Wild Ideas Worth Living

Outdoor Defense with Nicole Snell

Episode Summary

Nicole Snell is a self defense instructor and owner of Girls Fight Back — she wants to give people the tools and skills to feel confident when setting off on their own solo adventures.

Episode Notes

When we’re alone in nature, all of our senses are heightened — which can be wonderful, but it can also be intimidating. There's a lot of messaging out there that tells us doing things alone isn't safe. Nicole Snell, self defense instructor and owner of Girls Fight Back, believes in solo adventuring and wants to provide people with the tools and confidence to get out there. Nicole has trained so she can feel comfortable doing what she wants and has made it her mission to change the conversation around personal safety. 

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Episode Transcription

Nicole Snell: My sister will text me when I say, "Okay, I'm going on a hike by myself. I'm going on this trail." She's like, "Bring a weapon." And I tell her, "I am a weapon. Let's not forget that, we are all weapons."

Shelby Stanger: Nicole Snell is a weapon. She's a self-defense instructor, the owner of the company Girls Fight Back, and the host of the YouTube series Outdoor Defense. Nicole is an avid adventurer. She travels all over the world, does outdoor sports, and she hikes at night often all by herself. Nicole doesn't let the boundaries of what society has told her, hold her back. Instead, she's trained and prepared herself so she can adventure where she wants to and feel free.

Shelby Stanger: I'm Shelby Stanger and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living.

Shelby Stanger: Nicole believes that everyone can be empowered to adventure on their own. She's worked with organizations like UCLA, the Denver Broncos, Bumble, the US military, and so many more. She's also a collaborator for the 2021 Webby Award winner for the short film, Self-defense for Female Travelers. I've interviewed a lot of solo hikers, but to be honest, I don't feel comfortable going camping by myself. I get nervous about my personal safety, especially as a woman. There's a lot of messaging out there that says, it's not safe to run at night. It's not safe to sleep alone in a tent or to travel solo. Nicole rejects this idea. She says, "You can be smart about it." And she's made it her mission to change the conversation around personal safety.

Shelby Stanger: I've been told so many times, don't hike alone. I'm sure you get this a lot. Why is this and how do you overcome it, I guess?

Nicole Snell: I hear that all the time and I am tired of people trying to put limits on me and people putting limits on other women. I think it essentially stems from the fact that society tends to view women and those who identify as women as weaker, as needing protection, as being unable to take care of ourselves, and those are all lies. The sad statistics are that 86% of the time women are assaulted by someone we know. It's not by strangers. It's not more common to experience violence when you're out traveling solo. But by the sheer fact of being by ourselves, it somehow makes people feel like that automatically puts you in more danger because now nobody is there to help you, now you don't have anyone to protect you. Violence happens. Even though violence is happening, it doesn't mean we have to live in fear.

Nicole Snell: If we abide by what society tells us we need to do, don't go out after dark, don't walk by yourself... It gives us false sense of security if you just follow these don'ts then you'll be safe, but that's not the case. I want to empower people to not feel like they have to limit their lives in these ways. There are things that we can do to manage our safety and feel confident and to feel prepared that if we face something that we can handle it, but the answer is not to just sit in our houses and not ever go anywhere or not ever do anything because that's very limiting.

Nicole Snell: Now, I am also not saying that we should just go out and not think about our safety and put ourselves in really dangerous situations. I learned self-defense now I can go do these really dangerous things. I am not saying that, because part of self-defense is about recognizing danger. And if you can avoid it, then you do what you can to avoid it. And if you can't avoid it, how do you deal with it? But here's a radical thought. What if we protect ourselves? What if we're the experts of our own safety and we make safety decisions about ourselves? And feeling empowered with that knowledge and knowing that you have options can help you feel confident being able to go out and do these things.

Shelby Stanger: Great advice. I really appreciate you saying that. But also as like a woman of color, you must get that in a different way than I even get it?

Nicole Snell: I do, yeah. I've traveled to a lot of places around the world and most of the time I've had wonderful experiences, but I have had experiences where people are like, "Oh, I didn't know Black people did that." And then you take the moment to try to, "No, yes, we do these things and we like these things too," and fighting the stereotypes as well.

Nicole Snell: And then I've been in places where I had my hair braided and gotten all sorts of attention that I didn't necessarily want from people who've not seen a Black woman with this type of hair. And they come up asking questions, they want to touch it, they want to take pictures with you. And sometimes it can feel like novel like, "Okay, this is kind of cool." Like I'm introducing them into something and to someone they've never seen before. It's kind of an educational moment, but it's sometimes like I am just here to enjoy myself. I don't really want to have to be educating people on me. I don't want to be viewed as a side show or a novelty, things like that. You just kind of want to enjoy your time. So, that feeling of being othered in situations like that can be hard to deal with.

Shelby Stanger: So what do you recommend ensure you're doing these things as safely as possible?

Nicole Snell: One of the first things that I do whenever I go on a solo trip is I let someone know where I'm going. Just because I saw that movie 127 Hours I think it was, that movie has reinforced to me the importance that an emergency, an accident, not necessarily a personal safety issue but an accident can happen at any time. And it's important that someone knows where you are so that if you don't come back after a certain amount of time, someone knows where to look for you. So whenever I solo hike or solo do anything, I just let someone know where I'm going. It doesn't have to be long and evolves to quick, "Hey, I'm going here, this trail. I plan to be back by this time," and let that be it. And do your research, research your trail, know where you're going and kind of know what to expect, and just use your intuition awareness. Take any information. And if something feels sketch, it's okay to turn around. It's okay to take a different path.

Shelby Stanger: That's really good advice. For those who haven't seen the movie, he goes for a hike, I think it's in Utah, and a rock falls in a way that pins his arm inside the rock and he can't get out. He stuck there for 127 hours until he amputates his own arm and then is rescued, and he's still alive today and it's a pretty powerful story.

Nicole Snell: Yeah.

Shelby Stanger: Nicole is always been fiercely independent. When she was in her early 20s, she got curious about outdoor sports. She wanted to try snowboarding, but her friends just weren't that interested. So Nicole went out and she took lessons by herself. Then she started trying other solo adventures. Nicole rode horses, she zip-lined, she paraglided, you name it. A few years later, she pushed her boundaries a little further and she started taking international trips on her own. At times, it was scary and uncomfortable, but she used her street smarts to get by and to stay safe. Then when she was back in the states, she had a realization, Nicole wanted to learn self-defense.

Nicole Snell: I really got into self-defense when I was... I would say it was about a few years ago. And I was dating a guy at the time and we were play wrestling, play fighting, and he pinned me to the ground on my floor. And I had this alarm bell went off in my head that said, "Whoa, Nicole, what are you going to do?" Like if this was real, what would you do? And I didn't know. I didn't know what to do in that moment. All I know is he had me completely pinned down, he was like laughing, "Ha-ha-ha, try to get out of this." In the back of my head, it was serious for me because I thought, if this was real, I don't know what to do. I need to figure out what to do.

Nicole Snell: And that's what kind of brought me to self-defense training in the first place is I wanted to learn, what to do? What to do in those what if moments? What to do in those really scary moments that we're taught to fear? And I took some self-defense classes and I learned not only how much there is that I can do, but how simple it is. And it gave me so much confidence, more confidence than I already have if you can believe that. I was already going out and doing these things, but now I felt unstoppable. Now I felt so capable of being able to help myself and also help others if I needed to, that I feel like it opened up the world even more for me.

Shelby Stanger: Those self-defense classes helped Nicole feel safer and more confident, but they also completely changed her career trajectory. When she took her first class, she was working in TV production. She loved it, but she was feeling pulled to work in a field that empowered women. In college, Nicole had been involved with a social justice group. One day that group reached out and asked Nicole if she wanted to help them with a new project. They were about to start working with the Navy, to do a sexual assault prevention and bystander intervention training program. Through this program, she met the owner of the company, Girls Fight Back. The company combines empowerment and self-defense methods to teach participants, mostly women to feel safe, confident, and empowered.

Nicole Snell: I met the owner of Girls Fight Back at the time because she was helping this group kind of handle all the logistical details of working with the military. And I remember looking at the website and I thought, oh my gosh, how do I get involved with this? I didn't even know that was a job you could do. Oh, you can go and be a speaker and go travel to colleges around the country and teach self-defense. I didn't even think that was a thing. So, I emailed the owner and asked for a job and they didn't have a speaker position open right away. But about three to four months later, they did. And I went through the training. Part of the training was taking and graduating from a 20 hour self-defense course, which is full contact, full force self-defense with realistic scenarios adrenaline-based training. I took the class and said, "I want to do this too. How do I become an instructor?" And that really in 2014 was how this whole journey started.

Shelby Stanger: So what exactly is Girls Fight Back do? What's the goal?

Nicole Snell: Part of what I teach with Girls Fight Back is, how can we own our space? Take up the space we meet, establish the boundaries that we need to live our lives as freely and confidently as we want to live. Because I understand, there may be some people out there listening who may never in their lives want to take a solo hiking trip or go on a solo camping trip, and that's fine. But maybe for those people, what's a big deal for them is being able to walk their dog at night by themselves or go to the grocery store by themselves or something else that's more in their neighborhood.

Shelby Stanger: What are some of the tips that you talk about in these seminars?

Nicole Snell: So we primarily start by talking about the non-physical ways that we defend ourselves, because those are the things that we use everyday. I don't know about you, Shelby, but I can't tell you the last time I heel pumped someone in the face.

Shelby Stanger: Not last night, I tell you that.

Nicole Snell: No, me neither. Not last month, not last week, but I can tell you the last time I set a boundary with someone, the last time I used my voice to assert myself, the last time I noticed something often use my awareness and intuition. So a lot of times people think self-defense, they think, "Oh, it's punches and kicks." I don't teach punches, first of all. But they think it's all the physical. And I break that myth down right at the beginning, on Girls Fight Back we talk about how are the ways that we manage our safety everyday that are non-physical because most of the things that we experienced in life are people pushing our boundaries, people trying to get in and guilt us and try to take advantage of our niceness.

Nicole Snell: And because assailants are looking for people who they consider to be vulnerable or accessible or distracted. They're not looking for a knock-down drag-out fight. It's not sports combat. It's not, "Hey, I don't like the way your hair looks, let's meet at 2:00 o'clock at the trailhead and we're going to face off." No, they're not looking for a fight. It's not a fair fight. They're going after someone who they consider to be vulnerable. It's often surprise attacks or they get into your boundaries and then they commit the attack that they're looking to do.

Nicole Snell: So by learning to identify that type of behavior, these kinds of red flags, trusting our intuition, being aware of our situation and knowing how we can establish boundaries and use our body as well, can help us manage things before it becomes a physical altercation. And then of course I teach the physical because when you know how to use your body to defend yourself, it changes everything about the way you walk to the world. Because you know that if worst case scenario happens, you have options. And when you learn how simple it is to be able to use your body, it really can just increase that feeling of confidence. And I had someone take one of my sessions and she said, "I already felt powerful, but now I feel unstoppable." And that means the world to me, to hear a feedback like that.

Shelby Stanger: So the Girls Fight Back, I mean, some of our listeners are guys, do you work with men as well?

Nicole Snell: Absolutely. So Girls Fight Back is the name of the company and it's also one of my programs, but I have other programs. I have gender inclusive programs. I do a lot of work with gender inclusive audiences and we're open to anybody. We believe and I believe that everybody can benefit from learning the basics of how to defend yourself. Because in an ideal world, of course, we wouldn't need this. In an ideal world, there would be no violence at all and we would all be safe to walk at 3:00 o'clock in the morning with our headphones in.

Nicole Snell: Until we live in that world, it's a gift to know as much as possible about how to defend yourself. I mean, I'm getting really meta here, but to end the violence, it's going to take all of us. It's going to take a multidisciplinary approach. It's going to take people like me who are teaching self-defense. It's going to take people trying to change policy. It's going to take people changing the justice system. It's going to take people getting to folks younger and talking about consent and boundaries. It's going to be dismantling a lot of social constructs that lead to this. I'm just doing my small part.

Shelby Stanger: It's really interesting talking to you because it almost seems like your life prepared you for your life. Like you have all these passions that you've always had and you've figured out ways to combine them to make a living doing what you love. But you also had this background in production and now you have this video series. You had this background in self-defense and hiking and you're putting it all together.

Nicole Snell: I never thought I would be at this place in my life. I was in production, I thought I was going to roll through the ranks and move up and be a senior VP of production at a studio, that was the track that I was on. And when I started working and doing the sexual assault prevention training for the military, I thought, I'll do this for a little bit. I'll do this for a year and see how it goes, because I love speaking. I've always loved speaking and being in front of people and sharing my knowledge and teaching. And I thought we'll do this for a year and see how it goes and if it's not going the way I want it to go, it's not sustainable. I'll just go back to production. And then I just loved it so much. And then connecting with Girls Fight Back and I didn't envision that it would come together in this way, but I am so incredibly grateful. And every day that I work, I just feel so rewarded.

Nicole Snell: Whenever someone sends me a message or DM or an email talking about how important this work is or something that I said resonated with them, or they're gearing up for their first solo adventure and they feel more capable of being able to do that because of what I've said or what they've learned from me, that means the world to me.

Shelby Stanger: Nicole is passionate about teaching personal safety. I mean, you can hear it in her voice. After a couple of years of working with Girls Fight Back, Nicole made a gutsy move. She became the owner. When we come back, Nicole gives us some self-defense tips. She also talks about her YouTube series called Outdoor Defense and what you can do to feel confident getting outside alone.

Shelby Stanger: I love listening to music while I make dinner or when I need to fully focus, which is a lot of the time. So I was stoked when Sonos sent me the new roam portable speaker. I bought a lot of portable speakers and this one is superior to anything I've ever had. It was easy to set up with my phone and it automatically switches from wifi to Bluetooth wherever you go, so you don't have to think about your speaker just your playlists. It even tunes itself to your surroundings so the sound is always clear and perfectly balanced like you're in your own recording studio, which is very cool for a podcast person who loves good sound like me. Best of all, this thing is durable and waterproof so it'll be coming with me to the beach this summer. You can discover sound made easy at Sonos sonos.com.

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Shelby Stanger: Self-defense isn't about big complicated moves. In Nicole's classes, she keeps things really simple so that people can remember what to do when they're in stressful situations. In fact, she often only teaches a few basic moves. As Nicole told me in our conversation, it's okay to use your body to defend yourself. You're worth fighting for. In addition to teaching people some self-defense moves, Nicole's courses also focus on managing your adrenaline response and using your voice. Communicating with someone you feel threatened by can be really uncomfortable, but having skills to communicate more effectively and to set better boundaries, that can contribute to your overall safety.

Shelby Stanger: Let's talk about boundaries. I'm really curious about this subject because it's hard for some people to set boundaries.

Nicole Snell: It is. It can be because I feel like more so now there's more talk around it and so it's more a part of the discourse and how important it is. But a lot of times people feel uncomfortable setting boundaries because we don't want to offend someone. We don't want to hurt their feelings. All these things that are based on what we're afraid of someone's perception of us is going to be for us setting a boundary for ourselves. And my answer to that is that my safety is more important than someone else's feelings. I find need to set a boundary and that person thinks I am a raging bitch, why do I care what they think? Because my value as a person is not dependent on what some person thinks of me because I set a boundary for myself. And I saw this somewhere, I cannot take credit for this quote. Someone said that if someone gets upset or angry with you for setting a boundary with them, it means they benefited from you not having any boundaries.

Shelby Stanger: And sometimes when I'm setting a boundary, I like get kind of scared and nervous. I come off kind of like mean, and then I'll over apologize. I think a lot of people do that.

Nicole Snell: Yes. And we don't have to apologize for setting a boundary. We don't have to apologize for taking up space in the world. Our boundaries are ours. We have nothing to be sorry for. It's one of the things that I teach is that we don't have to apologize. We don't have to sit there and go, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to tell you this, but I really don't want you to walk behind me. I'm so sorry. We don't have to add all that. We can just be assertive and say, "Look, I'm not comfortable with you walking so close behind me," and let it be that.

Nicole Snell: So many messages in the world tell us, especially us women, that we have to make ourselves small and take up less space and not be too loud and take care of other people's feelings at the expense of our own. And part of what I teach with Girls Fight Back is how can we own our space to live our lives as freely and confidently as we want to live. Because I understand, there may be some people out there listening who may never in their lives want to take a solo hiking trip or go on a solo camping trip, and that's fine. But maybe for those people, what's a big deal for them is being able to walk their dog at night by themselves or go to the grocery store by themselves or something else that's more in their neighborhood.

Shelby Stanger: Or walk back to their car at night without putting their key between their fingers. It probably does nothing.

Nicole Snell: Yeah, please. If anyone's listening, please avoid putting your keys between your fingers. I have a whole episode on outdoor defense about that. Because if you put your keys between your fingers and if you actually do have to make contact with somebody, you're going to rip up the tendons and the skin and the tissue in your hands and it's going to cause way a lot of damage to yourself.

Shelby Stanger: What is a boundary look like in the wild outdoors? What is setting one look like?

Nicole Snell: Oh, that's great. Well, it's really going to depend on your context. If you're out with friends, if you're out by yourself, like I am heading out for a solo camping trip soon... And it really just depends on you, how comfortable you are. I'm an extrovert, so I chit chat with people but I don't tell people where I'm from, how long I'm staying for. I don't tell them I'm there by myself. I mean, they'll see if they come by my campsite, but I don't offer up a bunch of information. If someone's coming up and asking you a lot of questions you can just say, "You're asking a lot of questions. I don't feel comfortable sharing that information with you." Maybe you're hiking. I've had some times where I'm hiking solo and someone comes up and they start talking to me and, "Oh, can I walk with you?" Sometimes I've said, "Sure," and I've met some great friends on the trail. And sometimes I said, "No, I really am just out here to enjoy the solitude by myself. Thank you."

Shelby Stanger: I love that. This is sort of a silly question maybe but things like Mace, like stuff to carry on you. Is that anything you would recommend or?

Nicole Snell: I'm going to tell you what I tell anyone who ask me about weapons. Like I am not the expert of your personal security, you are. You have to do what is going to feel best for you. And I try to get people information so they can make an informed decision. So if you are planning on carrying a weapon, you have to train with it. You must train with it. When your body is under stress and when it's adrenalized, your fine motor skills no longer work. Your gross motor skills take over, it's adrenaline response, unless you are training in the adrenaline state with whatever you plan on carrying. If you buy pepper spray at the store, you put it on the outside of your packing, you never aim it and shoot it. You never take it out. You never practice unclipping it, putting it in your hand. You never do any of that. And when when you're faced with a dangerous situation, your body is likely not going to respond the way you think it's going to because that's a fine motor movement to get it out, to unclip it.

Nicole Snell: I have to know what kind of pepper spray you're working with. Is it a stream, is it a spray, is it a gel? What's the distance? What are you going to do if it blows back in your face? So these are things and considerations that we have to have. So the first rule of weapons is you have to train with whatever it is you're planning on using, train with it. Second thing is that anything you bring into a fight it can be used against you. We have to admit that that's a possibility. And the third thing I say about weapons is I want people to put their security and their safety into themselves, into their bodies, and to things they have on them 24/7 and not put your safety and security into something else hoping that that thing is going to save you.

Shelby Stanger: Talk to me about the importance of intuition, how we can tune into it better?

Nicole Snell: So intuition is really important. Our intuition is designed to protect us from danger. It's the only reason why it exists. Every animal has it, humans are the only ones who ignore it. So when we notice something's not right, sometimes what we do as humans is we try to talk ourselves out of that feeling. We try to use our judgment. Oh no, it's probably nothing. Oh, I'm just being ridiculous. Especially if we're getting an intuitive feeling about a person and maybe this person is being really nice. Or any number of things where what we're seeing doesn't match up with this feeling that we're getting. But our intuition is picking up on things we're not always consciously aware of and we need to feel confident that our body knows what it's doing. Like our intuition is trying to help us. It's not trying to send us down a dangerous path, it's trying to send us down a safer path, and it's important that we trust that feeling.

Nicole Snell: Now, something that often comes up when people are talking to me about this is, well, how do I know if it's my intuition or if it's my anxiety? How do I know if it's my intuition or if it's a bias? And my answer to that is ask yourself in a moment, am I feeling uncomfortable or am I feeling unsafe? And then if you're feeling unsafe, get to a safe place. And then if you want to have that conversation with yourself about, well, why was I feeling my intuition? Was it really because this was a potentially dangerous situation or was I misjudging someone based on what they look like or what they were wearing and then have those conversations with yourself afterwards and that will help you being able to better manage situations like that in the future.

Shelby Stanger: Okay, what about your body? How does Girls Fight Back kind of teach you to show your presence more in your body?

Nicole Snell: We've talked about confident body language and how you can hold your body in a way that shows confidence... Head up and making eye contact with people. And not intense staring with weird looks on our faces eye contact, but I feel like part of my job is not just empowering women, but also trying to break through these myths and these stereotypes, because a lot of these myths are not very empowering. Well, don't make eye contact. Look up, make that eye contact, let that person know that you see. You hear something behind you, turn around. Who's walking behind? I want to know who's walking behind me. I'm walking out on the street. I hear a jingle-jangle. I turned around, oh, it's somebody walking their dog. Cool, no problem.

Nicole Snell: But what if I turned around and it's someone that all of a sudden stops when I look at them, and then I keep walking and then I hear them, I turn around again and they stop? Okay, now, I have more information. Now I can do something, which for me, I would probably turn around and say, "Hi, it looks like you're following me. Is there a problem?"

Shelby Stanger: Wow.

Nicole Snell: And see what their answer is.

Shelby Stanger: Like if it was me, I would just run.

Nicole Snell: I mean, if you can run and get away, that's always an option too. It's not about, oh, I know self-defense and now I'm going to purposely try to use my skills whenever I can, my physical skills. But if you can get away, get away. When we're in the outdoors, especially in the outdoors by ourselves, safety may not be nearby. There may not be anyone else around. So what are the things that we can do in these situations to protect ourselves or to avoid a potentially dangerous situation in those moments where running to safety isn't the first choice because we're out on a through hike, where is our safety in that moment? Where would we run to? We might have to turn and face and confront what's happening right here before we can move on and get to a safe place.

Shelby Stanger: I'm learning so much. Yeah. We've interviewed a lot of through hikers from Cheryl Strayed, Aspen Matis, and all of them have stories of having scary moments on the trail or like moments where they didn't feel a hundred percent safe. Any advice on being out in the wilderness alone? A couple of things to just remember?

Nicole Snell: Yeah. One is to remember that you have options, that you're not helpless, that you don't have to rely on other people for your protection. Like you are fully capable of protecting yourself and knowing that and having that confidence can speak volumes to someone who may be targeting you. They may think that you're vulnerable, but you know, you're not vulnerable because you can handle yourself if it comes down to it. Not just by trying to avoid it using your verbal skills, but then also that you can defend yourself with your physical skills if necessary. And the other thing that I would say too for people having experiences in the outdoors where they feel sketchy situations, that it is not your fault if someone targets you, that's on them. The only person to blame for a crime is the criminal. Just by inherently being out somewhere, being by ourselves, that doesn't give someone permission to do anything negative to us. We should still not feel like we have to limit ourselves because of the few people that may have bad intentions.

Shelby Stanger: Nicole doesn't let other people's fear limit her adventures. She's gone solo hiking in New Zealand, Peru, and she's currently preparing to summit Mount Whitney. In all of her years of hiking, people kept telling Nicole, they wished they had the confidence to also hike alone. Since not everyone can get to one of her self-defense courses, Nicole decided to start her own outdoor defense YouTube series. So you have this Outdoor Defense video series as well. Now, how did that come to be? What's the goal of it?

Nicole Snell: Well, Outdoor Defense, I started it in 2019 and I had had friends and family telling me for a couple of years that I should put my loves together. Because I love hiking and solo hiking and adventuring, I was working with Girls Fight Back as a speaker at the time. So I put up my first episode and my goal is to empower people who are solo hiking, because if I'm getting people coming to me telling me, "Oh, it's dangerous, oh, you shouldn't solo hike, blah-blah-blah," I know other people are hearing that too, same with the solo traveling bit. And I knew if I was hearing it, other people were hearing it. So I wanted to give people something that's empowering. That's not fear-based. That is simple things that we can do to help manage our safety in the outdoors when we're doing things in that context, because there's different things that we would do in the outdoors and what we would do walking down the street. Some of them is the same, but the context is different.

Shelby Stanger: Amazing. I'm so excited to watch this because there's so many solo hikes I want to do, mostly because I just like can't, it's just hard coordinating with other people and sometimes I don't want to go with my dude. I just want to go.

Nicole Snell: Yeah, I love solo hiking so much. And I mean, I love hiking with groups too. I'm adventure lead for Black Girls Trekkin' and I love leading the hikes with groups and talking to your friends and it's great to socialize and catch up. But sometimes I just want it to be me in the trail. Sometimes I just want to take the time, go at my own pace and not have to worry about checking in with anyone. Or going too slow for someone or going too fast for someone. I just want to, maybe I want to push myself a little bit and not have to worry about other people on my hike with me. I can just focus on myself, my breathing, my body, what my weaknesses are that I need to improve upon.

Nicole Snell: And sometimes I just want to explore. There's just such joy. I remember I was on a solo hike. It's in the Eastern Sierra's. I did Duck Lake by myself, I think 13 miles or 14 miles, something like that.

Shelby Stanger: In Mammoth?

Nicole Snell: Yeah, in Mammoth.

Shelby Stanger: I love that one.

Nicole Snell: It's beautiful.

Shelby Stanger: Stunning.

Nicole Snell: I was walking and I saw a little turnoff and I'm like, "You just go see what's down here." I went down, came to a beautiful lake. Wasn't even on my list of things to see. And I had this moment where it was just me. It was first thing in the morning, there was nobody there. There's this wind just kind of blowing ripples across the lake. And it's almost like nature made it for me in that moment.

Shelby Stanger: Solo adventuring can be full of beautiful serene moments. Moments where you feel like you're meant to be exactly where you are, where nature sometimes speaking to you. I can't wait to take a Girls Fight Back course so that I can feel more confident and more safe in the outdoors especially doing solo adventures.

Shelby Stanger: Thank you so much, Nicole, for coming on the show and sharing your message of how to be better prepared and how to be more empowered. I learned so much speaking with you. If you want to learn more about Girls Fight Back, go to girlsfightback.com. To learn more about Nicole, you can check out her website, nicolesnell.com. That's N-I-C-O-L-E-S-N-E-L-L.com. You can also follow her on Instagram at Adventures of Nik. That's A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E-S O-F N-I-K.

Shelby Stanger: Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI podcast network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Annie Fassler and Sylvia Thomas and produced by Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, when you rate it, and when you review it wherever you're listening. We read every single one of your reviews, they mean a ton. Remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.