Plug in.

Rivian Clubs of America is a non-profit club, run by volunteers, for Rivian owners and enthusiasts. Rivian sells these trucks on adventure, and the club takes them at their word: drives, campouts, off-pavement trips, cars and coffee, trail cleanups, and bigger gatherings like OPTIMA Unplugged at King of the Hammers. It also partners with Tread Lightly! on keeping trails open.

You don’t have to join to look around. The club runs on Heylo (opens in a new tab) , where the chat and the event calendar live, and some events are open to anyone who turns up.

I’m a member of the Sierra Nevada chapter, where we take full advantage of our mountainous terrain: half or more of the calendar is off-roading trail runs and camping trips. I’m one of the chapter leads for the West Slope, and one of the trail leads when we go off-road.

Tahoe gets three times the visitors of Yellowstone or Zion, without a national park’s staff or protections. Land managers don’t have the people to keep up with the litter that many visitors leave behind, so volunteer groups cover it instead: we adopted Genoa Peak Trail and run at least three trash cleanups there every summer.

Every cleanup gets logged and reported to Keep Tahoe Blue, who use the data to push for real protections. Picking up trash on one trail turns into an argument for the whole lake.