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. 

 
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.
You mean to say America existed before 1492 when Christopher Columbus mistakenly sailed ashore? You mean to say that Leif Erikson with the Vikings stepped foot on Newfoundland in 999 and left after ten years because they weren’t warmly welcomed by the actual inhabitants. They killed ten people who were napping under their canoes, can you except civility? That’s why the Vikings left after only 10 years. We were taught that Christopher Columbus paved the way for you and I to become Americans. But is it right to still have a settlers mentality in 2018? One of America’s greatest gifts to the world is our mixing pot. Our adventurous ancestors engraved into our DNA the entrepreneurial spirit. But it came at grave costs to the First People. The First People that immigrated to America over 20,000 years ago and morphed themselves into the earth, wind and fire of our magnificent landscape. They were the first stewards of the precious resources that Europeans admired so dearly. And we stripped It away without batting an eye. Yes, I am thankful for my ancestors. But history is beautiful in that it evolves overtime as we learn more. So, if you ask why I support Indigenous People’s Day over Columbus Day- this is why. I am a lover of history, and I (a European Mutt) am eternally in debt to the First People who are the earth, wind, and fire of this beautiful country. _____ Click on one of the many groups I have tagged to learn more about what the Indigenous Community is doing to raise their voice, and show your support by giving them a follow or even better- supporting their work.
Some days are more bearable than others 🐻 🤒 🐕 a dog that doesn’t feel well is just like a baby who doesn’t feel well. You know that something is wrong, but they simply can’t tell you what it is. So while this isn’t the normal hiking or advocacy post, I hope you take a moment to hug your hiking pal, bonus points if it’s your pet. For they aren’t just a pet, but a member of the family. We haven’t been hiking for awhile and besides Sunday Football, miss Lilly not feeling well post tooth extraction is another reason.