July 29, 2019 • 32 mins
Anney and Samantha delve into the history of hiking, famous female pioneers in the great outdoors, and how to make hiking more inclusive.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
I never told your protection if I hear radio's house,
stuff works. And today I'd like to start with a
peek behind the curtains, because Samantha just really impressed me
(00:25):
with her knowledge of a jets and flint Stone crossovery Monk.
I may not know anything about SpongeBob, which we talked
about last week, but I can tell you the hell
out of Jetson's and the flint Stones. So we need
to do some kind of cartoon trivia because together it
will complete I don't think so. So. I didn't watch
many cartoons growing up, but the Flintstones of the Jetsons
(00:46):
had my heart, and every now and again I think
I would watch the Tiny Tunes. It got it got weird,
and I was getting older too, and I got wed weirder,
and I was like, yeah, I think I'm done now.
The Tiny too got weird. Well, didn't they have Pinky
and the Brain is part of their segment too, and
then they separated onto their own show. They were part
of that w B part of it, and it was
(01:08):
really weird, and I was like, I think I'm done now.
Pinky and the brain did make me nervous, right, I
liked it, but there's something about it where I was like,
these they could really take over the world. Flintstones and
the Jetsons. They were a part of my growing up,
for sure. She sang most of the song, A lot
of it. I was. I was impressed. Nonetheless, our guess
(01:31):
producer could have filled it out, but he didn't want to.
Did you Dave by me embarrassed by me doing it already? No?
I think we're all just proud, Samantha, proud to know you.
I'm so glad. But that's not We're not going to
do a whole episode on that today. Um, We're actually
gonna talk about something that I I didn't have TV
(01:52):
for a while when I was growing up, so I
feel like I missed a very valuable I have a
cartoon a blank Space, but I do a SpongeBob because
that came later on when I was at the beach,
and I would actually have excellent to Nickelodeon. And I
think the reason I watched the flints was in the
jet Sins was because my grandparents, who lived a little
(02:12):
farther from my house, had more access. None of us
had cable again, this is like nineteen eighties something, mid
eighties and late eighties, and so it would just be
on reruns on TBS, and so I would watch it
in the afternoons for about an hour and then go home. Well,
I could not watch anything but the three channels that
we got. We had a very similar experience, but I
(02:35):
had nowhere to go anything. But my mom did like
to take me hiking, which is actually what we're talking there,
you go. We like to bury the We want to
confuse everyone right at the top. I think that's good content. Right,
Everybody's like, what the hell are they talking about? We're
talking about women in hiking. Yes, and I love hiking.
It is something that my mom and I did together
(02:57):
when I was growing up. Um And it's one of
the few things I do where I feel like I'm
able to actually right because you have to focus on
where the next step is going to be. UM. And
we still, my mom and I still go hiking together.
She's like really badass because she knows that like where
the hikes are that aren't in the hiking books, and
she has the hand drawn maps of the parking and
(03:18):
I got her to zerox them. A couple of weeks
ago and gave him to one of my friends. He's
also a good hiker, and I really trussed him. Yeah,
and I lived near where while I did. I grew
up near where the Appalachian Trail starts, so it was
fun to do to like go and hang out there,
like you hike up and you hang out there, and
you to hear people at the beginning of their Appalaian
(03:41):
Trail journey. And there's a part in my mind that's like,
I'm wondering what you're going to be thinking. But from now, look,
those people are hardcore that really just dedicate and take
time off for work. I'm just like, oh wow, good
for you. But I don't want to be in the
woods that long. Yeah, I've always wanted to do it,
(04:01):
but taking the time off work, it takes a lot
of planning ahead. Yeah, like the boxes, having the box
pas And I know some people, especially some people were
going to talk about in here didn't do that. But
that makes me a little nervous personally. Um, hopefully one
day I'll do it. But I do hike a lot
these days. I hike alone a lot. Um I tell
(04:22):
people where I'm going in case that is scary. Yeah,
and I almost always get the worried are you sure
you should do that? Response? And I've even overheard a
couple whisper it to each other she by herself when
I was like sitting on top of the summit and
joining the view. Um, and they're that movie that I'm
going to be very vague about forever that semi based
(04:43):
on my life. I can't find this movie and I
won't tell you what it is. We'll find someone who
knows there is someone. There's a scene in it that
this whole thing plays out where the character that is
me hikes up and then this couple is like, oh,
poor things, she's hiking by herself. Well it off really.
I think that's different from me because I go with
(05:04):
Peaches the dog, and so I don't get as many looks.
It seems normal, I guess because I haven't an added edition,
because I typically it's never been like a coupling thing
for me. I would be surprised if someone that I
was dating, would you actually go with me? Yeah? My
ex used to go with me, and that should have
been my sign, Like before I knew he was interested,
he'd be like, let's go and hike together, and he
(05:25):
hated being outside and I'm just totally oblivious, and he
did the man won't check the directions thing, and we
got lost for eleven miles. We hiked for eleven extra
miles because he used to check the direction. So my
good friend and I who talked about previously the coworker,
we did that and we thought we went the opposite
direction of everybody else. And I remember a group of
(05:45):
people came at us. They're like, oh, he did the
hard truck, and we would like, excuse me. And we
added additional six miles and we were starting to hallucinate
towards it end because we didn't have enough supplies. Were
like I even almost rolled off the damn mountain. Oh gosh,
a tree stop stopped me and we just we just
said that was like, yeah, we made a huge mistake.
(06:06):
We're really selling hiking to anyone stories though it comes
up with such great stories, is true. One of my
favorite books is Wild by Sherale Straight. Um. I have
always always always wanted to do that hike and Um
Kristen past co host and founder creator Kristen she got
me into that book. She used to do that like
(06:27):
every summer. The book, she said that one, and I
would always read the book, she announced, and it's one
of my favorites, that the one Witherspoon. Yes, okay, okay,
I mean yeah, I know a lot of people really
really loved that book, and that seems really really inspired
people to go out, women to go out and make
their own trail and take time and start really contemplating
(06:47):
what they want. Is that the premise. Yeah, she she
kind of gets in a really like her mom is
just died. Um, her her marriage is kind of fell apart,
she had some drug addiction problems, and so she, without
hardly any planning, does this very difficult hike because the
difference between the PCT and the Applation Trail of the
(07:08):
Pacific Crest Trail. On the Appalation Trail, it's just the
and this comes from someone who has not done either,
but it's just like the very big difference in weather,
Like you're starting in the desert and you're ending in snow,
and you're gone through mountains. So it's it's it's difficult
to pack for and she just did it. She would
even in the book she did a terrible job preparing
(07:29):
for it. But um, the opening scene is her like
losing her shoe and so dramatic because you're like, not
her shoes, that's bad anything almost anything else. Yeah, it
would have been better than our shoe down the side,
like even your pants. You might be embarrassed, you might
get some bites and scratches, but still much better your shoes.
(07:52):
You got like duct tape just wrapped it around her foot. Anyway,
we're really not selling it. But but you both like hikings. Yeah.
I love hiking. I will say I've been doing it
a little less this year in the last couple of years,
just because of well, first of all, Georgia's summer heat
did it's almost stifling too much to go out, and
that makes it unfortunate, but as well as the fact
(08:13):
that it does take some time. UM, I've gotten more
limited because and we'll talk more about this, but some
of the political stances on some of our nearby hiking
places that I refused to go to. Um. But yeah,
this was my coping mechanism. I know. We talked about
this during our little trauma series where my coworker and
I would go almost every weekend to some place, and
(08:33):
I think once a month we try to go to
a bigger hike, like we talked about that. She was
the one that when I almost died, plummeted to my
death day, he was the one. We would just sit
there and what was so funny about us when we
would do things like that, we would be really concerned
for each other, but because we're also social workers and
so very sarcastic, we would also make fun of each other,
which motivated each other more. We also competed to be
(08:54):
faster every time we would go, like to certain areas,
like we wanted to make sure we hit different strides.
If we had a part that we would go into
every week or every least often, we would that would
be a personal goal for us to beat the time
and enjoy like the top view, but then still beat
and see how fast we would go. But it was
definitely one of our times that we could get together
(09:15):
just talk about whatever was wrong, whether it's a personal
life or with our work life, and just kind of
diffuse our own stress levels. And it was fantastic. I
missed that obviously because it was We had some big adventures,
and one of the things we also did was we
tried to stay if we did a big hike, like
a far away hike two or three hours from here.
We would try to go to a local restaurant to eat.
(09:38):
So it was hilarious because the one time many times,
but this time when I was disgusting with mud caked
and we walked into a barbecue restaurant which were all
white people and me and I'm like, hey, here's the
brown girl with mud caked on me. How are you
I want food? Give me those ribs about? But yeah,
it was really really great, And I think that's one
(10:00):
of the things I love about having my dog is
going to do it more and more. And it's a
little more local with my dog because she loves anything
with water, so it gets the play and splash around
and I get to hiking about. But it's one of
my favorite things for sure. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
I wish I could do it more as well. Um,
So I think it's we're pretty much talking about, you know,
(10:21):
going to the woods trail and people know what hiking
is just the case. Yeah, but it, particularly long distance hiking,
is traditionally a white male dominated activity. Only of three
hikers on the Appleachian Trail are women. And I will
say about these numbers that are kind of hard to
nail down for sure, for I think probably pretty obvious reasons,
(10:42):
but from numbers that we do have, report from the
University of Wyoming found that only one out of five
U S National Park visitors were non white. If we
look at rock climbing, a survey found that only point
two percent were Black or Asian and three percent were
Latin X. Study from the Outdoor Foundation found that only
eight percent of folks participating in outdoor activities were Hispanic.
(11:04):
James Mills, a black outdoors person, dubbed it quote the
adventure gap, and a Sierra Club blog posts called it
the unbearable whiteness of hiking. Some people who have looked
into this think has to do with class. People who
participate in outdoor activities like hiking have a household income
of over seventy five thousand dollars. In an article over
at vox, Amanda Machado described her experience being Latin X
(11:26):
and being into hiking and wrestling with some stereotypes that
come along with that quote. Whenever I tell my parents
about a backpacking trip in the wilderness, my parents joked
about the irony. As immigrants, they had worked all their
lives to ensure I had a roof under my head
and present a full clothes to wear. And now I
was intentionally choosing to sleep outside wearing clothes covered in dirt.
(11:47):
With the stereotypes that we endure Already, many Latin X
I knew felt the need to prove that they lived comfortably.
I knew Latina women who manicured their hands specifically to
give others the impression that they never had to work outside.
And I knew Latin X fan lase who hesitated the
book hostels or camp when they traveled because they feared
and implied they couldn't afford a quote real place to stay.
To be a lady meant to treat myself delicately, and
(12:10):
to be a gentleman meant to honor a woman's fragility.
I was never expected to carry much or do anything
remotely dangerous without a man's protection or assistance. Nothing about
me looking at thirty pound pack across the mountains aligned
with those ideals. Yeah. So in one article I found
in the Washington Post, they highlighted on Audrey Pierman, an
African American environmental leader who with her husband wrote a
(12:31):
piece called a Legacy of Land. While exploring across the
US and have been creating working to create awareness for
diversity in the outdoor community. Is kind of one of
the things that they've been trying to do to highlight
the black community being outdoors and actually um changing the
ideas of it being just a fairy tale for black people,
as she said. And there's been a bit of a
rise for youth of colors since the Every Kid in
(12:53):
the Park program created by the Obodom administration, as well
as programs created like Hikers of Color Black people hike
in our own Atlanta's own we Height the Hill, And
of course the deep racist history of some of the
parts could also be a deterrent for many visitors. I mean,
I said that about my own um Stone Mountain is
a big place of controversy because of the Confederate memorial
(13:14):
essentially has and of course the controversy throughout the US
with these similar types of memorials or naming of the parks,
which is I would be deterred from going from there,
as well as the fact that many of these historical
places have bad connotations to slavery history as well as
like lynchings, and so I could see that as being
problematic and not wanting to go visit those types of parks.
(13:37):
Um And also, as you had said, there's privilege attached
to this with being able to actually take time off,
get transportation, and especially when most of the majority of
these parks are not easily accessible, so you don't necessarily
have public transit to get to some of these nice
little mountains, especially when you're talking about that a T
trail or the PCT trail. You can't just get there,
(13:57):
and you can't just take time off, and you can't
just babysitters. So it's definitely a thing of privilege for sure.
And um, I was pleasantly surprised how many people are
talking about this, because sometimes you're like, I love hiking.
Who knows how many people are right like research papers
about it. But there's a lot out there, um over
on codes which people of color discuss feeling culturally out
(14:19):
of place when outdoors. A lot of the wilderness in America,
a lot of parks are located in majority white areas,
and I think this could even go back to the
terrible phenomena of white people calling a police on black people,
and they can't be the regular parks to cook out,
so can you be in the mountains right? Um, so
(14:41):
there's a lot. There's a lot going on here. I
will say, like, this is not true necessarily in other countries.
I'm sure it is, but not in all um the
whiteness of hiking. When I hiked the Andies in Peru,
I saw so many indigenous people kicking my ast all ages,
all gender is and caring way more while doing it.
(15:02):
I'm like, they're just kind of running by me. When
I was researching and I specifically put you know, Asian
women of Asian women hiking, and it just it was
just photos. It was just stock images and the actual
statistics it talks about a little bit that Asian it
is on the rise from the Asian and women and
people of color, but everything else is just like stock images.
(15:24):
Like I could not find one just article. It was
just pictures of an Asian woman climbing or hiking, and
I was like, that's super weird. Was she having the
time of her life? I'm sure she was, and where
someone was carrying her? Maybe? I don't know. I didn't
actually look at it. I was just like, why why
is this the only result that I can find stock
photos is a fascinating world. I tell you an organization
at Brown University called BOLTS or Brown Outdoor Leadership Training
(15:47):
focus on They focus on making the outdoors more inclusive
and they recently released a guide called Identity, Privilege and
Oppression in the Outdoors quote the way we experience the
outdoors is inherently political. They used this quote from Karen
Warren and the whole thing to um the collective memory
of past experiences of legally mandated segregation, the flight from
rural to urban areas due to forced labor outdoors and
(16:09):
racially motivated violence that most typically occurred in remote areas
continues to play a role deciding how people of color
spend time in nature. When it comes to safety, there
is a perception that it isn't safe for women to
be hiking alone, a perception held by forty six percent
of men and of women according to one study. And
Bridget and I talked about this headline in the Past
(16:32):
episode a couple of years ago about these women that
were hiking alone and they were murdered. Um, there were
two of them, right, but you know you need a
man to make you a group for a group of women.
Were they the ones that had the dog too, I think,
so yeah. And then on top of that they had
dogs and none of this really for me, I would
have been like, no, that were definitely me. I definitely.
(16:54):
The only time I was, like I said, I really
hike was with a friend who was female or with
my dog. So I'm like, well, I should be really
dead according to this perception. For this perception, yeah, me
two friends. UM. From the data we do have, though,
your risk of violent crime is lower on a national
park for both men and women than the country as
(17:14):
a whole, which is actually, I think, sort of sad.
I don't know how I feel about that, but anyways,
I know I'm very confused about what's going on in
my feelings. But I know that story broke last year
about how women who are National park employees experienced sexual
harassment and assault. UM. But women are statistically more likely
to survive an injury or accident in the American wilderness. UM.
(17:38):
From a researcher looking into this quote. Culturally, females tend
not to do as many of the idiotic things that
solo males do. Males are more likely to try to
pick up a rattlesnake. This was a quote in a
research paper. Friends, I don't know. I don't know why.
I just saw a toddler playing with you know, snaks
and such. But keep going. I I've only I've hiked
(18:02):
a lot, and I've hiked a lot alone. And I
feel like I've only ever had one experience that I
felt unsafe. There's certainly been times where I thought, oh no,
I might be lost, and that's kind of scary. But
you know, you got your compass, your map or whatever,
and I'm I'm fine. But what time I saw a
dude who was just standing shirtless in the woods and
not moving, and he had his leg propped up like
(18:24):
a flamingo would, and he had a cigar and he
didn't acknowledge me when I walked by, and I had
a moment of fear. But that's it and that wonderment
was it both both? It was was he doing the
little pirate stand? He he also had a monocle. I
wasn't gonna say because it sounds like amazing. It was
(18:49):
in the middle of it was one of those trails
that so few people hike that it's not well kept.
And for I remember I had an incident where we
were hiped ing um I think it was towards Bartow County,
one of the smaller trails, and we heard something grunt
at us, and we were pretty sure it was a
(19:11):
wild hog row war, so we ran because you know
those things are mean, they do not care and will
rip into you. That we were petrified. I think that's
the fastest time we ever made. I think I'll also
fail trying to get well. And then my plan has
always been always tell my friends that it was between
(19:33):
me and you. I'm gonna trip you. I'm gonna run
front about it. I'm gonna hey. I told my look,
I know I can't win just by my own strength,
so I'm gonna throw something at you. You've gotta you
gotta know the dynamic. You've gotta know in a survival situation,
who's gonna do what And everybody's like and no one
goes hikes with you. That's true if you if you
(19:53):
balance it out, I think it's fine. There was a
time where I can't remember, a friend and I were
hiking and at the time there was this guy who
was going around killing women in the woods. And it
was in Dawsonville. It was near where I lived. It
was it was on a famous trail if I remember, yeah,
and we we're going to a trail and there was
(20:15):
a tree over the road and we were like talking
about what to do about it. My friend kind of
semi opened the door and a dude jumped out, but
then we just backed up and left. And I don't
know when I tell people that story, they think we
were about to be murdered. I'm not so sure. Anyway,
there are some famous female hikers and mountaineers that we
(20:35):
wanted to to talk about. But first we're gonna pause
for a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So one of the most
(20:56):
famous female hikers that we wanted to highlight is Emma
Rowena Gatewood or Grandma Gatewood. Grandma Gatewood, which is a
rad name. I know there's a book about her my
mom loves. I think it's probably been Montgomery's Grandma Gatewood's Walk,
The Inspiring Story of the Woman who saved at the
Applican Trail. I didn't get a chest confirmed with my mom,
but I believe that's probably it. Her story is an
(21:20):
amazing one. She was born in one of fifteen children,
and she married at nineteen and she was a survivor
of domestic violence. On one occasion, he broke her teeth
and cracked her ribs, and when the police arrived, they
arrested her, not him, right, and she spent the night
in jail. The mayor stepped in when he saw her
(21:40):
black eyes and bloody face, and she was able to
get a divorce, which was really rare and difficult to
get in those days, since she threw a flower at him,
I think I think it was like a sack of
flower or just some flower at him, and they arrested her. Absurd.
She frequently would go outdoors to to get away from
from it all, like like Samantha and I talked about.
She had eleven children and twenty three grandchildren. Oh no,
(22:03):
that's too much. That's a lot. That is a lot.
According to one of her daughters, When Emma saw a
National Geographic article about the Applachian Trail, it included the
fact that no women had completed it. Grandma Gatewood saw
that as a challenge, and she gave me an attempt,
but broke her glasses pretty early on and had to stop.
But she was not done. In the age of sixty seven,
(22:25):
divorced for thirty years, Grandma Gatewood became the first woman
to solo hike the Appolicchian Trail. Yes two thousand, one
nine miles or two thousand, seventy four point four kilometers
one six days in kids. Kids are promoting keel. They
are not a sponsor. I do have some kids fun
(22:47):
of me. Oh, I would never. All she brought with
her was a blanket and a plastic shower curtain. For
the raging, that's amazing. For everything else, she counted on
the kindness of strangers and her own resourcefulness. When asked
about the experience by Sports Illustrated, she said quote, I
would never have started this trip if I had known
(23:07):
out duff it was. But I couldn't and I wouldn't quit.
The following year, she kept on trailblazing, becoming the first
person to throw hike the Appalachian Trail twice. She did
the second time for fun, she says nice. She ended
up doing it a third time in sections, making it
the first person to do it for three times. The
media attention she drew is credited in part with prompting
(23:30):
restoration of the trail for saving the Appalachian Trail um.
When asked why she did it, She responded, because I
wanted to. I did too. Why not because I wanted to?
Because I wanted to? And that's not all. She also
hiked from Independence, Missouri to Portland, Oregon, a nine day,
two thousand mile or three thousand, two hundred eighteen point
(23:52):
six kilometers. She's a part of pioneering the Ohio Buckeye Trail,
and a chunk of it is named for Grandma Gatewood
Grandma Gatewood Trail in ninetee. She died at the age
of eighty five, and her obituary came with this quote,
if those men can do it, I can do it.
I love her. I love how she's like concise, She's
(24:13):
just like, it's not about you, It's about me. I
just want to do it. Jennifer far Davis tackled the
Appelage and trail as well, and she knelt it, completing
it in the fastest time on record fifty seven days
and eight hours, and four years later another woman wrote
that record. David's hyped the Pacific Crest Trail to she
summited Mount Coon and Jaro. She set the record on
the women's for months long trail. She wrote books, she
(24:35):
backpacked one miles while pregnant, and she found it and
runs Blue Ridge Hiking Company pregnant. Yeah. Girl, every time
I see someone running pregnant, I feel right like everything
about that looks painful, and I'm like, yeah, you do it,
you keep wow. I am in awe of it. Blue
(24:57):
Rage Hiking is where I do a lot of my hikings,
so maybe check that out. Yeah. One of the first
female mountaineers was Ruth dire Mente Hall. In the nineteen thirties,
Mente Hall, a mother of two, made history when she
climbed at the Sierra Nevadas in California. This was a
time when physical activities like this were viewed as squarely
not for women, bad for you. She and her husband
(25:18):
pioneer trails in the Taitons, the Cascades, and the Alps.
They get the credit for the first to summit Mount
Confederation in and Gil Peak in ninety two. She also
wrote multiple books, including some introductory level mountaineering books. Another
famous female mountaineer is Arlene Blum. She led the first
all female American team to summit the difficult Napernal One.
(25:39):
She did the same from Mount McKinley and attended to
do Everest as well. Blum started climbing early, and despite
early failures, she kept at it. She went on to
become a proponent for environmental protection and published two award
winning books about her climbing experiences and shout out to
Neiva Warren, the youngest person to solo through hike the
Applation Trail at fourteen day. Again, that makes me feel
(26:01):
bad about myself. You know, we all have different paths
in line. Well, because I'm like, yeah, no, I'm never
doing that. I can't imagine my parents going for that.
She did it, Yeah, she did by She did it
by herself. Huh, Yeah, that's concerning. Well, she is fine.
(26:26):
I'm always the youth. They give me. They give me hope,
and we do have some other stuff that gives me
a little bit of hope. But first we have one
more quick break for word from our sponsor. We're back,
(26:51):
Thank you sponsor. So, like we mentioned at the top,
there are a lot of hiking groups out there that
are especially focused on helping to get more people of
color feel comfortable hiking or involved in it. UM we
Hike to Heal, which is the one we we interviewed
them on this very show. UM it's run by two
(27:12):
black married women, Latino Outdoors, the Fresh Air Fund, Beta
Verda Outdoor, Afro Brown people Camping, h e a T
Hikers of color. Some of these are Facebook groups or
Instagram groups. Some of them are like website organization type things,
but I would highly suggest if you're interested to go
go check any of them out. Um more women and
(27:32):
people of color being vocal about their hiking, like the Renovator,
who we've spoken about before, and that's really important. I
know that from the articles I was reading, people said
like seeing someone on Instagram who looks like them doing
it made them feel like, oh, I can do that too.
She's in such a good shape. The National Park Service
created the Office of Relevancy, Diversity and Inclusion, and this
(27:54):
year Clubs similarly hired their first director of Diversity, Equity
and Inclusion and likely their first African American president, which
is awesome and just the kind of to put it
out there. Doctors are now starting to prescribe it even
as ecotherapy for people to come out and do some
not only meditation, but hiking and like being able to
get outside of themselves away from the electronics. As well
(28:15):
as the fact that the people. There's been a study
being used for a d h D, treatment of a
d h D or at least an assistance and as
a therapy for a d h D, which is fantastic
And and obviously again we talked about how it does
reduce stress and for females in general and just film
identifying people, it can be hopefully just something that you
don't have to think about anything but concentrating on yourself
(28:37):
and your connection to the world. Yeah. Um, I know
for me personally, I when I started, and I some
of those things we've talked about, like being thankful for
your body and where it can take you, because I
am very fortunate that I am in a position that
I can do this, um. And I I when I
was in high school, I struggled so hard with depression.
(28:58):
I would just sleep all the time. And for me personally,
like taking that step and banking myself, get outside and
do something. Um it. It really did have a market
effect on my outlook and my energy level. And again
it's different for other people, but for me it did.
(29:20):
And again we do acknowledge that all of this has
a lot of privilege to this again and like it
for people who are able body to do so and
the access to it. It wasn't money to it, because
sometimes I can get somewhat expensive viously, just for like
paying for a pass going into Stone Mountain, which I'm
not advocating because again I don't go there necessarily, but
it costs a lot of money. Yeah, And I was reading,
(29:42):
I've never been someone I could just hike in my
my old tennis shoes. And but if you actually get
like the gear, the hiking shoes and the packs and
the food, and that's a lot. The boots and the yeah,
the backpack. None of this is cheap. There's no cheap
versions of day. And if you get the wrong thing,
it really messes you up. That's true. Like if you
(30:03):
get shoes right, but aren't that aren't good for you?
You could actually that if you're going to the Appalachian
Trail and you don't have the right boots, you're really
going to be messed up. Or if you're you know
what's her name and not have shoes at all, But
I mean, it can really really mess you up. I
remember I went on a trip with a group of
people and poor girl she was very very new um
(30:23):
brand new hiking boots and she tried to wear them
on our two day hike and camp trip. She was
in so much pain. She was in so we had
to figure out how to get her back down. Essentially, Yeah,
it was bad. Yeah, Yeah, I've made that mistake. Yeah, learn,
you learn, You're like great, right, No, that's not at
(30:48):
least a two week breaking in period where you're wearing
them all the time. Rights Obviously, again very privileged talk
and we understand that. Yeah, um it is. And I
am just such a I love being outdoors, and um,
I want I want more people who want to do that,
(31:10):
to feel comfortable doing that, to have the access to
do that. Right, So I hope that uh, we're it
does seem that we were moving in that direction, um,
and I would we would love to hear from listeners
your experience in this, If you have any book recommendations,
if you're a part of a group that goes out
that we would love to hear about. Let us know, Yes, absolutely,
(31:32):
And you can do that by emailing us at Stuff Media,
mom Stuff at I heart media dot com. You can
also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast and
on Instagram at Stuff I've Never told You. Thanks. It's
always to our super producer Andrew Howard and guest producer
d J Dave. Wait, do we call him d J Dave?
You did so, I picked up you did. We have
(31:55):
audio record of it. Really well, now you are I
gave you that. I think that's a good nick game.
I think you should just happen to take that one.
Um and thanks as always to you for listening stuff.
I've never told you the protection of I Heart Radios
how stuff works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
I never told your protection if I hear radio's house,
stuff works. And today I'd like to start with a
peek behind the curtains, because Samantha just really impressed me
(00:25):
with her knowledge of a jets and flint Stone crossovery Monk.
I may not know anything about SpongeBob, which we talked
about last week, but I can tell you the hell
out of Jetson's and the flint Stones. So we need
to do some kind of cartoon trivia because together it
will complete I don't think so. So. I didn't watch
many cartoons growing up, but the Flintstones of the Jetsons
(00:46):
had my heart, and every now and again I think
I would watch the Tiny Tunes. It got it got weird,
and I was getting older too, and I got wed weirder,
and I was like, yeah, I think I'm done now.
The Tiny too got weird. Well, didn't they have Pinky
and the Brain is part of their segment too, and
then they separated onto their own show. They were part
of that w B part of it, and it was
(01:08):
really weird, and I was like, I think I'm done now.
Pinky and the brain did make me nervous, right, I
liked it, but there's something about it where I was like,
these they could really take over the world. Flintstones and
the Jetsons. They were a part of my growing up,
for sure. She sang most of the song, A lot
of it. I was. I was impressed. Nonetheless, our guess
(01:31):
producer could have filled it out, but he didn't want to.
Did you Dave by me embarrassed by me doing it already? No?
I think we're all just proud, Samantha, proud to know you.
I'm so glad. But that's not We're not going to
do a whole episode on that today. Um, We're actually
gonna talk about something that I I didn't have TV
(01:52):
for a while when I was growing up, so I
feel like I missed a very valuable I have a
cartoon a blank Space, but I do a SpongeBob because
that came later on when I was at the beach,
and I would actually have excellent to Nickelodeon. And I
think the reason I watched the flints was in the
jet Sins was because my grandparents, who lived a little
(02:12):
farther from my house, had more access. None of us
had cable again, this is like nineteen eighties something, mid
eighties and late eighties, and so it would just be
on reruns on TBS, and so I would watch it
in the afternoons for about an hour and then go home. Well,
I could not watch anything but the three channels that
we got. We had a very similar experience, but I
(02:35):
had nowhere to go anything. But my mom did like
to take me hiking, which is actually what we're talking there,
you go. We like to bury the We want to
confuse everyone right at the top. I think that's good content. Right,
Everybody's like, what the hell are they talking about? We're
talking about women in hiking. Yes, and I love hiking.
It is something that my mom and I did together
(02:57):
when I was growing up. Um And it's one of
the few things I do where I feel like I'm
able to actually right because you have to focus on
where the next step is going to be. UM. And
we still, my mom and I still go hiking together.
She's like really badass because she knows that like where
the hikes are that aren't in the hiking books, and
she has the hand drawn maps of the parking and
(03:18):
I got her to zerox them. A couple of weeks
ago and gave him to one of my friends. He's
also a good hiker, and I really trussed him. Yeah,
and I lived near where while I did. I grew
up near where the Appalachian Trail starts, so it was
fun to do to like go and hang out there,
like you hike up and you hang out there, and
you to hear people at the beginning of their Appalaian
(03:41):
Trail journey. And there's a part in my mind that's like,
I'm wondering what you're going to be thinking. But from now, look,
those people are hardcore that really just dedicate and take
time off for work. I'm just like, oh wow, good
for you. But I don't want to be in the
woods that long. Yeah, I've always wanted to do it,
(04:01):
but taking the time off work, it takes a lot
of planning ahead. Yeah, like the boxes, having the box
pas And I know some people, especially some people were
going to talk about in here didn't do that. But
that makes me a little nervous personally. Um, hopefully one
day I'll do it. But I do hike a lot
these days. I hike alone a lot. Um I tell
(04:22):
people where I'm going in case that is scary. Yeah,
and I almost always get the worried are you sure
you should do that? Response? And I've even overheard a
couple whisper it to each other she by herself when
I was like sitting on top of the summit and
joining the view. Um, and they're that movie that I'm
going to be very vague about forever that semi based
(04:43):
on my life. I can't find this movie and I
won't tell you what it is. We'll find someone who
knows there is someone. There's a scene in it that
this whole thing plays out where the character that is
me hikes up and then this couple is like, oh,
poor things, she's hiking by herself. Well it off really.
I think that's different from me because I go with
(05:04):
Peaches the dog, and so I don't get as many looks.
It seems normal, I guess because I haven't an added edition,
because I typically it's never been like a coupling thing
for me. I would be surprised if someone that I
was dating, would you actually go with me? Yeah? My
ex used to go with me, and that should have
been my sign, Like before I knew he was interested,
he'd be like, let's go and hike together, and he
(05:25):
hated being outside and I'm just totally oblivious, and he
did the man won't check the directions thing, and we
got lost for eleven miles. We hiked for eleven extra
miles because he used to check the direction. So my
good friend and I who talked about previously the coworker,
we did that and we thought we went the opposite
direction of everybody else. And I remember a group of
(05:45):
people came at us. They're like, oh, he did the
hard truck, and we would like, excuse me. And we
added additional six miles and we were starting to hallucinate
towards it end because we didn't have enough supplies. Were
like I even almost rolled off the damn mountain. Oh gosh,
a tree stop stopped me and we just we just
said that was like, yeah, we made a huge mistake.
(06:06):
We're really selling hiking to anyone stories though it comes
up with such great stories, is true. One of my
favorite books is Wild by Sherale Straight. Um. I have
always always always wanted to do that hike and Um
Kristen past co host and founder creator Kristen she got
me into that book. She used to do that like
(06:27):
every summer. The book, she said that one, and I
would always read the book, she announced, and it's one
of my favorites, that the one Witherspoon. Yes, okay, okay,
I mean yeah, I know a lot of people really
really loved that book, and that seems really really inspired
people to go out, women to go out and make
their own trail and take time and start really contemplating
(06:47):
what they want. Is that the premise. Yeah, she she
kind of gets in a really like her mom is
just died. Um, her her marriage is kind of fell apart,
she had some drug addiction problems, and so she, without
hardly any planning, does this very difficult hike because the
difference between the PCT and the Applation Trail of the
(07:08):
Pacific Crest Trail. On the Appalation Trail, it's just the
and this comes from someone who has not done either,
but it's just like the very big difference in weather,
Like you're starting in the desert and you're ending in snow,
and you're gone through mountains. So it's it's it's difficult
to pack for and she just did it. She would
even in the book she did a terrible job preparing
(07:29):
for it. But um, the opening scene is her like
losing her shoe and so dramatic because you're like, not
her shoes, that's bad anything almost anything else. Yeah, it
would have been better than our shoe down the side,
like even your pants. You might be embarrassed, you might
get some bites and scratches, but still much better your shoes.
(07:52):
You got like duct tape just wrapped it around her foot. Anyway,
we're really not selling it. But but you both like hikings. Yeah.
I love hiking. I will say I've been doing it
a little less this year in the last couple of years,
just because of well, first of all, Georgia's summer heat
did it's almost stifling too much to go out, and
that makes it unfortunate, but as well as the fact
(08:13):
that it does take some time. UM, I've gotten more
limited because and we'll talk more about this, but some
of the political stances on some of our nearby hiking
places that I refused to go to. Um. But yeah,
this was my coping mechanism. I know. We talked about
this during our little trauma series where my coworker and
I would go almost every weekend to some place, and
(08:33):
I think once a month we try to go to
a bigger hike, like we talked about that. She was
the one that when I almost died, plummeted to my
death day, he was the one. We would just sit
there and what was so funny about us when we
would do things like that, we would be really concerned
for each other, but because we're also social workers and
so very sarcastic, we would also make fun of each other,
which motivated each other more. We also competed to be
(08:54):
faster every time we would go, like to certain areas,
like we wanted to make sure we hit different strides.
If we had a part that we would go into
every week or every least often, we would that would
be a personal goal for us to beat the time
and enjoy like the top view, but then still beat
and see how fast we would go. But it was
definitely one of our times that we could get together
(09:15):
just talk about whatever was wrong, whether it's a personal
life or with our work life, and just kind of
diffuse our own stress levels. And it was fantastic. I
missed that obviously because it was We had some big adventures,
and one of the things we also did was we
tried to stay if we did a big hike, like
a far away hike two or three hours from here.
We would try to go to a local restaurant to eat.
(09:38):
So it was hilarious because the one time many times,
but this time when I was disgusting with mud caked
and we walked into a barbecue restaurant which were all
white people and me and I'm like, hey, here's the
brown girl with mud caked on me. How are you
I want food? Give me those ribs about? But yeah,
it was really really great, And I think that's one
(10:00):
of the things I love about having my dog is
going to do it more and more. And it's a
little more local with my dog because she loves anything
with water, so it gets the play and splash around
and I get to hiking about. But it's one of
my favorite things for sure. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
I wish I could do it more as well. Um,
So I think it's we're pretty much talking about, you know,
(10:21):
going to the woods trail and people know what hiking
is just the case. Yeah, but it, particularly long distance hiking,
is traditionally a white male dominated activity. Only of three
hikers on the Appleachian Trail are women. And I will
say about these numbers that are kind of hard to
nail down for sure, for I think probably pretty obvious reasons,
(10:42):
but from numbers that we do have, report from the
University of Wyoming found that only one out of five
U S National Park visitors were non white. If we
look at rock climbing, a survey found that only point
two percent were Black or Asian and three percent were
Latin X. Study from the Outdoor Foundation found that only
eight percent of folks participating in outdoor activities were Hispanic.
(11:04):
James Mills, a black outdoors person, dubbed it quote the
adventure gap, and a Sierra Club blog posts called it
the unbearable whiteness of hiking. Some people who have looked
into this think has to do with class. People who
participate in outdoor activities like hiking have a household income
of over seventy five thousand dollars. In an article over
at vox, Amanda Machado described her experience being Latin X
(11:26):
and being into hiking and wrestling with some stereotypes that
come along with that quote. Whenever I tell my parents
about a backpacking trip in the wilderness, my parents joked
about the irony. As immigrants, they had worked all their
lives to ensure I had a roof under my head
and present a full clothes to wear. And now I
was intentionally choosing to sleep outside wearing clothes covered in dirt.
(11:47):
With the stereotypes that we endure Already, many Latin X
I knew felt the need to prove that they lived comfortably.
I knew Latina women who manicured their hands specifically to
give others the impression that they never had to work outside.
And I knew Latin X fan lase who hesitated the
book hostels or camp when they traveled because they feared
and implied they couldn't afford a quote real place to stay.
To be a lady meant to treat myself delicately, and
(12:10):
to be a gentleman meant to honor a woman's fragility.
I was never expected to carry much or do anything
remotely dangerous without a man's protection or assistance. Nothing about
me looking at thirty pound pack across the mountains aligned
with those ideals. Yeah. So in one article I found
in the Washington Post, they highlighted on Audrey Pierman, an
African American environmental leader who with her husband wrote a
(12:31):
piece called a Legacy of Land. While exploring across the
US and have been creating working to create awareness for
diversity in the outdoor community. Is kind of one of
the things that they've been trying to do to highlight
the black community being outdoors and actually um changing the
ideas of it being just a fairy tale for black people,
as she said. And there's been a bit of a
rise for youth of colors since the Every Kid in
(12:53):
the Park program created by the Obodom administration, as well
as programs created like Hikers of Color Black people hike
in our own Atlanta's own we Height the Hill, And
of course the deep racist history of some of the
parts could also be a deterrent for many visitors. I mean,
I said that about my own um Stone Mountain is
a big place of controversy because of the Confederate memorial
(13:14):
essentially has and of course the controversy throughout the US
with these similar types of memorials or naming of the parks,
which is I would be deterred from going from there,
as well as the fact that many of these historical
places have bad connotations to slavery history as well as
like lynchings, and so I could see that as being
problematic and not wanting to go visit those types of parks.
(13:37):
Um And also, as you had said, there's privilege attached
to this with being able to actually take time off,
get transportation, and especially when most of the majority of
these parks are not easily accessible, so you don't necessarily
have public transit to get to some of these nice
little mountains, especially when you're talking about that a T
trail or the PCT trail. You can't just get there,
(13:57):
and you can't just take time off, and you can't
just babysitters. So it's definitely a thing of privilege for sure.
And um, I was pleasantly surprised how many people are
talking about this, because sometimes you're like, I love hiking.
Who knows how many people are right like research papers
about it. But there's a lot out there, um over
on codes which people of color discuss feeling culturally out
(14:19):
of place when outdoors. A lot of the wilderness in America,
a lot of parks are located in majority white areas,
and I think this could even go back to the
terrible phenomena of white people calling a police on black people,
and they can't be the regular parks to cook out,
so can you be in the mountains right? Um, so
(14:41):
there's a lot. There's a lot going on here. I
will say, like, this is not true necessarily in other countries.
I'm sure it is, but not in all um the
whiteness of hiking. When I hiked the Andies in Peru,
I saw so many indigenous people kicking my ast all ages,
all gender is and caring way more while doing it.
(15:02):
I'm like, they're just kind of running by me. When
I was researching and I specifically put you know, Asian
women of Asian women hiking, and it just it was
just photos. It was just stock images and the actual
statistics it talks about a little bit that Asian it
is on the rise from the Asian and women and
people of color, but everything else is just like stock images.
(15:24):
Like I could not find one just article. It was
just pictures of an Asian woman climbing or hiking, and
I was like, that's super weird. Was she having the
time of her life? I'm sure she was, and where
someone was carrying her? Maybe? I don't know. I didn't
actually look at it. I was just like, why why
is this the only result that I can find stock
photos is a fascinating world. I tell you an organization
at Brown University called BOLTS or Brown Outdoor Leadership Training
(15:47):
focus on They focus on making the outdoors more inclusive
and they recently released a guide called Identity, Privilege and
Oppression in the Outdoors quote the way we experience the
outdoors is inherently political. They used this quote from Karen
Warren and the whole thing to um the collective memory
of past experiences of legally mandated segregation, the flight from
rural to urban areas due to forced labor outdoors and
(16:09):
racially motivated violence that most typically occurred in remote areas
continues to play a role deciding how people of color
spend time in nature. When it comes to safety, there
is a perception that it isn't safe for women to
be hiking alone, a perception held by forty six percent
of men and of women according to one study. And
Bridget and I talked about this headline in the Past
(16:32):
episode a couple of years ago about these women that
were hiking alone and they were murdered. Um, there were
two of them, right, but you know you need a
man to make you a group for a group of women.
Were they the ones that had the dog too, I think,
so yeah. And then on top of that they had
dogs and none of this really for me, I would
have been like, no, that were definitely me. I definitely.
(16:54):
The only time I was, like I said, I really
hike was with a friend who was female or with
my dog. So I'm like, well, I should be really
dead according to this perception. For this perception, yeah, me
two friends. UM. From the data we do have, though,
your risk of violent crime is lower on a national
park for both men and women than the country as
(17:14):
a whole, which is actually, I think, sort of sad.
I don't know how I feel about that, but anyways,
I know I'm very confused about what's going on in
my feelings. But I know that story broke last year
about how women who are National park employees experienced sexual
harassment and assault. UM. But women are statistically more likely
to survive an injury or accident in the American wilderness. UM.
(17:38):
From a researcher looking into this quote. Culturally, females tend
not to do as many of the idiotic things that
solo males do. Males are more likely to try to
pick up a rattlesnake. This was a quote in a
research paper. Friends, I don't know. I don't know why.
I just saw a toddler playing with you know, snaks
and such. But keep going. I I've only I've hiked
(18:02):
a lot, and I've hiked a lot alone. And I
feel like I've only ever had one experience that I
felt unsafe. There's certainly been times where I thought, oh no,
I might be lost, and that's kind of scary. But
you know, you got your compass, your map or whatever,
and I'm I'm fine. But what time I saw a
dude who was just standing shirtless in the woods and
not moving, and he had his leg propped up like
(18:24):
a flamingo would, and he had a cigar and he
didn't acknowledge me when I walked by, and I had
a moment of fear. But that's it and that wonderment
was it both both? It was was he doing the
little pirate stand? He he also had a monocle. I
wasn't gonna say because it sounds like amazing. It was
(18:49):
in the middle of it was one of those trails
that so few people hike that it's not well kept.
And for I remember I had an incident where we
were hiped ing um I think it was towards Bartow County,
one of the smaller trails, and we heard something grunt
at us, and we were pretty sure it was a
(19:11):
wild hog row war, so we ran because you know
those things are mean, they do not care and will
rip into you. That we were petrified. I think that's
the fastest time we ever made. I think I'll also
fail trying to get well. And then my plan has
always been always tell my friends that it was between
(19:33):
me and you. I'm gonna trip you. I'm gonna run
front about it. I'm gonna hey. I told my look,
I know I can't win just by my own strength,
so I'm gonna throw something at you. You've gotta you
gotta know the dynamic. You've gotta know in a survival situation,
who's gonna do what And everybody's like and no one
goes hikes with you. That's true if you if you
(19:53):
balance it out, I think it's fine. There was a
time where I can't remember, a friend and I were
hiking and at the time there was this guy who
was going around killing women in the woods. And it
was in Dawsonville. It was near where I lived. It
was it was on a famous trail if I remember, yeah,
and we we're going to a trail and there was
(20:15):
a tree over the road and we were like talking
about what to do about it. My friend kind of
semi opened the door and a dude jumped out, but
then we just backed up and left. And I don't
know when I tell people that story, they think we
were about to be murdered. I'm not so sure. Anyway,
there are some famous female hikers and mountaineers that we
(20:35):
wanted to to talk about. But first we're gonna pause
for a quick break for word from our sponsor, and
we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So one of the most
(20:56):
famous female hikers that we wanted to highlight is Emma
Rowena Gatewood or Grandma Gatewood. Grandma Gatewood, which is a
rad name. I know there's a book about her my
mom loves. I think it's probably been Montgomery's Grandma Gatewood's Walk,
The Inspiring Story of the Woman who saved at the
Applican Trail. I didn't get a chest confirmed with my mom,
but I believe that's probably it. Her story is an
(21:20):
amazing one. She was born in one of fifteen children,
and she married at nineteen and she was a survivor
of domestic violence. On one occasion, he broke her teeth
and cracked her ribs, and when the police arrived, they
arrested her, not him, right, and she spent the night
in jail. The mayor stepped in when he saw her
(21:40):
black eyes and bloody face, and she was able to
get a divorce, which was really rare and difficult to
get in those days, since she threw a flower at him,
I think I think it was like a sack of
flower or just some flower at him, and they arrested her. Absurd.
She frequently would go outdoors to to get away from
from it all, like like Samantha and I talked about.
She had eleven children and twenty three grandchildren. Oh no,
(22:03):
that's too much. That's a lot. That is a lot.
According to one of her daughters, When Emma saw a
National Geographic article about the Applachian Trail, it included the
fact that no women had completed it. Grandma Gatewood saw
that as a challenge, and she gave me an attempt,
but broke her glasses pretty early on and had to stop.
But she was not done. In the age of sixty seven,
(22:25):
divorced for thirty years, Grandma Gatewood became the first woman
to solo hike the Appolicchian Trail. Yes two thousand, one
nine miles or two thousand, seventy four point four kilometers
one six days in kids. Kids are promoting keel. They
are not a sponsor. I do have some kids fun
(22:47):
of me. Oh, I would never. All she brought with
her was a blanket and a plastic shower curtain. For
the raging, that's amazing. For everything else, she counted on
the kindness of strangers and her own resourcefulness. When asked
about the experience by Sports Illustrated, she said quote, I
would never have started this trip if I had known
(23:07):
out duff it was. But I couldn't and I wouldn't quit.
The following year, she kept on trailblazing, becoming the first
person to throw hike the Appalachian Trail twice. She did
the second time for fun, she says nice. She ended
up doing it a third time in sections, making it
the first person to do it for three times. The
media attention she drew is credited in part with prompting
(23:30):
restoration of the trail for saving the Appalachian Trail um.
When asked why she did it, She responded, because I
wanted to. I did too. Why not because I wanted to?
Because I wanted to? And that's not all. She also
hiked from Independence, Missouri to Portland, Oregon, a nine day,
two thousand mile or three thousand, two hundred eighteen point
(23:52):
six kilometers. She's a part of pioneering the Ohio Buckeye Trail,
and a chunk of it is named for Grandma Gatewood
Grandma Gatewood Trail in ninetee. She died at the age
of eighty five, and her obituary came with this quote,
if those men can do it, I can do it.
I love her. I love how she's like concise, She's
(24:13):
just like, it's not about you, It's about me. I
just want to do it. Jennifer far Davis tackled the
Appelage and trail as well, and she knelt it, completing
it in the fastest time on record fifty seven days
and eight hours, and four years later another woman wrote
that record. David's hyped the Pacific Crest Trail to she
summited Mount Coon and Jaro. She set the record on
the women's for months long trail. She wrote books, she
(24:35):
backpacked one miles while pregnant, and she found it and
runs Blue Ridge Hiking Company pregnant. Yeah. Girl, every time
I see someone running pregnant, I feel right like everything
about that looks painful, and I'm like, yeah, you do it,
you keep wow. I am in awe of it. Blue
(24:57):
Rage Hiking is where I do a lot of my hikings,
so maybe check that out. Yeah. One of the first
female mountaineers was Ruth dire Mente Hall. In the nineteen thirties,
Mente Hall, a mother of two, made history when she
climbed at the Sierra Nevadas in California. This was a
time when physical activities like this were viewed as squarely
not for women, bad for you. She and her husband
(25:18):
pioneer trails in the Taitons, the Cascades, and the Alps.
They get the credit for the first to summit Mount
Confederation in and Gil Peak in ninety two. She also
wrote multiple books, including some introductory level mountaineering books. Another
famous female mountaineer is Arlene Blum. She led the first
all female American team to summit the difficult Napernal One.
(25:39):
She did the same from Mount McKinley and attended to
do Everest as well. Blum started climbing early, and despite
early failures, she kept at it. She went on to
become a proponent for environmental protection and published two award
winning books about her climbing experiences and shout out to
Neiva Warren, the youngest person to solo through hike the
Applation Trail at fourteen day. Again, that makes me feel
(26:01):
bad about myself. You know, we all have different paths
in line. Well, because I'm like, yeah, no, I'm never
doing that. I can't imagine my parents going for that.
She did it, Yeah, she did by She did it
by herself. Huh, Yeah, that's concerning. Well, she is fine.
(26:26):
I'm always the youth. They give me. They give me hope,
and we do have some other stuff that gives me
a little bit of hope. But first we have one
more quick break for word from our sponsor. We're back,
(26:51):
Thank you sponsor. So, like we mentioned at the top,
there are a lot of hiking groups out there that
are especially focused on helping to get more people of
color feel comfortable hiking or involved in it. UM we
Hike to Heal, which is the one we we interviewed
them on this very show. UM it's run by two
(27:12):
black married women, Latino Outdoors, the Fresh Air Fund, Beta
Verda Outdoor, Afro Brown people Camping, h e a T
Hikers of color. Some of these are Facebook groups or
Instagram groups. Some of them are like website organization type things,
but I would highly suggest if you're interested to go
go check any of them out. Um more women and
(27:32):
people of color being vocal about their hiking, like the Renovator,
who we've spoken about before, and that's really important. I
know that from the articles I was reading, people said
like seeing someone on Instagram who looks like them doing
it made them feel like, oh, I can do that too.
She's in such a good shape. The National Park Service
created the Office of Relevancy, Diversity and Inclusion, and this
(27:54):
year Clubs similarly hired their first director of Diversity, Equity
and Inclusion and likely their first African American president, which
is awesome and just the kind of to put it
out there. Doctors are now starting to prescribe it even
as ecotherapy for people to come out and do some
not only meditation, but hiking and like being able to
get outside of themselves away from the electronics. As well
(28:15):
as the fact that the people. There's been a study
being used for a d h D, treatment of a
d h D or at least an assistance and as
a therapy for a d h D, which is fantastic
And and obviously again we talked about how it does
reduce stress and for females in general and just film
identifying people, it can be hopefully just something that you
don't have to think about anything but concentrating on yourself
(28:37):
and your connection to the world. Yeah. Um, I know
for me personally, I when I started, and I some
of those things we've talked about, like being thankful for
your body and where it can take you, because I
am very fortunate that I am in a position that
I can do this, um. And I I when I
was in high school, I struggled so hard with depression.
(28:58):
I would just sleep all the time. And for me personally,
like taking that step and banking myself, get outside and
do something. Um it. It really did have a market
effect on my outlook and my energy level. And again
it's different for other people, but for me it did.
(29:20):
And again we do acknowledge that all of this has
a lot of privilege to this again and like it
for people who are able body to do so and
the access to it. It wasn't money to it, because
sometimes I can get somewhat expensive viously, just for like
paying for a pass going into Stone Mountain, which I'm
not advocating because again I don't go there necessarily, but
it costs a lot of money. Yeah, And I was reading,
(29:42):
I've never been someone I could just hike in my
my old tennis shoes. And but if you actually get
like the gear, the hiking shoes and the packs and
the food, and that's a lot. The boots and the yeah,
the backpack. None of this is cheap. There's no cheap
versions of day. And if you get the wrong thing,
it really messes you up. That's true. Like if you
(30:03):
get shoes right, but aren't that aren't good for you?
You could actually that if you're going to the Appalachian
Trail and you don't have the right boots, you're really
going to be messed up. Or if you're you know
what's her name and not have shoes at all, But
I mean, it can really really mess you up. I
remember I went on a trip with a group of
people and poor girl she was very very new um
(30:23):
brand new hiking boots and she tried to wear them
on our two day hike and camp trip. She was
in so much pain. She was in so we had
to figure out how to get her back down. Essentially, Yeah,
it was bad. Yeah, Yeah, I've made that mistake. Yeah, learn,
you learn, You're like great, right, No, that's not at
(30:48):
least a two week breaking in period where you're wearing
them all the time. Rights Obviously, again very privileged talk
and we understand that. Yeah, um it is. And I
am just such a I love being outdoors, and um,
I want I want more people who want to do that,
(31:10):
to feel comfortable doing that, to have the access to
do that. Right, So I hope that uh, we're it
does seem that we were moving in that direction, um,
and I would we would love to hear from listeners
your experience in this, If you have any book recommendations,
if you're a part of a group that goes out
that we would love to hear about. Let us know, Yes, absolutely,
(31:32):
And you can do that by emailing us at Stuff Media,
mom Stuff at I heart media dot com. You can
also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast and
on Instagram at Stuff I've Never told You. Thanks. It's
always to our super producer Andrew Howard and guest producer
d J Dave. Wait, do we call him d J Dave?
You did so, I picked up you did. We have
(31:55):
audio record of it. Really well, now you are I
gave you that. I think that's a good nick game.
I think you should just happen to take that one.
Um and thanks as always to you for listening stuff.
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