From the Washington Post -
The Racism of the Great Outdoors
Hikers and climbers of color face a host of obstacles, from bigoted route names to Confederate flags. This D.C.-based group is trying to change that.
By Ikya Kandula
Five years ago, Gabrielle Dickerson, then a sophomore at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, lay awake in her sleeping bag on her first overnight climbing trip, enveloped by the woods of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve near Fayetteville, W.Va. Like many rock climbers in the D.C. area, she’d been drawn to the New, as outdoor enthusiasts call it — a five-hour road trip from Washington — because it offers 1,400 of the best climbing routes in the United States.
The rest of her group had swiftly fallen asleep after a day of projecting — the process of strategizing about, and eventually completing, a climb with no breaks — but apprehension took hold of Dickerson. “I was very aware of how uncomfortable I was in the backcountry of West Virginia,” Dickerson recalls. “Not only because I was a Black woman, but also because of the relationship and trauma my ancestors had with the woods.” Her grandfather had been born on a North Carolina cotton farm in 1930 and picked cotton until he escaped from the owner in his teens. On his way to Philadelphia and a new life, he witnessed his best friend get lynched in the woods.
Loneliness sank in as Dickerson realized that no one in her campsite would be able to relate: She was the only Black climber in her group. She’d been climbing in a gym in Rockville, Md., for six months; that day in the New was her first experience projecting in a natural space. She’d spent the afternoon struck with a sense of wonder, but that didn’t offset her disquietude in that moment. She knew that the deep canyons that surrounded her overflowed with histories of Black families just like her own.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/05/19/rock-climbers-color-face-host-obstacles-this-group-is-trying-change-that/?tid=a_classic-iphone&no_nav=true
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