Stud Green, Kaj Jensing

Fruit Booters (Kael, Travis, Tam) on the summit of Mount Adams, Presidential Traverse, White Mountains, New Hampshire.

Travis & Tam - Allagash River Wilderness Waterway, Maine

Travis & Tam on their way up to Doublehead Cabin, New Hampshire, via Doublehead Ski Trail

The Anatomy of a TVOP Adventure