So I'm female, in my early 20's, in NE Atl Suburbs and I need a gal pal to hike with. I just moved here have no friends outside of work and my hubby while he loves camping and backpacking doesn't always like to do the day hikes as much as I do. My schedule just opened up so that I have a permanent Monday day off every week and half days on Tuesday Wednesday. I'd really like to get to spend that time outside especially with our weather warming up right now. Plus we are having some trouble plugging into a good outdoor community in the area.

Just an idea: meetup.com might have some all-female hiking groups in your area.

Andy's right about meetup.com, but don't just look for the all-female hiking groups. Any hiking group will have female members, one or more of whom would love to hike with other females.

Hi Jo - Welcome to Atlanta. I hope you are enjoying it so far.

A couple ideas for you:

I haven't done anything with the Atlanta Outdoor Club but know someone who has and had a great time. Perhaps you could make some connections with other Atlanta area females through the group. The link to the website is:

http://www.atlantaoutdoorclub.com/

Another idea - Brad Rogers started a Southeast BPL Facebook group that has quite a few people from Atlanta that might be another good resource for you:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=228683055956

Good luck!

Jo,

I'm in the NE Atlanta suburbs as well and I've struggled with the same thing (connecting with like minded individuals) after moving back to Atlanta from Washington state after college. I've sort of resigned myself to going it solo. But, I have some resource that might help.

You could troll your work for someone who's interested in hiking but never had the opportunity. I've found a few people in the gym I work at this way, just haven't pulled anything together. I think REI might have trips where you could meet people as well.
There's a Backpacking Light S. Appalachians Club on Facebook which you can find here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=228683055956 although it's relatively location specific they seem to be pulling together more trips.

There's always this: http://www.atlantaoutdoorclub.com/. My mother foisted the idea on me as a way to meet single outdoorsy women, I never checked it out (although it is free) no reason you couldn't use it to do the same thing! I need to take a look at this again, actually.

As we are of roughly the same age, location and interests if I can offer any help feel free to PM me.

Paul

Edit: Trevor had the exact same idea I had.

Edited by PaulSiegel on 03/09/2010 11:51:00 MST.

@Paul - that is pretty funny. Same exact thoughts!

I tried the meetup.com thing and this problem I'm having is that I live in the suburbs and a majority of people my age live more than an hr away and have full time jobs and are trying to jumpstart careers and just don't have the kind of free time I do. That and some of the women can be downright snobby about being a "true backpacker" and things like that..Also in my area there are only 5 hiking groups that also do like 10-20 other activities as well. There is one backpackers group, but the guy who runs it is intense about how serious a backpacker you have to be to join. Well I want to be that but I'm just getting started and my stamina is just not capable of keeping up yet.

Will for sure check out those FB groups though. Maybe something will come of it.

> There is one backpackers group, but the guy who runs it is intense about how
> serious a backpacker you have to be to join.

Not a way to attract new members ...

cheers

Since you do have the free time, how about starting a women's backpacking meetup group and let them come to you.

I'd love to but I really don't have the funds to even start one and get reimbursed later. I tried to look for something like meetup that was free to start a group but didn't find one. Any ideas?

Jo check this backpacking meetup group out, they're located in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta. It's an active group with several female members.

http://backpackers.meetup.com/126/

That meetup group only allows you to participate in their online pages after you've joined them on a trip
"If you are interested in joining our group, please pick up a trip from our calendar that you'd like to join and let the organizer know. I can put you on our members list after you attended one of our events."
and they only have two planned one in Yosemite (trust me if I could afford that I would) and the other in Italy. Not really an option for me.

Contact Kent at AT Hiking the podcast. He's got quite a network of hikers. Maybe he can send an email to his group. Worth a try. Entertaining podcasts as well.

Hey Jo!

I've been looking for a female hiking partner too! ;-)

Anyway, I don't know anything about these groups, but a quick google search turned up:

Urban Hiking Atlanta

Georgia AT Club

Georgia Hiking Clubs

Atlanta Outdoor Club

Walking Club of Georgia

I'm sure there's more, but that's a start!

Take care,

Doug

"That meetup group only allows you to participate in their online pages after you've joined them on a trip "

Interesting, I joined and never hiked prior to joining.

There are a lot of females in the Atlanta Outdoor Club so that one is a really good bet. I'm a member myself but don't do much with them as it's mostly more traditional backpackers and I like to cover more miles than they do.

Chris- hmmmm...could we be the reason they now require you to hike with them before joining? I haven't hiked with then for the same reasons you mentioned. : )

Do you mean the meetup group JJ? They are definitely a special crowd. There are some lightweight members of that one but they still like 5-8 mile days. I haven't really met anyone in the AOC that is very light over the few trips I've done with them. I've dropped hints at giving a class for them but it didn't garner much interest. The meetup group is more open minded about saving weight; they just don't like putting in the miles like we do.

Chris- yes the meetup group that you and I are members of. Trips are too short for me, other than that they sound like a good group. I went to one of the meetups help by OAC, they're very active group, again trips are too short and mostly days trip if I remember correctly.

Yeah, the OAC group is run by a former AOC member (he still might be an inactive member).

We have the Atlanta Outdoor Club, Outdoor Adventure Club of the South, Atlanta Backpackers Meetup, etc. There's another hiking group on meetup.com run by a gentleman I've heard referred to as the hiking Nazi. Apparently if you go too fast for his taste he'll try to fight you (yes, I'm serious).

There's no shortage of hiking/backpacking groups here, they just mostly like shorter/slower trips.

"...the hiking Nazi. Apparently if you go too fast for his taste he'll try to fight you (yes, I'm serious). "

hahahaha, it would be worth hiking with them once just for laughs.

Jo- you might want to check out the groups Chris listed. Join them for one of their monthly meetups and see what you think.

Might be.

Jo, there's also a Southeast BPL group on Facebook that was recently formed but I don't see any day hikes happening with them.

I'm from Alpharetta and I went on an AOC trip in the Smokies this past Fall. I was really pleased with the people involved and how the trip was run--all levels of experience (ultramarathoners to newbies), very supportive, even some UL folks in the mix. PM me if you want more details. The AOC website is nice in that you can see who is signed up in advance and you can contact the trip planners and let it be known what you are looking for.

Might sound crazy, but an ad on Craigslist would probably get some responses...just use some common sense precautions and don't meet at the trailhead for the first time!

Even if you aren't a runner these folks might have some suggestions: http://www.atlantatrackclub.org/contactus.htm

Talk to some of the women who work at REI too.

Good luck!

"There's another hiking group on meetup.com run by a gentleman I've heard referred to as the hiking Nazi. Apparently if you go too fast for his taste he'll try to fight you (yes, I'm serious)."

ROFL! I think that's the meetup group I got kicked out of for "lack of participation" before I even had a chance to go on any hikes!