Hike Clerb Founder Evelynn Escobar On Building Community By Doing the Work

What still needs to happen to make the outdoors more accessible to women of color?

I always joke that in 2020, people discovered Black people and nature because of everything that was going on. During that time there was a lot of support, a lot of eyes, interest, and intrigue in my own story and the work that I was doing through Hike Clerb. It also inspired, I think, a new crop of people who wanted to start something that mattered, who enjoyed the outdoors, who maybe didn't see themselves but are now seeing themselves for the first time.

It’s funny. I started Hike Clerb during the first Trump presidency, which is a very interesting parallel. We've always been about this work, true inclusivity, and empowerment. When I think about what has happened since then, I think there have been bright spots where people were paying more attention, there was a lot of support, a lot of momentum, and resources being shared around. But now I feel like collectively, we are all kind of in this recoil. There's a lot of fear. A lot of the programs that were instituted only a few years ago have been erased. It feels like we've gone back five steps.

Even though it feels like it’s hard as hell right now, we are doing the work to ensure that we are being seen, supported, empowered, and resourced, despite the lack of resources we are being presented with. Historically, through all movements, Black women have led the charge, and Black women specifically are going to lead the charge to create these equitable spaces and new worlds that everyone else gets to benefit from.

You live in LA. Have the recent wildfires affected your mission for this year?

Yes, overall our theme is restoration on a literal and spiritual level. There's a lot I think that needs to be done to kind of build the land and ourselves back up in this very insane time.

This year, we’ll be honing the point that we’re on sacred land. We’ll think about how our behavior impacts the lands that we reside on and the way that the land is now in conversation with us through the programming we host this year. We have three different categories for our programming. We have moving through nature, healing through nature, and restoring through nature.

Moving through nature obviously focuses more on hiking. Healing through nature incorporates wellness modalities. That's activities like sound baths, breath work, and things like that in our program. And then restoration through nature is our sustainability focused vertical, that's us planting trees, doing cleanups. So traditionally, our programs fall into these categories, but this year we're gonna be seeing that they're kind of all going to be in communion with each other. Everything is going to have a component of these three.

You are a woman of many passions, and you've been able to bring all of that to Hike Clerb from your background creating content to advocacy work. How do you bring them all together?

I used to be like, how do I explain Hike Clerb to people? I do not have a traditional background in environmentalism or environmental justice. What I have learned and what I have done has been self-taught. And for a long time, that made me go through an imposter syndrome era. Ultimately, Hike Clerb is just me being me.

There are a lot of people who have traditional schooling or traditional leadership backgrounds in the outdoor space. That was not my path. I now realize how much of a superpower that really is. We all get to the places that we need to get to on our journeys in so many different ways. I think for me, it really goes back to that intuition piece. I'm actually a really great listener. I not only listen to the urges that I get, but I act on them. And so that is how I've been able to really bridge everything.