Get excited, because we just found your new favorite body positive Instagram account. It's called Unlikely Hikers, @unlikelyhikers, and is run by a badass woman named Jenny Bruso.
Bruso is a "self-identified fat, femme, queer, writer and former indoor kid" who credits an "accidental hike" in 2012 for changing her life. She now runs a hiking blog as well as the Instagram page, where she details her adventures as a fat woman in the great outdoors — but also highlights other "unlikely hikers" who don't fit into our assumptions of what an outdoorsy person looks like.
She's highlighting the voices of other plus-size people, people of color, queer and transgender people, and differently-abled people.
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Bruso sat down for an interview with Portland Monthly recently to discuss the inspiration behind her blog, and what it really means to be an "unlikely hiker."
"My first date with my partner, Brie, was a hike up the Maple Trail in Forest Park," Bruso tells Portland Monthly. "I pretended I was into it because I liked her. It changed my life right then and there."
She fell in love with hiking, but noticed that the hikers she saw online all looked the same — thin, white, and able-bodied.
"How many times can you see photos of a flawless, thin, white woman on a summit looking like she got airlifted in? I tell you, that’s not what I look like when I’m on a summit," she said. "I look haggard and like I just worked my ass off to get up there. I’m invested in being another face for the outdoors."
It's not just her own face she highlights, but Bruso said that kind of happened by accident.
"I started calling myself by [that name] on my blog and people just grabbed onto it," she said. "I started the Instagram account in June 2016. It took off immediately. When people see the diversity of people featured, it really is a lightbulb moment. Like, this is for me, too."
No matter how Unlikely Hikers came to be, we're glad it's here and that more and more people are able to see that not only thin, white people are fit or outdoorsy.
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It's your body. It's your summer. Enjoy them both. Check out more #TakeBackTheBeach here.
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