Palm springs gay hiking club

During his two years hiking in harsh imprisonment for the crime of homosexuality, British playwright Oscar Wilde wrote: "Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may palm undisturbed … She will cleanse me in the great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.

Philip Ferranti, founder of the Coachella Valley Hiking Club and author of " Hikes In and Near Palm Springs,"echoes Wilde's thoughts: "Spiritually, hiking can take us on the journey inwards where we discover our inner strengths and calm centers … Hiking tells us that indeed we are united to the whole of life, plant and animal.

This 'prayer-in-motion,' a hike, at best offers us a space and time to discover and connect to what really matters. From the sounds gay it, spring is much more than your ordinary gym-rat cardio workout. Agility, strength, and endurance are developed with regular hiking. Hiking is a powerful cardio workout. It improves your strength, balance and coordination.

It boosts bone density, since it is a low impact weight-bearing exercise. Cross-trainers and professional athletes have long known of hiking's fat-burning potential up to calories per hourand the activity's ability to simultaneously flex and firm parts of the body. Hiking with a group combines the interpersonal coordination and goals of team sports with the intrapersonal stress relief and individualism of yoga or tai chi.

But there's a deeper, almost primordial draw to hiking that makes it stand apart from any other physical activity. You have a sense of accomplishment of a goal having real value, not just walking the sidewalks or treadmill. It's telling that it was a gay priest and his partner who started the all-volunteer nonprofit Great Outdoors in as a healthy alternative for socializing club the LGBT community.

Their slogan was, "Out of the bars and under the stars. The group's ages range from somethings to somethings, and all fitness levels are welcome. Besides hiking, the Great Outdoors organizes camping trips, barbecue socials, game nights, and 4x4 trips in the Coachella Valley and beyond.

The Palm Springs chapter of Great Outdoors benefits from the region's inherent natural attractions. According to Ferranti, nowhere in the Lower 48 can you find more hiking trails more than or trail miles more than 1, than within the mile-plus radius around Palm Springs. This section of the Colorado Desert hosts a concentrated diversity of topography and flora, with elevations from 11,plus feet to below sea level.

The traditional hiking season runs from October to May, but whisk up on the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in the middle of summer, and you'll find cool Alpine conditions that make hiking possible year-round.

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Moreover, the region around the Coachella Valley is home to five state parks and recreation areas, three national wildlife preserves, and one humungous 1,square-mile Joshua Tree National Park. Inmore thanacres of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains on the eastern flank of the Coachella Valley were deemed a national monument, the second-largest in the state.

As residents, it's easy to take our region's surplus of natural wonders for granted, and we forget there's a reason people fly from the world over to visit the Coachella Valley. To appreciate the majestic setting as not merely a pretty backdrop but as a national and spiritual treasure, one must immerse himself or herself in its glory.

Oscar Wilde, rotund and urbane and far from a poster child for "the outdoors type,"finally understood the power of the natural world when it was taken away from him. In prison he told us, "We all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little…". More than chapter members from the Coachella Valley enjoy day hikes, 4x4 off-road trips, weekend camping trips, social gatherings, and a professional wilderness leadership training program.

The world's largest gay men's outdoors club, with more than 7, active members.