This July I will begin a 2,650 mile journey as I hike from Canada to Mexico along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). I will start this “thru-hike” in the lush, green temperate rainforest of the Cascade Mountains across Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. Then I’ll hike through the volcanic Sierra Nevada range in central California, stopping at famous landmarks like Lake Tahoe, Mt. Whitney, and Yosemite National Park. Finally I will descend into the Mojave and Sonoran deserts of southern California. Over four months, I will walk over 20 miles a day, carrying everything I need, including food and shelter on my back.
A pilgrimage is a journey, where on the way to a distant destination, one may seek enlightenment and personal transformation. A pilgrimage of the scale of the PCT has been a dream of mine since middle school when I started saving quarters in an empty Kleenex box. I have moved past collecting loose change to working for and saving the thousands of dollars needed for food and gear for this trip. I have been extremely lucky to have a support system in which my basic needs and education have been paid for, which allows me to put the money I have earned into savings. Without this privilege, I would never have been able to make this trip possible.
As I’ve left the insular world of Lynchburg VA where I grew up, I have witnessed the barriers to the outdoors many people encounter. These barriers are often financial. Quality sleeping bags and tents can cost hundreds of dollars, and since one is relying on this gear to keep them alive in the woods, it's not something you want to economize with. Barriers to the outdoors can also be distance from green space. Due to a history of redlining and discriminatory city planning, people of color are three time more likely than white people to live in “nature deprived” places where there is little access to parks, forests, and wetlands. Women and people of color will often cite feeling unsafe as a reason they avoid the woods. These barriers keep people from what I see as a fundamental right and a pillar of the human spirit, the ability to connect with nature.
I am extremely fortunate to be able to hike the PCT and I feel a duty to use this experience to give back. It is for this reason that I am using my hike to raise money for Justice Outside (previously Youth Outside), an organization that “advances racial justice and equity in the outdoor and environmental movement.” Justice Outside addresses barriers to the outdoors by providing grants to smaller grassroots organizations with similar missions. Over the past two years, Justice Outside has granted over $1 million dollars to 52 organizations with goals that range from socially conscious investment to making bird watching more inclusive. See a full list of grant recipients here. In addition to the funds that are donated, I will contribute $500 dollars of my own money. I hope that you will consider giving to help shorten the divide between who has access to the outdoors and who does not.
