Current research shows that regular exposure to the outdoors has a tremendous impact on mood disorders like anxiety and depression. In an attempt to make the outdoors more accessible, we’re on a mission to provide relevant news, blog posts, tips, reviews and hacks for everyone. And we’re of the belief creating an honest platform is the best way to connect with people like us.
Our Team:
Mary Beth Skylis
Hi, I’m Mary Beth Skylis. I’m a long-distance backpacker, a rock climber, a dirtbag, and a freelance writer who specializes in personal narratives. I’ve worked with companies like Outside Magazine, Backpacker Magazine, Alaska Magazine, MSR, Thermarest, Katabatibc Gear, and In Motion Magazine. As the founder of TheDirtbag.org, I’m always looking for ways to make the outdoors more accessible. You can follow me on Instagram here.
Karen Howington
Karen Howington is a true southern belle. She grew up in Monroe, a small town in Northeast Louisiana, with the shores of Bayou Desiard as her playground. The state has been called a sportsman’s paradise, and Karen partook in her favorite pastime, fishing, from a very young age. It was there that she discovered her talent for writing in elementary school. Her mother once thought that she plagiarized her writings because she displayed a knack for being quite the wordsmith.
A brand new freelance writer, Karen has had three creative works published online. The first site was called 307 MAGAZINE about adventures in Wyoming, where she lived with her husband for a few years. The second was in Agape Review, a Christian contemporary literature site, and the third on TheDirtBag.org. She is currently writing two books of nonfiction, one on living in Wyoming from a southerner’s point of view and the second on being a pharmacist previously addicted to prescription drugs.
Karen graduated from University of Louisiana at Monroe in 1990 with a degree in pharmacy. While pharmacy is her trade, writing is her passion. She has been married to Dwain Howington for 31 years and has three marvelous children, two of which are human adults (Caroline and Connor), and one of the canine variety named Peanut Pal the Wonder Rescue Mutt. Her hobbies are reading, hiking on any dirt road, engaging with every dog she sees, writing, fishing, traveling, and getting lost down rabbit holes on YouTube. She currently lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, but hopes to eventually move back to the West to Grand Junction, Colorado, where her daughter lives. She has a wicked sense of dry humor and strives to let that shine in her writings. She may be reached at: karen.howington@hotmail.com.
Amanda Lanker
Amanda Lanker is a Bay Area native who once embraced urban life, spending sixteen years in San Francisco as a bartender, bike messenger, law student, licensed non-practicing attorney, and disgruntled underpaid office worker. She fell in love with mountain biking and fled the city in 2016 to live and shred in the Lost Sierra. After several winters Amanda accepted that she hates snow, and she left California in 2019 to thru bike the Arizona Trail and explore the Southwest.
Amanda believes she is a standard-sized human but she is in fact tiny, and you cannot see her face over the dashboard as she drives the giant pickup truck that doubles as her house. When she’s not scribbling in her journal she is mountain biking, trail running, bikepacking, backpacking, and star gazing wherever the weather is favorable to her Goldilocks temperament. Her superpower is accumulating nicknames, and she responds to Biggie Smalls, Macho Princess, Powerhouse Pixie, and Hobo Shaman.
