Outdoors lovers are easy to spot, just check their boots.

“Where’s the mud?” I kept asking, my fingers flipping through the pages of a catalog where models showcased outdoor attire.

There wasn’t any. Not a speck on their field coats. Not a blob on their fleecy pullovers. Even their waterproof boots looked pristine.

The men and women modeling for the catalog weren’t muddy, either. They were young, they were trim, but it looked like they didn’t get down in the trenches too often. One couple sat on what looked like the top of an Adirondack peak.

They wore full-sized backpacks. Many Adirondack peaks top 4,000 feet. I looked for sweat. Didn’t see any.

Well, it’s windy up there. They must have dried off.

I checked their boots. I knew boots would be muddy because every mountain trail I’ve been on features quagmire-like sections of muck.

No muck on the boots. I began to suspect subterfuge. Maybe they didn’t climb all the way up. Maybe they drove their Explorer.

Or maybe the rest of the world just stays cleaner when engaging in outdoor pursuits. This outdoor writer gets dirty.

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I’ve got all the gear that could make me quite trendy: trekking jacket, reversible flannel pullover, worsted wool crewneck, and more. But it’s grubby. It’s trail-worn. It’s covered with sawdust. Some of it smells like the guts of an ancient farm tractor.

My Gore-Tex boots with the polyurethane mid-soles are leaking. For eight years or so, I have slogged through the mud with them, plowed through deep snow, scrambled up rocky ledges and singed them against campfire flames.

The lugs on their soles have been ground down to nubs. They are beat, worn right into the ground.

As for my flannel-lined forest-green khakis, they, too, have seen prettier days. Torn in one spot, they no longer look green. Mudslide-brown would describe their hue nicely.

I’m Pigpen. Dirt finds me. It likes me. It stays.

Despite all this, my wife still loves me. To assure her continued affection, I try not to hug her when I smell like an engine, or when mossy bits of semi-decayed forest floor hang in clumps from my pants, hat or jacket.

I own a mud room in which most of my mud clothes reside. This repository for grungewear is a godsend. Mud rooms save marriages. I heard that from a professional counselor. Men with dirt-gathering propensities who do use these halfway houses for grime are courting matrimonial disaster. It’s simple: If you return from the woods wearing half of it on you, ditch your clothes in the mud room or die.

Sometimes, if I’m carrying a load of firewood, or I’m freezing, I have no choice but to enter the house in full outdoor regalia. My wife inside looks cozy. She stops what she’s doing and stares at my hat with the earflaps. She stares at the barn boots. She gawks at the ski gloves, once mauve but now blackened with grease. Every finger is swaddled in duct tape.

I strike a pose, wipe the sweat from my nose and stare back, little pieces of duff dropping off me. Marketed properly, dirt has appeal. Maybe I’ll model someday.

Email Rick at rmarsi@stny.rr.com

This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: Words of wisdom from an outdoors writer: Embrace those messy boots