After a career as an Army officer, I landed in a new town, with a baby and a toddler, trying to navigate civilian life and motherhood. It was a world so different from the one I'd known – years of deployments to Iraq and dusty combat boots.

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This huge life shift brought a new identity, and I was figuring out who I was, how to share my love of the outdoors with my kids, and how to make friends outside the Army bubble.

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So, like many in 2014, I started a Facebook group, "Little Laramie Hikers," and began leading family-friendly hikes in my new community. People kept asking questions like, "How do I change a diaper on the trail?" or "What are the best kid-friendly hikes nearby?"

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Wanting to share this beyond my local area, I created "Hike Like A Woman," a mommy blog about getting outdoors with kids. From there, HLAW exploded. I found myself with ten (very) part-time employees and nearly fifty women contributing daily blog posts. We had hiking groups worldwide, a digital magazine, a podcast, a YouTube channel, brand partnerships with REI, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, and Deuter, online courses, annual challenges, ambassador retreats, media opportunities, guided trips, rapidly growing social media accounts, and so much more.

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​​But then, something shifted. I was so busy running my outdoor retail store and ski shop and trying to keep HLAW afloat that I looked up and realized I missed the simple days of mommy blogging – just me and my keyboard. HLAW had grown too big, too fast. So, when the world paused during COVID, I dissolved our team, ended brand partnerships, and took a break from HLAW.

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And it was a good thing I did. Shortly after the world started returning to normal, I found a lump in my right breast. The next year was a blur of surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and then crawling out of a deep depression caused by the trauma of cancer.

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Three years after my diagnosis, I'm still figuring out how to navigate my new life and my new body. I went from priding myself on being constantly busy to selling my outdoor retail store and ski shop and refocusing full-time on Hike Like A Woman and my family.

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​I'm in a rebuilding phase here at HLAW. My life is so much more than hiking, and I want to share it all. Sometimes, HLAW hasn't felt like the right place to talk about cancer, my military service, my health, or my training for Kilimanjaro.

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HLAW should be about hiking, gear, adventure travel, and guided trips. But it's become so much more. It's the place I keep returning to, the community that's grown with me for over a decade, and where strangers become friends.

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I'm not trying to be everything to everyone any more. Now you can find me on Substack talking about life after cancer, Patreon sharing Kilimanjaro tips, and YouTube talking about hiking, guided trips, and gear. 

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Thanks for being here and part of the Hike Like A Woman community.

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💗,

Rebecca