2018. A good (and ultralight) year, indeed

As we prepare to turn the corner on 2018 and enter 2019, I’d like to take a minute to thank everyone in DC UL Backpacking who made this a great year.

• From our organizers who pulled together 81 events over the year, 56 of which were backpacking trips.
• To our 157 new members who joined in 2018 — and one in four of you attended an event with us this year!
• And to our entire membership which stands just over 1,100 backpackers.

We’ve had a number of great events over the past year. We journeyed to Death Valley, tackled new peaks in the Adirondacks, did a stretch of the North Country Trail, and revisited classics like Dolly Sods.

We had the first-ever “Slush-a-nutten” with a blanket of melting snow adding an extra challenge to our annual Massanutten event.  Four members chiseled their names onto our Hall of Fame by successfully completing DCUL’s Four State Challenge–and a new record was set. And our 2018 Geargasm was our biggest to date.

We also took time to give back–raising more than $1,300 for City Kids Wilderness Project and contributing to the North Country Trail Association.

As I look back to 2018, there’s a lot of us for us to be happy about. And as we enter 2019, I’d like to say thank you to everyone to whose hard work makes DC UL possible. Here’s to another year of (ultralight) adventure.

Photo credit: Shane