I’ve found the end of the world. No cell reception, just ski tracks.
My truck sits alone at the end of a dirt road. Sharp twists past lonely houses, apprehension on a barely plowed path, I park when it ends in a pile of snow.
The turn of a key starts the silence. The engine and punk-rock fade to cold and snow.
Snowshoes get strapped to my pack, skis to my feet.
I hesitate, shifting on my skis, I’ve never done this before. My first extended solo winter adventure, twelve miles into a wilderness area.
I had picked the route carefully, researched the skiing conditions, and ensured it was within my experience level. I had all the right gear, prior experience with a group, and people knew where I was going and when to expect me back.
Still, I hesitated.
It’s the same hesitation I felt when I accepted a job as a summit steward for my first season in 2018, before I flew to Spain to live with a host family for 3 months, when I packed the essentials and left for Arizona with the intention of thru-hiking the 800 mile AZT.
The hesitation that asks if you can really do this, alone. A hesitation rooted in years of warnings and words of caution.
Especially as a Queer women in an industry dominated by straight white men. We are told that things happen to women who adventure alone. We are expected to be afraid. Expected to be less capable. Expected to play it safe.
When a space is dominated by men, it’s hard to imagine that we could, too.
Sticker Credit: @celiafromwork 
@celiafromwork
In the representation of women that does exist in the outdoor industry, the vast majority are straight, white, and cis (their gender matches the one they were assigned at birth).
Non-binary people, trans women, Queer people, BIPOC, differently abled folks, and gender nonconforming individuals face additional challenges of erasure from the “strong women outdoors” and feminist movements.
The challenges of inclusion run deep. “Outdoorsy” towns and places with immediate access to hiking trails and outdoor industry jobs tend to be more rural. Rural often means bigoted.
An outdoors agency might be committed to hiring a more inclusive group of outdoor professionals, but what happens when these people don’t feel safe in the town they would have to live in? When there is virtually no Queer community to support LGBTQ+ people, racist graffiti spray painted on railroad tracks, red white and blue flags that say “LGBTQ” with the words “Liberty, Guns, Beer, Trump, and BBQ”.
I’m talking about the town I live in, arguably the most “progressive” and open-minded town in the Adirondacks.
I certainly felt safer there than here. This was far from the “liberal pocket” of Saranac Lake. I had passed brigade after brigade of Trump Flags on the way in, it made me nervous. I backed into the trail-head so the rainbow pride sticker on my truck wasn’t visible.
But to everyone who’s ever told you that we shouldn’t hike alone, they’re wrong.
Snowshoes on Pack 
Bobcat Tracks
I can only speak from my own experience, and don’t mean to represent anything other than that. I can’t stress that enough. As a white person most people assume is straight, there is a lot I don’t need to worry about and a lot I don’t understand about challenges facing other marginalized groups. In addition, I’ve been incredibly privileged to have had access to the resources to learn outdoor skills and to live in a place where it is so easy to gain experience in them.
This is solely my perspective, not that of the entire LGBTQ+ community.
Still, to many, I’m not the “type”.
People don’t think twice when they see a man hiking alone, but a solo female-presenting person surprises people. A person who is not white surprises people.
It’s an obstacle marginalized groups face when gaining outdoor skills. Especially when we don’t have as many role models like us out there doing it.
The first true “outdoor industry” job that I applied for (outside of a summer camp) was the Wilderness Trip Leader position with the Adirondack Mountain Club in 2018.
I remember the interview clearly, it was with Outdoors Skills Coordinator Tyler and the person who had held the job previously, Matt.
I was intimidated as hell, not because of the interviewers personally, but because they were men. Christ. I pictured jacked flannel-clad dudes with massive beards comparing how many push-ups they could do on the summit of Marcy. Who was I to think I could do this?
I didn’t get that job, but Tyler was impressed with my experience, and sent my resume over to the Summit Steward Coordinator when a Steward position opened up.
I read the job description, and my first thought was “oh HELL no”. Everything looked great, except the whole solo hiking High Peaks and occasional back-country camping – alone. That shit sounded terrifying, but I decided to interview anyway.
I got a call from two women this time, women who ran the Summit Steward program. They told me about the alpine plants, how the two of them had both done it for years – the hiking, camping, enduring harsh weather.
I was stunned, and incredibly inspired.
They said that they understood we had more concerns as women, but that those circumstances were rare.
If they could do it, well, why couldn’t I? We hung up and I got a call back three minutes later, they offered me the job
I accepted, and would return for a total of 3 seasons. It truly changed my life, and gave me confidence I didn’t know I had in me.
If I had been interviewed by men, I don’t think I would have accepted the job.
Representation matters.
Looking back, it is ridiculous that I was so intimidated by Tyler and Matt. They are hardly the macho type, but the fact that they were both men and that the position had only been held by men for the past several years felt like a huge barrier.
Summit Steward Coordinator Kayla, and Julia (who was the Adirondack Mountain Club’s Education Director at the time), were the first strong bad-ass hiking women and outdoor leaders I’d ever met.
It made all the difference.
Does going into the woods alone scare me? It used to, but not anymore. I’ve spent weeks backpacking alone, climbed High Peaks at 2:00 in the morning for bird surveys, and regularly venture out for local sunset or sunrise hikes. I know I’m accepting the risks of solo hiking, but its risks that are the same for men.
I do still hesitate, question my own capabilities. It’s hard to unlearn what we’ve been taught. But back in the parking lot at the end of that twisting dirt road, the hesitation is gone.
Soon I am flying, skis glide in rhythms of white. I can’t believe I get to do this, it’s only my second winter on skis and the speed still astonishes me. A dark shape bounds across the trail before me, a mink.
I ski until the trail gets too steep, then stash my skis and change into hiking boots and snowshoes for the last four miles. When I reach the summit it is buried in a blanket of white, swept over by wind.
A few days later I pull on micro-spikes and strap snowshoes to my pack to head up a 3950 ft peak.
It’s the kind of solo adventuring I never would have dreamed I could do three years ago, but it turns out the only person I had to prove wrong was myself. Barriers to outdoor sports are very real, but societal expectations can be unlearned.
The trail 
Traction is a must
So if anyone is out there, thinking that they could never do this, you can. There is space for us, and we belong in the outdoor industry just like everyone else. There are more challenges, and more hurdles. But there are truly inspiring people from marginalized groups out there making it happen.
I don’t know how to fix the “Adventure Gap”, or the bigotry in our towns, but I do know that we are capable of everything the straight white adventuring men are capable of. That we belong out there, just like everyone else.
I hope that one day soon we will see more diversity in our wild spaces, more welcoming rural communities, and more people who “aren’t the type” proving that we are.
