AboutUs

The Natural Born Hikers

     Hi there! So, you want to know a little bit about our hiking crew do you? Well, the story begins many centuries ago in a gothic circle of stones…no wait, that’s a completely different story, never mind. Okay, seriously (grab a cup of coffee and dim the lights) our story begins like this…Once upon a time in the forests of Ohio, way back in the 1980’s, a trio of kids (weisey, pick, and lulu) would hike and hike and hike, encouraged by weisey’s dad sonny (the guy who started this whole hiking obsession), along the trails of places like Blackhand Gorge and Flint Ridge. They loved hiking so much that they started dragging along their friends, which of course soon lent itself to kids dreaming of hiking mountains, deserts, canyons, and glaciers, and when the trio got old enough they set out for the nearest mountains they could find; The Blue Ridge Mountains, and so it all began.

     Every summer from that first trip on, way back in 1986, we would scrounge together enough money to put some gas in the Chevy and hit the road. We hiked many great trails on those trips, especially the Chimney Tops in The Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, one of our favorites to this day. From there we branched out to places like Assateague Island, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and even The Keys of Florida, but for many years we were the poster children for poor backpackers. Even on our first trip out west, we stayed in mom and pop hotels that cost about thirty bucks a night, ( that’s ten bucks each for all of you mathematically challenged readers out there). Suffice to say, that anywhere we could go cheap we went! And when we went, we made it worth the price of the flight.

     Our first trip out west went something like this: Fly into Denver, drive to Rocky Mountains and hike a few trails, drive to Dinosaur N.M and…damn its closed, drive to Flaming Gorge and hike a few trails, drive to Grand Teton and hike a few trails, drive to Yellowstone and hike a few trails, drive to Devil’s Tower and hike a few trails, drive to Mount Rushmore and snap a few photos of one cool rock, drive to Badlands and hike a few trails, drive back to Rocky Mountains and hike a few more trails, drive to Denver airport and hop on plane, plan next trip while flying home. This craziness would all be fit into a two week time period, and repeated several times throughout our young lives. I won’t bore you with all the details ( I know too late right?) but we did this same whirlwind type of tour with the Four-Corners Region, the Pacific Coast, the Southwest, the Canadian Rockies, the Southeast, and New England. On each trip we would drive about 5,000 miles and cram more into two weeks than most people see in a lifetime, and for less than $500 bucks each…those were the days.

     Then three became five; tagging along on several of the trips mentioned above were my niece and nephew, Kat and Cupcake. When we would return from our trips, people would come from far and wide to hear our tales of adventure, and then they would fall asleep at the slide show…just kidding! Nobody falls asleep at a Natural Born Hikers slide show, what are you crazy?! Anyway, our legend soon started to take on mythic proportions, so much so that family and friends started plotting against one another in order to gain a place on one of our adventures. There were sacrifices among the Sarson Stones, Druids robed up for the chant…oh wait, that’s another story; how does that keep getting in here? Seriously though, we have always wanted to make sure that any of our friends and family who wanted to get a taste of adventure had the opportunity to do so, and thus began Natural Born Hikers.

     Next to join this barrel full of monkeys was dauster and karabeener, and we almost managed to kill them in The Grand Canyon but they were tougher than we thought. Oddly enough they just keep coming back for more, I think they are as crazy as we are so they fit it in quite nicely. (Yes, yes, we chose well grasshopper.)

     After tales of woe, and near death in the big hole, we were sure our crew would be forever numbered at seven, but lo and behold along came pick’s mom dar, and just where do you think this crazy lady wanted to go for her first hike…yep, The Grand Canyon! (Oh yeah, she’s nuts…we’ll keep her.) We didn’t manage to kill her in the canyon either, although it was close, and she just keeps torturing herself on the biggest, baddest trails she can find. You gotta love her! Rounding out the lineage of pick is bp, her little bro, who would really rather climb a mountain on two wheels, aka a mountain bike, but he makes the ultimate sacrifice to walk with the best. Others who have been sucked into our crew include the berg, who tempted Madam Pele and paid the price, butchwacker who, being the beauty queen that she is (seriously, she really is a beauty queen) wore white just to spite the muddiest hike on the planet, and many other crazy cool bohemians like kurdy, sully, zachamondie, teach, pacer, doc, mac, comma, nikki, marathon, lizbit, cruisinator, ola, duff, hoof, and stix. Get to know a little bit more about each hiker on their individual pages.

    Our little circle of friends just keeps getting bigger and so does the list of places we want to visit. We are all, mostly, out of college now with solid money-making careers so we can afford to spend a little more than thirty bucks a night on a room, but we still watch our budget and put travel and hiking as priority number one in our lives.

     So in summary let me say this, Natural Born Hikers is not a club or a group you can join, but it is something that holds all of us together. It is a way for us to share our experiences on a global platform, and hopefully we also help to promote a love for the natural world and a desire to protect it from destruction. Maybe one day we will quit our day jobs and turn Natural Born Hikers into a true community organization, but for now just look for us on the trail, or drop us an email, and maybe you too can call yourself a Natural Born Druid, I mean Hiker, dang why do I keep doing that?!

Trails Home Photos