Against All Odds, Black Women Are Hitting The Trails

Against All Odds, Black Women Are Hitting The Trails

“I love to move my body. I love to sweat. I love to be with people. ... Hiking brings all those things together.”


IT WASN’T UNTIL I was in my mid-20s and living in Seattle that I went on my first hike with a colleague. As a Black girl growing up in Detroit, let’s just say that the practice was not common in my circle.

If you’ve ever gone hiking, the chances that you passed another Black person — let alone another Black woman — on the trail are relatively low. Although the trend is slowly shifting, recent data showed that fewer than a quarter of visitors at national parks were people of color. In 2018, 6% of visitors were Black. So why so few of us? Well, that’s complex.

There are several barriers at play that keep many of us from participating in outdoor recreation. And while no one is literally stopping us from exploring the outdoors, the context to how we’re perceived is important here. It wasn’t that long ago that my community was legally banned from public parks and prohibited from accessing many trails around the country.

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