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It was somewhere near the end of hiking the Colorado Trail (CT), with hundreds of miles of trekking behind her, that Patricia Cameron, finally felt like a thru-hiker, one of those hardy backpackers who undertakes a long trail from end to end for weeks or even months straight. Blackpacker, her trail name, had camped at a water source with a group of other thru-hikers. She hadn’t spent a lot of time with other people during her 486-mile journey from Denver to Durango. She was usually lagging behind. “I was one of the slowest people on the trail,” Cameron says.

So she enjoyed the company of this trail family, aka tramily in thru-hiking lingo, but figured it was short lived. The group was on a 22-mile stretch without water, so the backpackers had to carry even more water—and its weight—than usual. As they hit the trail in the morning, the hikers said their goodbyes and “hope to see you at the next water source’s.” Cameron didn’t expect to see them again. It would take a 16-mile day to reach water—unheard of for her. But by 10 a.m., she had covered 4.5 miles. “I remember saying to myself, ‘This is the day; this is it,’” she says.

Some say there’s a problem with the old proverb that if you give a man fish, you feed him for day, but if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

Some argue that in order to complete a task, or learn a life lesson, people need access to the right equipment and education from someone with the right experience.

While a lot of us were stuck in the house, cautious of rising COVID-19 infections, or protesting in the global movement for Black lives, Patricia Cameron was marching in the great outdoors, signing “BLM” on trailhead stands. Cameron is the founder and CEO of Blackpackers, a Colorado-based nonprofit that provides gear, outdoor excursions and outdoor education for free or at a subsidized cost. Eight weeks ago, she embarked on a 485-mile hike from Denver to Durango on the Colorado Trail.

Cameron, a Southeast Colorado Springs resident and the primary caretaker of her son, wanted to choose a nearby trail for her seven-week hike, as well as one she knew she could safely trek. She broke up the distance by thru-hiking — taking a series of week-long trips between supply stops — which required her to carry a week’s worth of supplies at a time. At its heaviest, her bag weighed 30 pounds. Once, while hiking a pass coming out of Copper Mountain, she was caught in a thunderstorm and, to avoid lightning, she camped below timberline, losing 8 miles that day.

From Rocky Mountain PBS

SAN JUAN COUNTY, Colo. — The Colorado Trail runs from Waterton Canyon clear across the state to Durango – 485 miles of mountain passes and adventure that you certainly need to have a good reason to finish.

Patricia Cameron had a reason.

“I’m not doing it with the lightest gear, not doing it the fastest, but I’m still out here,” she said during her journey — a journey that came to an end on Aug. 27.

When she moved to Colorado Springs from the Washington, D.C., area with her mother in 1994, then-eleven-year-old Patricia Cameron looked up at Pikes Peak and wondered if she’d ever get to the top.

“I grew up without any experience in the outdoors,” Cameron says. But in middle school, while participating in a mentoring and education program for at-risk girls, she got to go to Camp Shady Brook in Deckers, which is run by the YMCA of the Pikes Peak Region. “It was my first real experience doing Colorado-type nature, and I had a bug for it,” she says. “But I couldn’t afford it.”

From micro aggressive remarks to blatant racism, BIPOC hikers experience the outdoors differently. Knowing this, Colorado Blackpackers is working to open the outdoors to a diversified set of people. By getting more BIPOC outdoors through free and discounted gear, trips, and adventures, CO Blackpackers is reshaping the way we consider what qualifies a person as “outdoorsy.”

How Colorado Blackpackers Started

Patricia Cameron is the founder and executive director of Colorado Blackpackers. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Blackpackers offers gear, guided trips, and outdoor excursions at a free or subsidized cost. In this way, they are attacking the wealth gap in vulnerable communities and fighting for economic equity and equal representation in outdoor recreation.

All 10-year-old Zyair Abdullah-Jordan wanted to do was catch a fish. Even though there are plenty of fish in the reservoir at Eleven Mile State Park, the wind wasn’t in a mood to cooperate. It whipped the water and blew right into Zyair’s face. Just landing his lure in the reservoir seemed like an accomplishment.

“That’s part of the fun of it, right?” Zyair’s grandfather, Warren Tyson, said with a smile on his face.

These two were part of a group of black Coloradans spread out across the lakeshore for a weekend of recreation put on by, and for, people of color — the inaugural Blackpackers Summer Camp-out.