Hiking for a good cause: Local teen creates organization to get people outdoors

Jenna Watson has always loved being outdoors. But when that passion merged with an interest in conservation during her teenage years, the West Henderson High student began looking for ways to give back to both the land and the community.

Watson, a cross country runner who enjoys practicing on trails in Pisgah National Forest, had been learning about conservation and was reading former Appalachian Trail through-hiking record holder Jennifer Pharr Davis’ books.

Watson was thinking about starting a hiking club at school when her mother told her about Muddy Sneakers, an outdoor science education nonprofit that works with fifth-graders in North Carolina.

Suddenly, Watson had her answer. She created her own organization, Get Outside WNC, with the goals of getting people outside, educating the community about conservation, and raising money for local nonprofits dedicated to environmental education.

She designed a website, www.go-wnc.com, to share her mission. She then organized a series of hikes open to the community, asking for a $10 donation from each participant to benefit Muddy Sneakers.

At the end of that first hiking series in 2023, Watson had raised $400 for Muddy Sneakers.

The outings went so well that she’s leading more hikes this winter, this time to benefit conservation organization MountainTrue.

For the final hike of her winter series on March 4, Watson will take participants to Twin Falls in Pisgah National Forest near Brevard. The 4-mile roundtrip hike on flat trails leads to two waterfalls that each stand about 100 feet tall.

Anyone interested in attending can visit the website, www.go-wnc.com/hike, to sign up and find the hike description.

Donations to support the mission can also be made online at www.go-wnc.com/donate via GoFundMe.

The casual hikes are relaxed and fun, Watson said, and offer a chance to meet new people.

“It’s just because I felt like nature did so much for me,” she said about offering hikes to the community. Being outdoors became a stress reliever for the busy teen and led her to explore new career paths, and she realized that she wanted to inspire others to get out in the woods.

“I definitely have a focus on trying to get youth outside,” she said. “I think a lot of teens don’t get outside a lot and have a lot of fears about what could go wrong.”

Teenagers might wonder if they have the right shoes or if they’re athletic enough to hike, or be cautious about wildlife.

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“But they just need experience,” Watson said, adding that it’s important to break through those barriers and realize that being outdoors “is a great way to relax and step back from the day-to-day routine. And it’s important to inspire the next generation to keep up with the forests.”

Even adults can find the outdoors intimidating or worry that hiking will be too difficult, Watson said, and she wants to show them that it’s not.

She researched which hikes to lead, looking for both popular routes and those that were not well-known. She has her own favorites, but wanted to include hidden gems as well.

Selecting hikes for the series has come with some trial and error. She learned to shorten the routes, for example, in order to make them less intimidating.

Hikes in DuPont State Recreational Forest to Triple Falls and High Falls have been popular with participants. Watson’s favorite, however, is the 2.75-mile trail to the top of Looking Glass Rock.

“I think it’s very hard to beat,” she said.

The inspiration to help MountainTrue this year came after she saw the organization’s documentary, “The River Runs On.”

“That was a really special experience for me,” she said.

She met Josh Kelley, MountainTrue’s public lands field biologist, who gave her information about conservation. That conversation and the documentary answered her question of which nonprofit to next raise money for.

“I just immediately knew, yep, this is definitely the next organization I want to work with,” she said.

Those early runs in Pisgah Forest have also led to career exploration after Watson took a marketing class at school and decided to use Get Outside WNC as her project.

She found that she enjoyed making social media posts, networking, building a website, and the other steps of creating a “business,” which she hopes will lead to a career field. In addition to the website, Get Outside WNC is on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and YouTube.

“I wanted to see how far I could take it,” Watson said of Get Outside WNC.

She plans to attend college to study business and environmental science. For her final semester, however, her goal remains the same: “At the end of the day, I just really want people to get outside.”

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: West High student's hiking organization benefits nonprofits