I’ve been living in the northwest suburbs for about a year now, and I’m really hoping to get into hiking this spring. The problem is that I work a rotating shift schedule, so most of my free days fall on weekdays when everyone else seems to be at their desks. I’m trying to find local hiking groups in my area that actually do midweek outings, because the usual Saturday morning meetups just don’t work for me anymore.
So far I’ve tried a couple of things that fell flat. I signed up for one group on Meetup that looked promising, but their cheapest day hike was $25 per person and they cancelled the Wednesday slot due to low turnout. I also checked the AllTrails community tab, but the only posts I saw were from people asking about trail conditions three months ago, or maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right spot. I even went solo to a nearby state park last Tuesday, thinking I might run into other hikers, but I only saw two runners and a guy walking his dog. It was a nice day, but not really the social experience I was hoping for.
Does anyone here know of a loose weekday walking group—maybe something through a local library, a REI class that runs on off-peak days, or even just a casual Facebook thread where people post last-minute invites for a Monday afternoon? I’m not picky about distance or pace, I just need the day of the week to actually line up.
So far I’ve tried a couple of things that fell flat. I signed up for one group on Meetup that looked promising, but their cheapest day hike was $25 per person and they cancelled the Wednesday slot due to low turnout. I also checked the AllTrails community tab, but the only posts I saw were from people asking about trail conditions three months ago, or maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right spot. I even went solo to a nearby state park last Tuesday, thinking I might run into other hikers, but I only saw two runners and a guy walking his dog. It was a nice day, but not really the social experience I was hoping for.
Does anyone here know of a loose weekday walking group—maybe something through a local library, a REI class that runs on off-peak days, or even just a casual Facebook thread where people post last-minute invites for a Monday afternoon? I’m not picky about distance or pace, I just need the day of the week to actually line up.
