I check my water bottle, slap on the SPF 60 and adjust my sunnies to get ready for an autumn walk along the banks of the Salt River just north of Mesa, Arizona. Before we set out, I’m given a pair of gloves, a garbage bag and a long trash grabber with pincers on the end. After a quick safety briefing, we’re off.
I’m going plogging with a bunch of women in workout gear, one lone man and a white goat named Bugsy.
Plogging, the Swedish craze taking off on trails everywhere, is picking up garbage while jogging, or in our case, hiking. I met my first plogger on Newfoundland’s Fogo Island a few months earlier. The young woman from Toronto was filling a garbage bag with debris that had washed up along Joe Batt’s Point Trail. She told me she packs garbage bags along with trail mix on every outing.