Juniper Moss Guide Services, LLC

06/04/2025

Did you know that offers classes all over the state that teach YOU to work on YOUR OWN bike?

You can learn:
- how to make sure your bike is safe and ready before every ride
- how to perform basic maintenance to keep your bike in good working condition
- how to identify bigger issues that require the help of a professional mechanic

The Bicycle Coalition of Maine also offers presentations and workshops to teach bike and pedestrian safety for all types of people in all types of places.

New this year, BCM is also offering some MTB-specific programming. Check out their page and website for dates and sign up info. If you don't see an event or class near you, reach out to get something new on the calendar.

BCM is doing some pretty cool and helpful things for communities all over the state of Maine. Consider signing up for membership, donating, or joining the team of volunteer instructors like I just did. There are tons of opportunities to get involved and be a part of making Maine a safer place to get outside.

05/03/2025

We'll be doing some packrafting this summer. And bikerafting. And packraft-bike-camping.

25/06/2024

I'm so excited to be a part of this event again!

We are thrilled to welcome back Kat Ripley of Juniper Moss Guide Service to Forest & Forage! She will lead standing yoga poses and stretches to limber you up for fungi foraging and hiking. Limited tickets still available at www.mainehuts.org/events

28/01/2024

Dude, living off-grid is a lot of work 🫣

I have had to table a lot of things in the last few weeks because I simply can't do it all.

Keeping up with posting here, networking, putting together a plan for guided trips, launching a weekly snow-ga class, and even going on fun little adventures of my own are among the things I have paused.

Keyword there is "paused." I'll pick all of this back up when I'm ready for it and take off running, better equipped to do so than I am right now.

In addition to the constant grind of off-grid chores, I also purchased a completely unrelated fully remote business earlier this month, have been putting in some time working at the Maine Huts & Trails office to make sure I get out and speak to real live humans a few days each week through the winter, I'm finishing up photography projects from the fall and keeping up with some freelance marketing work, I teach a yoga class every Thursday evening, and I'm also a single parent.

Some days, I feel like I'm drowning and I have to "yoga teacher" myself out of my own head.

None of it is easy.

If you also made too many commitments coming into the new year, know it's ok to put some of them down. Don't just drop off the face of the Earth about things, but communicate about what's going on with the people affected. You would be surprised how relatable it is to overcommit, overbook, over plan, and then realize you made a mistake.

So own it. Let people know what you can do instead or simply that you can't do anything. Give yourself the grace to bow out or say "not right now."

You can always start up again when you're ready.

18/01/2024

How much wood do you burn in a season? 🔥

I'm working my way through four cords. I was told three should be plenty, but I like the yurt hot, and I could only get it delivered in two-cord loads.

I'll definitely get four again for next year.

Also, wear your sunscreen! 🌞😎

15/01/2024

I'm torn on my wood stove strategy.

Option 1: get it cranking before bed, go to sleep at a normal time, and sleep through the night. Wake up feeling solidly rested at a normal time to a cold home and spend the next three hours getting it back up to a comfortable temperature.

Option 2: get it cranking before bed, go to sleep at a normal time, set an alarm for 2:00am to add more wood, go back to sleep for a few more hours. Wake up groggy and super late to a still warm home and then feel rushed to get going for the day.

I don't love either option, but am leaning toward option 1 simply because that groggy feeling of interrupted sleep tends to stick with me all day. Maybe it's option 2 only when I won't have time in the morning to spend three hours reheating the yurt.

What is your wood stove strategy? How do you manage heat off-grid or while camping?

14/01/2024

Can you bake in a Dutch oven inside your wood stove? Yes. Should you? . . . Ehhhhh 😬

I am far from an expert on this, and am speaking only from my own limited experience, but here's what I've found over the past few months:

🔥Roasting things like meat or veggies in your wood stove is awesome.

🔥Baking things like cookies that require consistent temperatures is really challenging. The way my setup is shaped, I put the Dutch oven off to the left and build the fire to the right. The air moves from right to left in the stove, so the heat pulls across, but the right side of the Dutch oven is always going to be hotter. Not only do you have to rotate the oven during cooking (which can be tricky) to work around this, but you also have to try keeping the fire really consistent so the temperature stays consistent, too.

🔥Whatever you cook in your wood stove is going to take on at least a slightly smokey flavor; again, great for meat and veggies, but not so much for baking, *unless* you're baking something savory that would work with some smokiness.

🔥Since the wood stove is basically an oven, your Dutch oven can act as more of a casserole dish with a lid to keep ash and smoke out of your food. I haven't noticed a huge difference between piling coals on top and not doing this, so I don't because it creates less mess.

These pictures are of my adventures in cookie baking yesterday. The first batch got totally charred all the way around; the stove was the right temp, but inside the Dutch oven was way too hot.

The second batch was better, but still completely burned on the bottom. After that I switched to single cookies after letting things cool down a bit so I wasn't ruining a ton of dough with every attempt. That one cookie came out great aside from the smokey flavor. I kept going with just one or two at a time until they were all baked. It took a really long time and keeping the temperature consistent was hard.

Have you tried cooking this way? Share your experiences. Teach me something new!

08/01/2024

Hey, Yolanda! Winter looks good on you.

Have you ever stayed in a yurt before? Or tried living off-grid?

I get asked about what it's like quite a bit, and I have to say, the yurt parts are not where the challenges lie. If I had plumbing and electricity, yurt life wouldn't be very different from any other open concept home.

Living off-grid, regardless of the structure, is where things get interesting and different (and frustrating).

I get my water at the store for now, so we conserve like no one's business. Showers happen at the Sugarloaf Sports and Fitness Center (where I also get to enjoy the sauna and am now completely spoiled).

Working remotely means I need electricity and internet at least some of the time. I get power via a 400watt solar system which charges a few different power banks/batteries, one for my fridge and two others for everything else. When there isn't enough sun to keep things happy, I run a generator for a few hours a day to recharge everything.

I have a Starlink for internet, which is great most of the time, but I shut it off when I'm not using it, and it likes to hint at me that the connection would be more stable if I let it stay connected for at least 12 hours.

The yurt is heated using a wood stove, so there's the constant fun of carrying wood inside and feeding the stove. Overnight and on colder days, I can get about four hours of burn time before things start cooling off, and the yurt holds heat about as well as any older house I've ever lived in.

Yurt/off-grid living are neat experiences, and I think everyone should try it out at some point. But I don't recommend launching into it head first with limited/no experience to figure it out as you go along. Find a friend to stay with or a commercial lodging operation and dip your toes in first. Make sure it's something you can handle before you spend $30k+ 😅

As someone who has long enjoyed camping and doing things in less than conventional ways, I've adapted well, but know that this life is exhausting, especially if you're managing your day-to-day by yourself.

Be careful and take care of yourself out there.

07/01/2024

Lunch at a summit is cool and all, but I had no complaints about today's midday break.

George and I hiked up to Stratton Brook Hut today for some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The weather was chilly and overcast, but not unbearable, especially when traveling uphill.

It was great getting to chat with Zeb and Hannah from the hut staff crew, and they even had chocolate chip cookies, which was good because I promised George I would buy him a cookie to get him through the last mile of the hike in.

This was George's first visit to a hut, and he loved it so much he didn't want to leave. I'll have to get him out to the other huts and plan some overnight stays soon.

Hiking with your kids (or doing any activity, honestly) can be a frustrating, tiring, maddening experience. I won't sugarcoat it. There were definitely moments where I regretted planning this outing for us. However, there were also good moments where I was really glad we were out there.

Sharing the things you love with your kids can make them less enjoyable if you try to do them the same way you would do them when they're not around. I think the key is to find a way to meet them halfway. Look for opportunities to make "your thing" (singular) into "your thing" (plural).

I'm still working on this myself, but I've seen small bits of success, so I plan to keep leaning into the concept.

05/01/2024

Stickers are here!!

The cards definitely did not print in the right shade of green (they're a little blue 🫤), but the stickers came out great!!

Yay, marketing materials!

29/12/2023

Did you know that moss doesn't die in the winter?

When conditions become too extreme, moss can go dormant and survive under the snow and ice.

During a thaw, you can see vibrant green moss poking through while many other plants remain sleeping.

Keep an eye out for moss the next time you're in the woods. You may find it thriving in some pretty unexpected places.