Intrepid Travel's New 'Active-ism' Trips Want to Save National Parks, But Who's Going to Save Me?
- Nicole Edenedo
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 17 hours ago
By Nicole Edenedo
After leaving an unsupportive job only to be met with countless employment rejections for nearly a year, Nicole Edenedo is burnt out. But on a new trip advocating for the protection of national parks, she rediscovers how to advocate for herself and the life she wants to live.
Google Old Faithful and you’ll find some useful information about the famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park neatly summarized in the AI Overview. What follows is a bullet point breakdown of helpful facts to know about the geyser, including its location in the park (Upper Geyser Basin), its eruption frequency (approx. every 90mins), duration (1.5 to 5.5 minutes), height (varies, approx. 180ft), and details about the water that comes out of it, including its temperature (203º F) and volume (3,700 - 8,400 gallons).
Google Nicole Edenedo and you’ll also find some useful information about the non-famous struggling New York-based journalist on the brink of complete mental collapse who, like Old Faithful, is prone to frequent volcanic-fueled eruptions these days. What follows is a bullet point breakdown of helpful facts to know should unsuspecting individuals encounter this jobless walking hotbed of pent up angst and disillusion.
Those facts include her location (likely sulking in her childhood bedroom in Los Angeles by the time this story is published), her eruption frequency (approx. every 3-4 days), duration (ranges from 45-minute venting sessions to essay-length text messages to strangers), height (some days feeling 10 feet tall, others microscopically flat), along with details about the story she tells of how her life has unraveled over the past year, and how the career she’s spent 11 years building seemingly vanished overnight.
Figures frequently fluctuate, mind you, regarding the temperature of how she recounts these trials of the past year, oscillating somewhere between boiling hot mad and frigidly despondent. While the volume of information she provides with each retelling is still a lot of detail, but considerably more succinct than previous recitals. Time makes better editors of us all, it seems.
Serendipitous, one might think, these two natural American wonders — Old Faithful and Nicole — meeting when they did in late September on a new Intrepid Travel trip built around advocacy. Both are parts of a larger whole — one of U.S. national parks, which are currently facing historic billion-dollar budget cuts and disruptive layoffs; the other of Black women professionals who have recently found themselves forced out of, laid off or simply fired from the jobs and industries that they have dedicated nothing but their time and talents to. Both are precious resources that provide indelible value to this country. Both are currently under threat and seeking protection, with help still yet to arrive.
Who knew that joining this Intrepid trip meant to raise awareness about the importance of protecting and advocating for national parks would only make me more fully aware of the importance of protecting and advocating for myself, and for the women out there who are just like me?
The Breakfast Club Goes to Yellowstone
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Intrepid’s new Active-ism trips, a collection of four trips to U.S. national parks – Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Zion and the Grand Canyon – that launched this year and aim to raise awareness about the important work that goes into the parks, along with the challenges they face and how to advocate for their future.
This was going to be my first time visiting any national park in the U.S., two in fact, Yellowstone and Grand Teton. And while I didn’t personally need any convincing about how important national parks are to the fabric of American culture, I did wonder what I would be getting out of this trip beyond having more serene surroundings to contemplate my descent into madness.
The Active-ism trips are hosted by prominent Millennial and Gen Z environmentalists who will lead discussions about conservation, sustainability, inclusivity and other advocacy topics, while an expert Intrepid guide takes the group on guided treks through the parks. The hosts include public lands advocate Alex Haraus, environmental advocate and founder of Black Girl Environmentalist Wawa Gatheru, climate activist and environmental educator Michael Mezzatesta, and environmental justice author and ecofeminist Leah Thomas.
"I'm kind of like the activist-next-door."
Admittedly, I pictured someone younger, more successful and financially secure than I’ve ever been able to figure out for myself somewhat haughtily lecturing our press group about the native flora and fauna on treks through the forest, pointing out random facts about American bison on our scenic drives like they were David Attenborough. If that was to be the case, I thought, bring it on; no better place than a sprawling national park with majestic mountain ranges towering overhead to remind you of just how small you are in a world that keeps changing on you.
But that’s not how things went down. This trip, which was previewing Thomas' upcoming six-day Yellowstone and Grand Tetons itinerary launching June 2026, was actually quite fun and casual, made possible likely by the fact that we had a really great and diverse group.
From a late Baby Boomer to Gen Zers, we were a cross-generational mix of journalists and content creators with a passion for the outdoors. Rounding out the group was a music industry professional and a good friend of Thomas’ who is part of the LGBTQ+ community, our Syrian-Canadian press wrangler, and our pretty cool Intrepid guide who, while never revealing his exact age, did share his disappointment with the first Stars Wars film he was old enough to go see in theaters -- Episode I: the Phantom Menace (yikes) -- which revealed plenty.
“It’s kind of like the Breakfast Club; we're all just these random people coming together and for this one purpose,” Thomas said.
A Good Group is Everything
Better known as Green Girl Leah on Instagram, where she posts about everything from her environmental justice work to her latest community art venture Green Girl Crafts, Thomas consciously brought a casual, down to earth vibe to the group as opposed to a more formal approach that she might normally adopt when participating in speaking engagements or panels.
“I think in a lot of my life I'm lecturing or I'm on panels, or there's this relationship between me and the audience that's like, ‘let me tell you this information.’ And I like this trip in particular because I'm not necessarily a guide, but I just happen to be here and by nature,” Thomas said. “I'm kind of like the activist next door.”
The groups are the shining element of these trips, I discovered, as this is where the actual “Active-ism” occurs. It was in the in-between moments where the most important work happened: building community among like-minded individuals who are discussing issues that affect all of us, working to understand the issues that particularly affect some of us, and peering into the personal journeys we’re all on that ultimately lead us to gatherings like these.
Flanked by our excursions into the parks where we did hikes, wildlife tracking and safari-like experiences, those in-between moments were my favorite. Among them were our lunch table talks, which covered the rise of AI, the benefits and ills of social media, finding belonging outdoors, even broaching today’s very bleak dating landscape. There were our scenic drives through Yellowstone set to a killer playlist of American folk rock, country and blues, our exciting wildlife encounters together, and our fireside chats at the end of most nights that got a little more personal, allowing us to reveal more of who we were, what we wanted and what we were going through to get it.
Nothing builds community better than getting chased by a grizzly bear together, but then again, so does showing a vulnerable side of yourself to strangers that you haven’t quite yet shown to anyone else.
“By the end of this trip, I think everyone had opened up in ways that I was surprised, honestly, about; feeling empowered to share our varying opinions, and even if they were really different,” Thomas said. “It’s an experimental program, but I think that we're here to have these deep conversations."
National Parks Aren't the Only Ones Who Need Saving
It’s tough to try to save something in need of help when you too are drowning in a life vest you can’t quite get to inflate. How can I be a better advocate and protector of the parks when I can’t even protect my own life from falling apart?
A 43-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history so far before it ended on November 12, had put an intense spotlight on national parks and the dire needs that aren’t met when funding suddenly stops, like facility maintenance, park ranger patrols to uphold safety or even just remaining open. Attention was also drawn to the many government jobs affected by the shutdown and the hard working people who rely on critical government-funded programs. The shutdown may be over but the threats to parks remain — deep budget cuts, staff shortages, general uphill battles.
Meanwhile, I’m still in the midst of my own 425-day shutdown. Funding’s long run out, my best employees — morale and motivation — stopped showing up for work some time ago, facilities remain in total disrepair. A deal with myself to end this long-simmering period of dysfunction is imminent, at least. The deal being to launch this platform and share the stories I want to tell regardless if this is the last thing I do in my journalism career, followed by a reluctant move back to my parents' home in Los Angeles because I simply can't afford to keep waiting for my industry to wake up and hire me anymore. But I worry about all that I’ll have to give up in order to close this deal and if making it is really the right decision.
I’m preparing to leave my waterfront apartment in New York that I’ve nurtured for six years, it having seen me through a mass layoff, a career change, a pandemic, a firing, countless f@$%boys, and perhaps the greatest period of personal growth I’ve undergone in my 34 years. I'll have to give up the community I’ve built through my kayak club, the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club (YPRC), a community I know will be hard to recreate anywhere else; I was even running for the board this year. It's the simple things that I know I never took for granted -- evening walks along the pier, free summer concerts in the Hudson river towns -- that make this loss harder and underscores the powerlessness I feel.
But I think it's here in this loss, or the threat of loss, where I find my strongest connection to the mission of these Active-ism trips and advocacy for the protection of national parks. It's in the fact that they matter. The parks matter. The simple things in my life matter. The lives and livelihoods of Black women matter. You don't have to visit Yellowstone or spend a day in my shoes or theirs to know that's true. Having a sprawling outdoor space to figure out your next move or observe wildlife or reflect on the history of how the parks came to be protected national treasures in the first place matters just as much as being able to make a living in peace, without being under constant threat of having to defend your existence to someone, your right to live a nice life just like them, all while suffering the indignity of hearing in response, "maybe."
At the end of the day, I guess there's really only one thing I can do to show my support of the parks. Go find the nearest one -- national, state or otherwise -- cup a tree trunk in my hands, look it directly in the bark as though I were looking into my own reflection and say with the kind of heroic desperation to someone just as they're about to collapse steps shy of the finish line, "Of course you're important. Who could ever think you weren't?"