Popular Mountaineer CDT Sticker Scandal Entangles Pop Star in Leaveless Controversy

GRAMRammy-nominated pop star and Continental Divide Trail hiker Mike Posner was inadvertently dragged into the hiking world’s equivalent of a celebrity scandal after his coach admitted to placing stickers along the southernmost 700 miles of the CDT, sparking a heated debate over the ethics of Leave No Trace in the backcountry.

Posner and his coach, Dr. Jon Kedrowski, recently completed a CDT supported hike, but the pair drew the ire of the hiking community when southbound hikers reported seeing «LFW» stickers on trail markers near the south end of the trail.

LFW, short for “long f*cking walk,” is a slogan associated with Posner, who also previously walked east to west across the United States in 2019 following the death of his father.

Stickergate: Is leaving stickers on the road trash?

In response to the stickers, Posner’s comments section on Instagram began featuring hikers asking him to go back and remove them, or berating him for blatantly ignoring the Leave No Trace principles so important to maintaining the backcountry.

However, Posner was never responsible for the stickers. Upon arriving at the south terminal, his coach, Jon Kedrowski, admitted in a post on Instagram that he had been the one to place them, acknowledging that he had continued to do so even after Posner asked him not to.

«I’m here to let everyone know that I was the one who put up all those stickers, I apologize to Mike for still putting them up when he told me not to and just because he’s famous he’s being blamed for it and people are magnifying the situation,» Kedrowski wrote in a lengthy caption. «Let me be clear. I’m the one who put them there.»

Kedrowski, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article, defended his actions in the post. «There were less than a dozen posted on the last 700 miles of the trail; for anyone to say they were ‘covered everywhere’ is a complete exaggeration… And no, I never covered the CDT signs or anything else. I never disrespected the CDT and I never disrespected other people.»

In a since-deleted part of the post, he added: «People put stickers on the pitch all the time, I’ve seen it all over the world for decades…stop trying to preach how bad it is.»

The importance of leaving no trace

Flames and trail markers can be rare in the CDT, and there certainly isn’t a culture of putting up strange signs. Photo through

However, “properly disposing of waste” is one of the core principles of Leave No Trace, one that many hikers, as well as the Continental Divide Trail Coalition (CDTC), say the placement of stickers violates.

«The basic principles of Leave No Trace are to simply leave the land as you found it, as much as possible. While leaving personal stickers on signs is not new, it is disappointing to see this potentially become a trend in the CDT community,» said CDTC Executive Director Teresa Martinez.

«One act of tampering with signage can encourage another, and every tampered or vandalized sign will eventually need to be replaced. Now, with the very structure of American public lands management changing – and in the face of staff and funding shortages – time and resources are limited,» the CDTC said in a statement.

A controversial story

This week’s «stickergate» scandal is not the first time Kedrowski’s actions on the field have been questioned.

For example, while Kedrowski’s impressive outdoor resume appears to include a summit of Mount Everest in 2018 without supplemental oxygen, a database tracking summit attempts since 1905 indicates that he turned at 8,500 meters, about 350 meters from the summit.

Similarly, in 2016, Kedrowski heavily touted his achievement of skiing all of Colorado’s 14,000-foot summits within the calendar year, a feat very few people have accomplished. Most importantly, however, Kedrowski did not ski from the top of each of those peaks, a detail that ultimately disqualified him from claiming the record he sought.

«It was close, but as with rock climbing, you don’t claim to have done it unless you’ve done it,» said Chris Davenport, the first person to ski from the top of all the Colorado 14ers, in a 2016 interview with the aspen times. «I like John and have skied with him a lot, and it saddens me to see how this project ended with a lot of unanswered questions, holes in his story, and half-truths. It didn’t have to be this way.»

Kedrowski’s Everest attempt in 2018 without the use of supplemental oxygen. Information through Himalaya Database

Are the stickers still there?

In response to criticism over the LFW stickers, Kedrowski claimed in a since-deleted Instagram comment that he had personally removed all of the now-controversial stickers. “I already eliminated them all,” he said, “so we can stop the preaching conversation now.”

However, some social media users questioned how he could have removed them all from a 700-mile stretch of trail in such a short time, and at least one southbound CDT hiker reported seeing an LFW sticker less than 20 miles from the trail’s south end, as shown in the screenshot below.

The hiker asks to remain anonymous, but took this photo on the afternoon of November 19 near the Crazy Cook Monument in New Mexico.

While Kedrowski’s post originally ended with a promise to block anyone who left negative comments about the stickers and a call to leave Posner out of the discussion, it has since been edited.

«The messages through these stickers were meant to be encouraging to each and every one of you who are climbing the CDT. I apologize to everyone for this situation and enjoy your adventures. Thank you all for your support,» Kedrowski wrote.

Jon Kedrowski and Mike Posner did not respond to our request for comment.

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