American Hiking Society

We envision a world where everyone feels welcome in the American hiking community and has permanent access to meaningful hiking, including urban, frontcountry, and backcountry opportunities. We will achieve this vision by empowering all communities to enjoy, share, and preserve the hiking experience; advocate for the protection and expansion of hiking spaces; foster trail stewardship; and collaborate with partners whose strengths are complementary.

1. We Are Hikers
We share our love of hiking. We achieve our mission through uniting the diverse hiking community.

2. Hiking Matters
We believe in hiking’s transformative power: It boosts mental and physical health, engenders respect for ourselves and our surroundings, and creates and strengthens a sense of community.

3. Trails Are for Everyone
We believe that everyone should feel welcome as a hiker on all trails. Hiking offers low-threshold access to a positive outdoor social activity available to all.

4. We Share the Trail
We collaborate with partners that complement our strengths and weaknesses, rather than competing. We convene, amplify, and lead, rather than direct.

5. Hiking Inspires Sustainability
We protect the places we love. Because hiking directly engages hikers with their surroundings, it invites deeper personal connections with that land, leading to a commitment to care and advocate for its health and preservation.

We have been advocating for the diverse national hiking community since 1976, bringing to bear our strong nonpartisan relationships with Congress and federal government, our far-reaching social media presence and member engagement, our long-standing trail service projects in public lands across the country, and American Hiking Society's National Trails Day (a national celebration of water and land trail stewardship and protection of public lands).

In 2018, American Hiking Society:

-- Reached over 2 million people with its advocacy posts on social media, with a total engagement of almost 41,000 and over 2,000 messages sent from members and supporters directly to Congress through our calls to action.
-- Ran the Vote Public Lands education campaign around the midterm election.
-- Co-hosted the largest-ever Hike the Hill advocacy week, with other 135 participants from trail organizations across the country.
-- Helped to secure a $27.6 million increase in trail funding; advance permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Every Kid Outdoors Act; get signed into law the wildfire funding fix to prevent erosion of trail maintenance funds and still protect funding for fighting wildfires; reverse the National Park Service plan to increase national park entrance fees; and release the Forest Service National Strategy for a Sustainable Trail System; and served on the steering committee for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Scenic and Historic Trails System.
-- Launched the NextGen Trail Leaders program, which brought together rising stars in the outdoor community to speak out in protection of public lands and to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the outdoors.
-- Provided $3.3 million in volunteer labor for trail service.
-- Improved over 4000 miles of trail through 380 trail service projects.
-- Improved trails in 36 national parks, 51 national forests, 12 national wildlife refuges, 15 Bureau of Land Management sites, 104 state parks and forests, and 86 municipal and county parks.
-- Fielded majority female trail volunteer teams across all of our programs.
-- For the first time in the history of the American Hiking Alternative Break program, ran the program with an Historically Black University.
-- Improved almost 4000 miles of trail in one day through our national hikers' pledge on National Trails Day.