Not Gatekeeping – Guardrails

A while back, I wrote a piece called Thoughts on Gatekeeping.

The gist?

That there’s a difference between genuinely helping folks get outside and the other end of the spectrum of “Give me all the beta!”

But lately, I’ve found myself realizing what I’ve gravitated towards. Not a velvet rope, not a bouncer with a checklist. Just a quiet suggestion: Give the person the tools in a kit and let them figure it out.

I recently wrote about a mellow loop in the La Sals. A simple local jaunt, the kind of thing I like to squeeze in when the mental battery is low and my brain needs a reset (Far too many of these, lately. Sigh.) I called it the “Geyser Pass Loop” and mentioned Manns Peak. That’s it. No step-by-step directions. No GPS track. No embedded Google map.

Because frankly? If you can read a map, that’s more than enough.

This trip isn’t an FKT or something that’s #EPIC.

It’s a loop. It’s on the map. It’s accessible, obvious even, if you know how to interpret topo lines and follow Forest Service trails, but you’d be surprised how many emails or DMs I still get for other trips:

“Hey, could you send me a GPX file?”
Could you list the water sources?
“What’s the exact mileage from X to Y?”

So, guardrails and not gatekeeping.

I’m not trying to pull a Gandalf and say “You Shall Not Pass!” 

That’s gatekeeping.

Instead, I’d like to think of myself as the friendly person at the information kiosk – passing out pamphlets, maps, and almost always accompanied by a dumb joke.

Literally, as I hike to get this info.

We all start somewhere. I’ve written plenty over the years for folks trying to get their feet wet – $300 gear list, beginner how-tos, thoughts on navigation, and more.

But there’s a difference between sharing knowledge and oversharing convenience.

Dropping a breadcrumb or two—just enough for someone to grab a map, plot out a route, and hike? That’s a guardrail—a nudge toward independence, curiosity, and self-reliance.

Give someone every turn and they’ll follow the script.
Give them just enough and they’ll write their own story.

I leave things vague by design at this point, after I ate some crow quite a few years ago.

Not because I’m a curmudgeon (I’m from the Northeast and grew up in a loud, Catholic family; it’s a birthright), but because I think giving people the tools to make a trip of their own is more important than giving people all the breadcrumbs.

If a mention of “Geyser Pass” and “Manns Peak” is enough to get someone flipping open a map (electronic or otherwise) , tracing a line, and saying, “Hey, I could do that?” Good deal.

That’s who I’m writing for.

If someone closes the tab because I didn’t give them the GPX file? That’s fine, too. Maybe they’ll reevaluate later, map in hand.

This “guardrailing”  isn’t about being exclusive. It’s about trusting people to help themselves rather than handing them the play-by-play instructions.

Because the more we trade curiosity for convenience, the more we risk losing what makes the outdoors meaningful in many ways.

So no, it’s not gatekeeping. It’s guardrails.

And giving people the tools so they can enjoy their own version of wildness.