Outdoor women’s organizations give women a safe, welcoming, and an empowering environment to learn more about their sports and themselves in the outdoors. A woman in the outdoors will have a different experience than men. As a company that strives to get more people outside and taking more adventures, we’re excited to see more and more organizations showcasing and supporting women in the outdoors. We’ve included outdoor women’s organizations that go hiking, climbing, fishing, and all the adventures in between.
Black Girls Trekkin
Mission: To help empower black women while getting outdoors. To show the world that ladies of color are a strong and present force in the outdoors.
About them: Black Girls Trekkin’ is a group, created by co-founders, Tiffany and Michelle, for women of color who choose to opt outside. Through their passion, they’re inspiring and empowering Black women to spend time outdoors, appreciate nature, and protect it. They hope to build a community that will show the world that women of color are a strong and present force in the outdoors.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Brown Girls Climb
Mission: To promote and increase the visibility of diversity in climbing by establishing a community of climbers of color, encouraging leadership opportunities for self-identified women climbers of color, and by creating inclusive opportunities to climb and explore for underrepresented communities.
About them: Their goal is to create a community that supports and celebrates WOC (Women of Color) through shared knowledge and leadership. Their membership services are designed to provide accessible climbing and advancement to Women of Color. They value their allies and believe that together, people can create a more inclusive climbing community, which has always been one of their primary goals. Brown Girls Climb offer monthly memberships to allies that offer ways to support communities of color, initiatives that prioritize equitable practices in the outdoors and workplace, and education on ways you can be a better ally.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Casting for Recovery
Mission: To enhance the lives of women with breast cancer by connecting them to each other and nature through the therapeutic sport of fly fishing.
About them: For over 20 years, Casting for Recovery (CfR) has been providing healing outdoor retreats for women with breast cancer, at no cost to the participants. CfR’s retreats offer opportunities for women to find inspiration, discover renewed energy for life, and experience healing connections with other women and nature. The retreats are open to women with breast cancer of all ages, in all stages of treatment and recovery.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Fat Girls Hiking
Mission: To take the shame and stigma out of the word FAT and empower it.
About them: Fat Girls Hiking is fat activism, body liberation & outdoor community. It’s a community where people can access outdoor spaces in a way that meets their needs. Their motto is, “Trails Not Scales,” which focuses on self care in the outdoors. They promote weight-neutrality and Health At Every Size. They want to create a space where fat and marginalized folks can come together in community to create safer spaces in the outdoors. They believe in representation for fat folks, folks of all ages, races, ethnicities, religions, classes, abilities, genders and sexual identities. NO diet talk, NO weight loss talk, NO body shaming, and NO bigotry of any kind is allowed in their online or real-life spaces. Their community is a safer space for marginalized folks and allies.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Flash Foxy
Mission: To open an experimental space that helps acknowledge the growing community of women climbers, build solidarity, and play with the possibility of climbing differently.
About them: Flash Foxy began as an online platform in 2014 to celebrate women climbing with women and to be a place where women could come to feel inspired by and connected to each other. In 2016, they held the inaugural Women’s Climbing Festival and now continue to bring women climbers together through a variety of events across the country.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Fox Mountain Guides
Mission: To provide guests, from total beginners to experienced climbers looking for advanced training, with safe, unforgettable experiences in the mountains.
About them: Fox Mountain Guides and Climbing School is the Southeast’s premier rock climbing guide service and climbing school. Since its inception nearly 20 years ago, FMG has been the region’s leader in rock and ice climbing guiding. They only employ AMGA-certified guides and are fully insured. They cater to individuals and groups including families, scouts, homeschool communities, summer camps, corporations seeking team building activities, and military groups.
Owned by: Cristin Knowlton
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Free to Run
Mission: To create female leaders in areas of conflict through outdoor sports and adventure.
About them: Free to Run works to support women and girls in areas of conflict through adventure sports to build physical, emotional, and social well being. Free to Run provides them with the tools to become leaders who exercise self determination, challenge negative norms, and boldly reclaim public spaces. Free to Run members are community leaders, advocates, and role models in their societies, bringing people together across cultural, ethnic, and religious lines. They change views about the roles that women can, and should, play in society.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
GirlVentures
Mission: Inspire girls to lead through outdoor adventure, inner discovery, and collective action.
About them: GirlVentures was founded in 1997 as the Bay Area Girls Center. While studying the transition from childhood to adolescence among girls at the Harvard School of Education, their founders observed that girls faced multiple emotional, physical, and social challenges. Underserved girls from marginalized communities, in particular, needed extra support and mentorship to foster the self-confidence, perseverance, and sense of community necessary for academic, social and career success. Outdoor education, and more specifically, single-gender outdoor education, fosters the qualities that girls need to face the challenges posed by the transition to adulthood. And that’s how GirlVentures came to be.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Hike Like A Woman
Mission: To help women explore with confidence in the outdoors.
About them: Hike Like A Woman is a community for and by outdoor women where they have just one goal: to help you explore. They help women explore local trails and what it really is to be a woman in the outdoors.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Native Women’s Wilderness
Mission: To inspire and raise the voices of Native Women in the Outdoor Realm. To encourage a healthy lifestyle grounded in the Wilderness. To educate Natives and non-Natives on the rich beauty and heritage of the Ancestral Lands beneath our feet.
About them: Native Women’s Wilderness was created to bring Native women together to share their stories, support each other, and learn from one another as they endeavor to explore and celebrate the wilderness and native lands.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
No Man’s Land Film Festival
Mission: To connect like-minded individuals who are action-oriented, wish to support a shared vision of gender equality, have a desire to experience their passions and environments through a uniquely feminine lens, and above all, love adventure.
About them: No Man’s Land Film Festival (NMLFF) is the premier all-women adventure film festival based out of Denver, Colorado, that meets a need and desire to highlight and connect women in pursuit of the radical. They are a collaboration and celebration of humans who are deeply engaged in enhancing the feminine presence in the adventure arena.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Outdoor Women’s Alliance
Mission: Serve all ages of women, including the rising generation, through skill-based, leadership-building programming. Their programs are designed to help women participants gain confidence through the positive, self-propelled avenue of adventure-related goals rather than seeking acceptance or affirmation through less positive avenues or social pressures.
Build communities through strong, leadership-driven women via OWA’s Grassroots Program and its regional chapters, focusing on education and experiential, skill-building activities for women in the outdoors.
About them: Outdoor Women’s Alliance® (OWA) is a volunteer-run nonprofit media and adventure collective that engages, educates, and empowers females worldwide. Through the lens of human-powered adventure, they work to inspire confidence and leadership in women of all ages, believing that confident women have the power to build healthy communities and — quite literally — change the world.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
SheJumps
Mission: To increase the participation of women and girls in outdoor activities.
About them: SheJumps serves girls ages 6 and up, women 18 & older who either have never participated in outdoor activities or are active members of the outdoor community looking to give back and share their passion.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
Sisters On The Fly
Mission: To offer empowerment and sisterhood through exceptional outdoor adventures.
About them: Sisters On The Fly is the largest women’s social group in the U.S. focusing on camping, outdoor activities, and events empowering women to find friendship, networks, and recreation in the outdoors.
Website | Instagram | Facebook
How’s your experience as a woman in the outdoors? Share your experience and tag us on social media! (@exploreorigin) We’ve also posted articles about LGBTQ Outdoor Organizations helping making the outdoors inclusive and Colorado organizations boosting DEI in the outdoors.
