At the start of each semester, the University of Michigan deposits $500 into my bank account for “textbooks.” Inevitably, I end up spending this sum on something decidedly non-academic: clothes, knitting supplies, overpriced candles.
This year it was an Osprey 50L backpacking pack for my upcoming spring break trip to Zion National Park. Osprey is the brand of choice for many backpacking enthusiasts because their products are lightweight, durable and come with a lifetime warranty; the model I had purchased was one of the cheapest options available and still came out to over $180 dollars. Initially, I wanted to buy a sleeping bag, but changed my mind when I saw the $300+ price tag.
Before I hit purchase, I paused to question how I had gotten to this point. Nine months ago, I went on what hiking enthusiasts would consider to be my first “real” hike, a designation that was mostly to do with the nature of the terrain. I would be covering 4,000 feet of elevation gain and 15 miles of trail in Yosemite National Park. It was miserable. I had cheaped out on hiking boots and purchased a heavily discounted pair with poor ankle support. By the time I reached the last four miles of the hike, I was in so much pain that I started walking backwards to relieve the strain on my knees. I vowed to never do a hike like that again.
As soon as my legs recovered, however, I began romanticizing the experience. It was by far the most difficult physical experience I had ever had, but it was also beautiful, and made me feel connected with nature in a way I never had before. When I looked at the photos I had taken, I could hardly remember the sweltering heat, the smoke-filled air from nearby wildfires or the acute sense of exhaustion I felt at the end.
Just four months later, I signed up to go on a fall break trip with the U-M Backpacking Club.
***
In the University of Michigan’s backpacking club, newcomers are induced into the idiosyncratic world of backcountry camping permits, gore-tex and wilderness etiquette through backpacking 101, an hour-long presentation put on by the club that consists of a lengthy slide deck covering everything from sleeping bag materials to the principles of “leave no trace.”
On my trip to Yosemite, I had relied heavily on my boyfriend, who was an experienced hiker, to plan our route and make sure we had the proper supplies. I wouldn’t exactly be alone on the fall break trip — I had been placed in a group with four other strangers — but I would be responsible for myself. Backpacking 101 was both incredibly informative and (predictably) woefully insufficient: backpacking is, in some ways, a skill that most experienced hikers have built up over a lifetime. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pick up that knowledge in 60 minutes, no matter how diligently I took notes.
LSA junior Moshay Turner had never been backpacking when she joined the club last year, but felt well prepared after receiving a crash course. “They gave us information about what gear to get, what food to pack, all those things,” she explained.
“Then I bought a book about backpacking. I don’t know if it was really that helpful, it was kind of the same information the club gave me.”
As LSA senior Christian Mulville, U-M backpacking club communications director, explained to me, “the educational aspect is definitely the biggest part of what the club does…it’s really all about preparing our members, especially those who perhaps come in with little to no experience, and making sure they’re comfortable and have the information and level of education they need to have fun.”
In addition to educating members, the club also places prospective hikers in groups based on their experience level and preferred trip destination. I was familiar with this approach — for fall break, I was grouped with four other students with no backpacking experience for a trip to Shenandoah National Park. The club offers a matching service akin to a travel agent. They helped my group rent a van through the University to drive to Shenandoah, VA. but after that it was up to us.
The club also provides groups with optional assistance in planning their itinerary, but each group ultimately decides what trails they hike and what supplies they bring. Two groups may go to the same fall break destination but go on vastly different trips, depending on their skills and preference.
In the club, experience levels are “generally split pretty 50/50,” Mulville clarified. “A lot of our members will come in and maybe have day hiking experience, but nothing where they’re camping overnight or gone backpacking in a national park.”
The most valuable services the backpacking club offers, in a sense, have very little to do with actually backpacking. New member education and the matching process all take place before hikers ever step foot in the forest. It’s an intentional choice, I’ve come to learn — many of the biggest barriers to getting outside have more to do with culture and institutional knowledge than with the outdoors itself.
A 2021 study conducted by Scotland’s Ministry of Environment and Land Reform identified social norms, access to information and lack of social connections who partake in outdoor activities as key barriers to outdoor recreation. However, the researchers noted that “having a friend, friendship group or family member to do something with was mentioned as an important factor in starting or maintaining a particular activity, providing people with information, confidence and support that they might not otherwise have had. This was particularly helpful for participation in new or niche activities when familiarity and confidence were lower.”
While there’s a wealth of information online about how to get into backpacking, these resources are often difficult to navigate. Recreation.gov and the National Park Service’s website are meant to be the go-to source for information about recreation on public lands, but these websites are plagued with inconsistencies and technical issues that make them relatively inaccessible to novices. More fluent, technically functional online communities dedicated to outdoor recreation are typically geared toward experienced members and have been criticized for “gatekeeping” and being unwelcome to newcomers.
The backpacking club eliminates members’s need for these online resources. Students can connect with other backpackers during fall break and spring break trips and the club’s executive board can help inexperienced hikers plan their first trips in a safe, judgment-free environment.
“We like to say (backpacking) is a very college thing to do,” Mulville explained. “A lot of people who join the club are trying to get into it, trying to explore and trying to make friends in the club.”
Going into my fall break trip, I wasn’t sure if backpacking would be for me. I considered myself fairly outdoorsy, but I was entering a niche community I knew almost nothing about. Still, it felt like if I was ever going to try out backpacking, this was the best time to do it.
***
Backpacking in Shenandoah was supposed to be my low-cost alternative to a fall break trip. I was entering my senior year and had never done anything fun for spring break or fall break — it was always out of reach financially, and I wasn’t particularly interested in the classic college spring break trip spent binge drinking on a beach.
In some ways, going to Shenandoah was the alternative I was looking for. It got me off of campus, it was relaxing and helped me reconnect with myself. But it certainly didn’t come at a low cost.
Most of the gear I used didn’t belong to me: I borrowed a sleeping bag from a friend of a friend and rented a pack and sleeping pad through the backpacking club. I went in with a member of my backpacking group on a tent rental from an outdoor equipment retailer; we paid $28 each for a tent that retails for $549.95. Even then, the items I needed to purchase myself — proper hiking boots (I had learned my lesson on the importance of ankle support from my trip to Yosemite), a headlamp, a camp stove — quickly added up.
At first glance, backpacking is a relatively no-frills hobby — but each time I invest in a piece, I find myself constantly being upsold on nicer and nicer gear. I hesitate to say that spending hundreds of dollars on a backpack or a pair of boots is defensible or even “worth it,” but at a certain point, I realized that the physical strain I was putting my body through was going to require an investment in some quality gear. It feels ridiculous to say I needed to buy new hiking boots when I already had a pair, but I wasn’t willing to put myself through the physical pain I had endured at Yosemite again. It’s an open secret amongst backpackers that you essentially need to spend a few hundred on gear if you don’t want to be utterly miserable.
For instance, one member of my fall break trip had rented a backpack that didn’t have any padding on its waist strap. Waist straps are designed to redistribute the pack’s load from a hiker’s back to their hips, and my groupmate had ended up with severe bruises on her hips from carrying 30 pounds of supplies for several days.
The main reason backpacking packs are so expensive is because of the materials they use, which need to be both lightweight and durable. A rule of thumb I’ve commonly heard amongst experienced hikers is that every 0.5 pound reduction in weight corresponds to a $100 increase in price. While the difference between a 2.5 pound and 3.0 pound backpack seems marginal, it certainly makes a difference after several miles of hiking. Additional features to make the backpack comfortable, waterproof and easy to use only push the price up even higher.
Club member Mooshay Turner took advantage of the discount the U-M backpacking club offered at Moosejaw, an outdoor goods retailer, to purchase most of her gear. “I do really believe in paying for what you get, so I invested in a good backpack,” she said.
“I thought it was worth buying it just because I knew I wanted this to be a long-term thing. I knew that I was going to go on trips in the future.”
***
Democratizing the outdoors is no easy task. Affordability, social norms and information all keep newcomers out. The real value the backpacking club provides is that it directly addresses these obstacles for many members. Of course, these factors aren’t completely eliminated, but as a newcomer, I was given access to low-cost gear and paired with other enthusiastic hikers at a similar experience level to myself. It’s a reminder that more complex notions of inclusion — relying on awareness of inequities or intangible metrics of a group’s “culture” — are probably less effective than directly giving people the resources they need to empower themselves.
There’s more work to be done in creating truly accessible outdoor communities, both at The University and elsewhere.
“Backpacking, and hiking, is just not something that’s very common in minority communities, especially within the Black community,” Turner said.
People of color often cite cultural barriers to pursuing outdoor recreation, in part due to being less likely to participate in activities like hiking, camping and climbing during their childhood and in part due to the overwhelming whiteness of outdoor spaces.
While Turner found that outdoor communities had been welcoming towards her, she hopes to see student organizations do more to specifically address the needs of people of color.
“If I had more time, I would definitely create a club where it’s geared towards getting minorities into nature and showing them how it’s possible to fundraise for a trip,” she said.
Creating more affordable spaces will hopefully improve overall diversity in outdoor spaces, but it’s important to acknowledge the specific challenges people of color face. Things are changing for the better — a 2012 survey from Kampgrounds of America, the largest private campground system in the country, reported that 88% of campers were white. By 2020, people of color made up 37% of all campers and 60% of first time campers. This is no accident — nonprofit groups are springing up all over the country designed to connect campers of color. This peer-based model is incredibly effective and all outdoor communities should incorporate racial justice and racial inclusion into their programming.
***
I grew up outside, but not in a way that presents itself as “experience” later on in life, or which lent me social currency in outdoor communities. Living in rural Michigan near the lakeshore, there was nothing to do besides waste days swimming in Lake Michigan, climbing dunes, camping under the stars or hiking through the Huron-Manistee National Forest. These experiences built my lifelong love for nature, but they weren’t the kind of technical, gear-intensive, backcountry trips that were valued in outdoor communities. My childhood was too low fidelity, too haphazard, too close to civilization to make me a “real” outdoorsman. When I first developed an interest in backpacking, I was more or less starting from square one in the eyes of many outdoor communities.
While the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate outdoor excursions is entirely arbitrary, the jump from casual recreation to more intensive activities can be daunting. Outside of college, there are few opportunities to connect with inclusive communities of outdoor enthusiasts.
Organizations like Outdoor Afro and Becoming an Outdoorswoman are doing important work to get traditionally excluded groups outside, but these are large national programs and can’t offer the peer-to-peer support that campus clubs can. In a way, the U-M backpacking club is a model for the kind of localized, resource-focused groups that can help newcomers assimilate.
Outdoor recreation can be serious, but it can also be refreshingly simple and accessible. Although there are certainly best practices, there is no one way to enjoy nature. Learning to embrace outdoor activity in all the forms it comes in — whether that’s a short day hike or a week-long backpacking trip — is the first step to building communities where people from all backgrounds and experience levels feel welcome.
Statement Correspondent Haley Johnson can be reached at haleyej@umich.edu.