The wilderness is here for everyone. It’s open 24/7, free and accessible to all.

That’s always been a bit of a philosophical conundrum for us. Because while Dust and Tribe recognizes and values that accessibility, we kind of gatekeep it a little bit.

We do that by setting prices for our adventures.

We’re not bad guys. This isn’t sinister hypocrisy, but rather the unimaginative result of a practical dilemma that we all struggle with. It takes time and money to curate, plan, prepare, instruct, and otherwise host our events. We can subsidize things for awhile, advancing the work as a passion project for as long as we are able.

But the work is too important. Muslims need to get outside. More than that, Muslims need to be leaders in the outdoor space. Despite the lip service we pay to the idea of Islam as the din al-fitra, or Natural Way, there is a shocking lack of wilderness literacy among Muslims. We need institutions to address this deficiency. Dust and Tribe is one such institution. And no initiative at the institutional scale can be sustained without generating revenue.

The Cost of Adventure

Here’s a little peek behind the curtain.

Every adventure has costs associated with it, whether you go out with us or on your own. Let’s consider the expenditures associated with some intrepid soul embarking on an unguided solo adventure.

Much of what we consider “wilderness” isn’t actually totally free. There’s the cost of transportation and gear, for example. Passes, permits, and parking fees can be expected. Campsites, firewood, and the food you’re bringing along all cost something. These are expenses that anyone who spends anytime in the wilderness can appreciate.

Hosting others, as we do, introduces other expenses. Overhead in the form of technology, training, subscriptions, and office materials is one big example. Adventure facilitators deserve to be adequately compensated for the responsibility of leading groups into places and situations with limited access to emergency response infrastructure. Equipment needs to be maintained and replaced. Things start to add up.

These costs get added to the aforementioned expenses that anyone getting outside on their own would have to manage. So why bother paying more?

There are several reasons.

People pay for expertise. Maybe you’ve always wanted to get outside but never knew how or where to start. Or maybe you get outside regularly, but you want to level up in terms of difficulty, location, or the nature of the activity. Paying for the company and support of folks who regularly do the thing you are dreaming of is, for many, money well spent.

People pay for networks. Most things are better shared, and this is even more true when we are sharing with likeminded people. Arguably, Dust and Tribe spends more time writing and otherwise communicating about getting outside than actually getting outside. This is intentional and we do it because when we’re miles from anywhere with a handful of people, we want to make sure they are the right people.

Who are the right people?

People who read our blog posts or listen to what we have to say and find themselves nodding in agreement. Also, people who disagree and take the time to frame an intelligent counter-response. Both add value because they care. And we only want to spend time outside with those for whom the experience matters.

Others out there feel the same and they will pay for those connections.

People pay for convenience. The logistics and time required to plan an adventure can be overwhelming. People are busy and may not have the option to invest in learning everything that is required to have a certain type of experience. They’ll pay us to do that work for them. All they need to do is show up.

People pay to support. There are generous people out there who are very capable of getting outside on their own. They are tapped into vibrant outdoor communities. They don’t need us for anything.

But they know that others do.

And so they spend their money to get outside with us just to keep the lights on a bit longer.

Disparities

Even though we have outdoor expertise and we’re tapped into exciting networks and we’re open to the generous financial support of others, it still doesn’t feel good knowing that the basic fee-for-service model may keep us from connecting with some really amazing folks.

The bottom line is that not everyone has disposable cash at the moment we happen to be staging a particular adventure. College kids, stay-at-home moms, retirees on fixed incomes, good guys between jobs- if they’re itching to get outside, we deserve an opportunity to meet them.

While not lucrative, we’ve said before that this work pays exceptionally well in non-cash dividends. We’ve met people who had skills to share or time to help us out at Camp One. We’ve been allowed to spend the night at the homes of beautiful people that we’ve met through our work, avoiding hotel fees and often eating halal food in the process. We’ve received gear donations, and others amplify our work by simply talking to people about what we do.

More precious than anything are the prayers of the grateful on our behalf.

It’s all so very valuable, and often with benefits that last much longer than the cash that seems to disappear almost as soon as it arrives.

We want to eliminate the barriers between us and the blessings that attend such people. We’ve come up with an idea that we think just might work and somehow strike the balance between institutional sustainability and enhanced accessibility.

How it Works

Check out our Events. If you see something you want to do and you’re not in a position to pay, send us a note through our Contact Page. Tell us you want to be added to our standby list.

The next thing you need to do is join our Discord server. Maybe you can’t enrich us with cash, but you can certainly ennoble us through your ideas, opinions, energy, and wisdom, insha Allah. You will need to post at least one substantive comment each week for the duration of your standby period.

A substantive comment is one that offers a new idea or a fresh perspective. It might be a thoughtful question to clarify a statement made by another, or you could try to answer someone else’s question. Pointing out an inconsistency in an argument or expanding on a point that you agree with are other interesting options. There are lots of possibilities.

Admittedly, this is a bit subjective, but we’re inclined to give folks the benefit of the doubt. The main idea is that you can’t log in, post a link or respond to something with an emoji, and imagine that you are holding up your end of the bargain.

It should be noted that not every trip gets off the ground. We set our pricing to cover expenses with minimal participation. If we get more participants, that becomes profit that we can reinvest.

But if we don’t get enough participants to at least break even, in most cases we cancel the trip. Sometimes we’ll run an adventure at a loss, but that’s only when it’s something that we really want to do. The point to take away is that standby is not an option unless Dust and Tribe is able to make costs.

We list the minimum number of required participants on every trip. If we make our minimum and you’re on the standby list and you’ve been posting weekly on Discord, then you will get a 72-hour notice to join us with no financial outlay on your part.

Actually, the first person on the standby list will get a notice. If that person doesn’t respond within two hours, we’ll move on to the next person. You get it.

With such short notice, this offer is clearly not for everybody. You need to be flexible and fairly confident about what you’re diving into. You’re not going to get the hand-holding that paying participants will have by booking things weeks in advance.

Money does have its perks.

So what’s the TLDR?

• Get on the standby list ASAP.
• Post weekly comments to Discord.
• You’ll receive notification of spots remaining at the 72-hour mark.
• Pack up and GO!

Anti-Establishment Prototyping

We loathe capitalism.

The best part of running a business, in our view, is figuring out how we can build our anti-capitalist ethos into the model. We haven’t nailed it, at least not in any way that would be appealing to people with bills to pay. Even so, we’re committed to finding a better way, God willing.

We’ve been wanting to roll this out for a long time. We haven’t worked out all of the kinks and we don’t think we can until we put it into practice and see how it plays out.

In the end, everything we do is about building community: getting into relationship with ourselves, with the wilderness, one another, and ultimately God. It’s the antidote to the divide-and-conquer competitive market-share every-man-for-himself drivel of late-stage capitalism. Participants in the standby program help us build community by stimulating conversation in our Discord server. From a certain perspective, it’s kind of like a work-trade program that we hope is a win for all.

But it’s an experiment. Maybe we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. Maybe everybody stops paying, gets on standby, blows up the Discord, but then we don’t make our registration minimums and nobody goes anywhere. Or maybe the people who pay decide they are going to resent the people who didn’t pay and accuse them of taking advantage of the system. Maybe Dust and Tribe is inadvertently creating a welfare state. Instead of backpacking meals, we’ll just give everybody food stamps.

We’ll never know unless we try. And everyone else can learn from our pioneering folly or copy our ineffable brilliance.

So there you go.

You’ve got one less excuse.

Now let’s play.

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