Final­ly a time of year where scrag­gly beards and eccen­tric out­fits are accept­able by the mass­es! Hal­loween is fast approach­ing, and if you’re like me, your cos­tume won’t be ready until Octo­ber 30th around 10 p.m. To get you start­ed on that long pro­cras­ti­nat­ed tra­di­tion, here are 10 out­door themed Hal­loween cos­tumes to impress the trick-or-treaters, to daz­zle your friends at your Hal­loween par­ty, and in the very least, to get you think­ing about what last-minute cos­tume to pre­pare this year:

1. Climb­ing Rope Gang
An easy but fun group cos­tume idea. Bust out your har­ness­es (prefer­ably retired if you have one), and grab a good length of retired climb­ing rope*. Have every­one in your group har­ness up and tie enough but­ter­fly knots in the rope to con­nect every­one to your rope gang, and voilà, you have your cos­tume. What­ev­er you do though, through­out the night make sure you leave no climber behind and start think­ing about how you want to tack­le the issue of bath­room breaks. 

*note, be care­ful using non-retired gear for safe­ty’s sake next time you hit the crag. 

2. Lost Hik­er
Alright this one is easy enough. Com­pass? check. Map? Check. Griz­zly beard and unkempt hair? Check. Alright you don’t have to have a beard (but it helps) for this cos­tume. All you need to do is prefer­ably have all the bells and whis­tles a hik­er might have, and then tat­ter your cloth­ing up a bit, unfold the map, point in a sure direc­tion, and then scratch your head and wan­der around your sur­round­ings aim­less­ly. Sure to be a par­ty favorite. 

3. Unem­ployed Smokey Bear
For this cos­tume sim­ply dress up as Smokey Bear (just go bear cos­tume up top, blue jeans on the bot­tom and acces­sorize with a hat, shov­el, and hik­ing boots), and hold up the clas­sic “Will Work for Food” sign, or car­ry around the clas­si­fieds with copies of your resume. 

4. Bear Grylls
This Hal­loween, go as one of the most famous adven­tur­ers in pop cul­ture today. There’s a lot of dif­fer­ent direc­tions you can go with this one, but I would sug­gest prac­tic­ing your accent, con­stant­ly find­ing your­self in some per­ilous sit­u­a­tion where you need to do some hand jam­ming or scram­bling, and car­ry­ing around a cou­ple bags of gum­my worms and oth­er can­dy insects to devour with delight.

5. Lum­ber­jack
A Hal­loween cos­tume clas­sic for a rea­son. Now I’m not say­ing a beard is total­ly required for a good lum­ber­jack cos­tume, but I’ve nev­er trust­ed a lum­ber­jack with­out some scruff. So ladies or young gen­tle­man, you can pull off the lum­ber­jack as well, just find your­self some fake hair at a the­atri­cal shop or sweep the floors at your local bar­ber­shop; but what­ev­er you do, just don’t for­get to wear the plaid.

6. Recy­cling Num­bers 1–7
Alright, this one takes a lit­tle bit of cre­ativ­i­ty, and like any good group cos­tume, you may look a lit­tle sil­ly dressed as a plas­tic bot­tle if you lose the rest of your gang. But, pull this one off and you could be the envi­ron­men­tal all-star of your next Hal­loween shindig. Sim­ply con­struct cos­tumes from your favorite recy­cling num­bers (I call card­board!), and go to your event sin­gle-stream style.

7. Boy Scout/Girl Scout
Alright, grab every sin­gle mer­it badge, or just patch­es, and line up that shirt of yours. No sense in going as a non-moti­vat­ed scout mem­ber; trick-or-treat­ing mer­it badge, nose-pick­ing mer­it badge, real­ly good hug giv­er mer­it badge; the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less. Just be sure to be a good scout mem­ber and pol­ish those shoes and tuck in your shirt, there still might be time to get that best cos­tume mer­it badge. 

8. Bob Ross
Prob­a­bly one of the most famous afro-hair, soft-talk­ing, cable nature painters around; Bob Ross is an instant clas­sic Hal­loween cos­tume. Be sure to get the perm, car­ry around plen­ty of paint­brush­es, and a lot of bonus points if you can car­ry around an easel with some hap­py trees and amaz­ing water­falls jump­ing from the canvass.

9. Frontiersman/Woman
Think Daniel Boone for this one. Grab the coon­skin cap and brown leather boots, you’ve got new par­ties to attend and a mul­ti­tude of can­dy bowls to explore. Again, beard rec­om­mend­ed, but if you can get the burlap flask or tra­di­tion­al fron­tiers­man and fron­tier­swoman staff, every­one will under­stand your are the per­son lead­ing the way.

10. Cap­tain Plan­et Crew
Earth,wind, fire, water, & love! This clas­sic Hal­loween cos­tume is a clas­sic for a rea­son. If you want to stick to the orig­i­nal car­toon, grab a group of friends and all adorn the appro­pri­ate cos­tume of your choice. The real ques­tion how­ev­er, is which one of your friends can pull off the bustling pec­torals, blue skin, and green hair of CAPTAIIINNNN PLLAAAANNNEETTTTTT! 

Enjoy your Hal­loween and prac­tice safe trick-or-treat­ing practices.