Ever wondered how you can do more for public lands but you aren’t sure where to start? Outdoor Alliance’s Outdoor Allies series explores how other outdoor adventurers got their start in advocacy work and their advice for how you can harness your passion for the outdoors into advocacy for the land and water you love. Crystal Gail Welcome is an experiential educator, inclusion specialist, author, storyteller, activist, and Black outdoor leader. She chooses to speak out against racial injustice in the United States by hiking and giving voice to her experiences. She is currently living in Minnesota, but has experience hiking on the east and west coasts as well. Crystal is the founder of the budding non-profit youth organization Only Footprints.

Tell us about your relationship with the outdoors – what do you like to do outside?

The outdoors and I are intimately allied, but this relationship is not something I grew up with. I had to cultivate it as an adult.

I grew up underprivileged, in crudely designed public housing or in cheaply-made neighborhood infrastructures. Later, in early adulthood, I settled in a city filled with skyscrapers, littered streets, and so much pollution that I often found it difficult to breathe.

What ultimately drew me to the outdoors was a period of my life filled with health challenges. I had been athletic in high school, and had started running again. After my first half marathon, a friend took me to a nearby nature preserve for a cool down. I found myself mesmerized by a tree, and instinctively I felt connected, seen, and loved. Kneeling at the base of the tree, I hugged and held it tightly, and when I released, I exhaled and exclaimed, I was going to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. With no knowledge of hiking or wilderness survival, I knew I belonged in nature. Solo hiking is my cherished outdoor activity.

Tell us about Only Footprints – what led you to start that work?

Unfortunately, not everyone sees my presence in the outdoors as a positive thing; like “driving while black,” I’ve been “hiking while black.” For the greater part of my life, the “I can’t breathe” aspect of the outdoors is what I’ve known. So, in 2020 when George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, his final words were, “I can’t breathe,” it hit me hard. As a Black woman who only reunited with Mother Earth within the past six years, I understand the devastating reality that the outdoors, along with the freedom she affords, can be taken. I’ve turned my love for backpacking into a form of protest to sustain Black lives.

The mission of Only Footprints is to provide BIPOC youth of incarcerated mothers opportunities to engage in the discovery of the natural world free from barriers. Only Footprints is a summer-long wilderness exploration program that assists BIPOC youth of incarcerated mothers in cultivating and maintaining healthy environments for living and learning in the outdoors, while becoming innovative and integrative leaders in both their local and global communities.

What interests me most about working with BIPOC youth of incarcerated mothers is how their self-esteem and growth are affected by their success in school, activities, and relationships as they attempt to find their place through the exploration of the natural world.

What’s your next thru-hike and what kind of work do you hope to accomplish with it?

In the summer of 2021, I will begin hiking the John Muir section of the Pacific Crest Trail as part of my program, Footprints for Change, Hike for Justice. BIPOC communities have had to endure the traumatic burden of fighting for their right to healthy environments while simultaneously fighting for freedom from discrimination and police violence. The current COVID-19 pandemic has amplified these struggles. Amidst all this, BIPOC youth are facing inadequate access to health and education resources.

A primary goal of this hike is visibility. As a Black female solo hiker, I aim to inspire BIPOC people, especially BIPOC youth, to foster a positive relationship with the natural world.

What do you wish more people knew about advocating for change in the outdoors?

Without the inclusion of BIPOC, the outdoors will continue to have a culture of whiteness, strongly rooted in long-standing white supremacy. So long as BIPOC are excluded, discrimination and racism will persist in the outdoors.

What do you hope the future of the outdoors looks like?

It is through our experiences of the world that we build, shift and shape our identities. I envision a world where the outdoors is inclusive and accessible—a world in harmony with nature and at peace with one another.

Lightning round (one or two word answers!)

Favorite piece of gear right now: SlingFin portal

On your reading list: A Promised Land (Barack Obama)

Best close-to-home destination: The Mississippi Headwaters

Find Crystal:

Only Footprints

Website

Outdoor Allies: Crystal Welcome