The Hiking Initiative
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The Hiking Initiative
 
 

Our Mission:

Educate, Encourage, and Empower.

We help people speak up for public lands while sharing stories of adventure, gear reviews, and outdoor advocacy. Showing that anyone can share their love of the outdoors. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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What We Strive For

The outdoors has no age limit, no gender requirements, no bias. As a human collective, we should follow these same steps to ensure that everyone has equal access to our outdoors spaces. If you don't know where to start, we want to help guide you.  

 

 

Who We Support: 

 

The companies and organizations we support have a mission to help us all become better stewards of our lands. 

 

Find Us On Patreon

A simple way to support our mission and provide better content for our pack. We have awesome projects in the pipeline, and we want as many readers as possible to be included in this exclusive-access. As a Patron, you provide us with insights to the matters that are most important to you. What does advocacy mean to you? How do you transform that into momentum? What are projects we can implement with these funds? Patreon is the simplest way to remove the ads from our site, for good. 

 
(Link in Bio) ____ Thanksgiving has come and gone, and the holiday season has thus commenced. The pressure to gift give is insatiable. Hence #GivingTuesday which is an international movement to inspire charitable giving at the beginning of the holiday season. ____ There is so much to be thankful as 2018 winds down, so many incredible organizations that have actively had boots on the ground to defend what they support. You can choose to support Native Rights, Immigration, Animal Shelters, National Parks, City Parks, Conservation- the list is infinite. _____ I’ve chosen to support @theoregondesert together we have raised $135 to support an organization that protects, defends + restores Oregon’s High Desert. They have a remarkable history and I encourage you to join me in learning more. Visit the link in bio to support my Facebook campaign where I am adding $2 for every donation. _____ Photo credit: James Parsons @extreme_oregon 📍 Horseshoe Bend, John Day River- Northern Paiute
Meet our new adventure buddy, Kenobi. Yes, it is Kenobi like Star Wars. At 8 weeks old, he is as tenacious and hyper as can be. With boxer and bulldog in his blood, he is clumsy yet determined. Peaceful he is when bundled with care. Those paws are waiting to roam on a hiking trail by any lake. He will never replace Lilly. And to be honest, we weren’t ready for a new puppy. The opportunity kinda just lent itself. I’d definitely say it is the wrong time to get a dog with school, work, and an internship. BUT. I’m sure glad we have him and get to teach him how cool it is to be a dog!
Lilly Rose Ray 01-25-12 to 10-13-18 _____ Miss America, you will always be our beauty queen. There was a lot of suffering these last three weeks, but we are relieved to know that you are suffering no more. From the streets of Tucson, where your breeder, Rosa wanted to name you after herself because you were the most beautiful dog she had ever seen. To the mountains of Colorado where you and Cherokee hiked in feet deep snow. Along the banks of the Pedernales River in Texas, where you were fierce enough to cross the river despite not knowing how to swim. Resting peacefully in Oregon, where you struggled after losing your brother Snow not that long ago but was able to adventure along the trail with Cherokee. Our pack has gone from 3 to 1 all in the span of 13 months. If I told you this was easy, I’d be lying. Our dogs are our family, and I feel as if I lost my child. I find solace knowing she is no longer suffering. But our pack feels empty at the moment, as does our hearts.
With work, school, one of our dogs having cancer and soon an internship, life can get messy real quickly. When we found out our boxer, Lilly, had lymphoma, we began to question our goals and their feasibility. _____ Our goals of purchasing a travel trailer so we could take our dogs on extended road trips, that was brought into question. Living in a house again so the dogs can have a yard, that was brought into question too. The idea that our dogs would be able to grow old together since they had been together since they were 1.5 years old. It was pretty hard to stomach the fact that will probably no longer be possible. _____ It’s easy to get overwhelmed, the stress slowly eating away at your psyche. I hope things will get easier, but it probably wont. I will however, learn how to cope better. One of those ways I cope is to get some @lospoblanos lotion on my hand and slowly soak the lotion into my skin. I put my hands to my face, slowly inhaling, slowly exhaling. Maybe then I’ve found some solace.