Harness the Healing Power of the Outdoors with Evelynn Escobar, Who’s Making the Trail a Safe Space for All

As the saying goes, nature is the great equalizer. There’s some truth to that (who can deny the quiet calm a sunset brings or the childlike joy in making snow angels?), but it comes with a not-so-small asterisk. Research shows that, across the country, access to the great outdoors isn't equal at all—and marginalized communities are disproportionately excluded from resources, recreational activities, and public spaces.

Evelynn Escobar is an avid adventurer, a mother, and the founder of Hike Clerb, a community-based non-profit organization reimagining a more equitable and inclusive outdoors. As a Black, Indigenous, and Guatemalan woman, she’s on a mission to make nature the equalizer it has long claimed to be—and she’s starting by creating a safe space for healing and connection in the wild.

How Escobar is making the outdoors more inclusive

Looking back on her childhood, Escobar remembers days spent playing in her neighborhood’s woods and creeks. Over time, that love of the outdoors has stayed with her, shifting to “become a catalyst for the exploration of self and a source of reconnection to my ancestors,” she says.

Escobar was introduced to hiking during a trip to Los Angeles at 10 years old. Years later, as a young adult, she moved to LA eager to set out on the trails again—and was struck by how unnatural the lack of diversity in nature felt. Rather than getting discouraged, though, she sunk her heels in and decided to make outdoor access and inclusion her life’s work.

“I started Hike Clerb because of the frustration I felt seeing how homogenous and gate-kept outdoor spaces, specifically National Parks, are as a Black and Indigenous untraditional outdoorswoman,” Escobar says. “The work we’re doing is to equip Black, Indigenous, and other racialized women, trans, and gender-nonconforming people with the tools, resources, education, and experiences they need to collectively heal in nature.”

The vision behind Hike Clerb—which offers free and low-cost hikes, recreational activities, workshops, and events in LA—was to create a literal safe space where all people can foster deeper connection to themselves, each other, and the natural world. “And that’s exactly what it has been,” she says.

How Escobar hopes to create healing in nature—for herself and others

These days, Escobar credits time outdoors as “the most profound and powerful modality” of her healing and mental-health journey. “I love using the metaphor of seeing ourselves as flowers or plants. Just as plants need water, sunlight, and air to grow, we require all the same,” she says. “We see the effects socially [and] environmentally when humans are not given the opportunity to be nurtured in this way. We are a part of nature and we need to begin viewing ourselves as such.”

Through Hike Clerb, she hopes to celebrate people in marginalized communities and beyond, support their individual healing journeys, and remind them of their place in the wild—whether it’s at the summit after a strenuous hike or simply touching grass in their backyards.

“If we want to make the world a better place,” Escobar says, “we have to make it one that’s better for everyone [and everywhere]—not just the parts that feel most important or familiar to us.” Maybe then the outdoors can become the equalizer it was always meant to be.