Anyone who thinks old-fashioned exploration doesn’t happen anymore should meet Mexican explorer Carlos Rangel. Rangel once attempt to cross the Pacific in a primitive canoe, navigating by the stars and carrying only the basics —no instruments, no GPS, no compass. The explorer and his partner lived in what the sea provided until a storm hit the sail-rigged vessel, capsizing them into the churning sea and forcing them to retreat to Mexico’s Pacific Coast, landing within a few kilometers of their emergency port.

Rangel, who says he began exploring as soon as he could walk, is at the forefront of a popular past-time in Mexico —making expeditions to very remote, unvisited, unmapped regions. These expeditions have taken him into the most remote deserts, jungles, and high mountain regions of Mexico, often with very little or no navigational equipment. He’s currently attempting to sea kayak the entire coast of Mexico in phases, having already completed the Mexican Caribean. This year he will finish the Gulf of Mexico’s coast and then, in the next few years, the Pacific Coast, beginning with the Gulf of California where he will pass by NOLS Mexico.

The director of Mexico’s Central University (UNAM) mountaineering end exploration association, Rangel is one of Mexico’s foremost outdoor educators. While he recognizes that outdoor activities are becoming more organized in Mexico, he’s also concerned by the lack of standardization in the industry. Rangel is particularly worried about the effects of increased recreation on Mexico’s wild areas —that’s why he turned to NOLS Mexico for some training. “Outdoor recreation is growing fast, but mainly without education on Leave No Trace (LNT) ethics”, says the educator.

Rangel enrolled on a NOLS Mexican Educator’s course this spring, a program designed to pass on NOLS skills to outdoor educators in Mexico. “What is special about NOLS is how it incorporates the teaching on LNT into the program”, Rangel says. For now, he thinks, very few people have LNT training in Mexico, and he hopes NOLS will continue to lead this effort in Mexico.

And Rangel is certainly doing his part. He currently includes LNT in all his programs at the university, and manages a “Clean Your Mountain” program with the Mexican Mountain Federation to promote weekend clean-ups in wild areas.

For an explorer, all of this is essential. “We live in closed-in places, we eat in closed-in places, everything we do is in closed-in places”, says Rangel. “In outdoor education we take people to places that are not closed-in. For outdoor education, people need to see the uninterrupted wild to know it exists and appreciate it.”

Nota aclaratoria
En el penúltimo párrafo hay un error grave de edición, pues mencionan que Carlos Rangel maneja el programa "Limpia tu Montaña" junto con la Federación Mexicana de Deportes de Montaña y Escalada. El programa es íntegramente de la Federación.

Fuente
The Leader
Fall 2004.
Vol 20, No. 1. página 13