Hey all! I just created my account today. I’m a 21 year old male T1D from Maine. I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs with this disease since being diagnosed on my 13th birthday.
One thing I’ve always been able to count on was hiking, and I came up with an idea related to hiking and Type 1 Diabetes. I started a group on Facebook called “ME and NH Type 1 diabetic hikers,” it is my plan to use this group to host hiking meetups/group hikes. I’m currently working on the page with another T1D who wanted to join me in the idea. You do not need to be in ME or NH to join, you can simply just be someone who may occasionally go in those areas or wants to travel here for one of the groups meetups.
Let me tell you why I’ve thought of this group, and why it’d be useful:
Provides an extra safety net for hiking T1Ds
Can be used as a support group through hiking and connections
Can be used to educate and raise awareness of T1D
Can be used for training hiking partners of T1D
It would provide an opportunity for T1Ds who may want to get into hiking, but, are to nervous about what could happen or don’t have any hiking partners.
Please consider joining up, we only have three members at the moment. I’ve posted about this on Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram so far. Here is the link to the group: Hiking4Diabetes | Facebook
Hi @MatthikesT1 and welcome to the forum. I’m not a hiker but just wanted to commend you on your group and your work - hopefully you will get lots of responses from the various places you’re posting.
At the top of the page if you click on Resources, then go to Events and Groups, there are activities listed. There may be a way to connect there, and perhaps even get your hikes posted on the calendar. Sorry I don’t know how to go about doing that or if it has to be done by a professional organization, but might be worth looking into.
All the best to you!
Hi @MatthikesT1 - great minds think alike! I’ve been thinking about the same thing for years (I’m 47 years with T1D, hiking and some backpacking here in CA). I went on a JDRF “Walk and Talk” event recently in SF, talked to some of the folks from JDRF, and just organized a T1D hiking series with them. I called it “Hike Don’t Spike”! First event is this weekend, and I plan on doing one every 2 months or so around the Bay Area. Got a decent response to this first one, so we’ll see how it goes. JDRF set up the registration site, and I’ll be leading it (easy one to start, 6 miles, modest elevation gain). You might want to reach out to your local JDRF too - it made it easier for me to try it. Let me know what you think.
That’s really awesome! I never thought of that to be honest. I’ve been having trouble growing my group… of course I haven’t been able to do much with it the last year as I was having health issues. I actually changed the group to be based more around a global area than local. Seems like there may be a low number of type 1s interested in hiking in New England unfortunately. I’ll definitely look for my local jdrf chapter and see what I can make happen.
Thanks for telling me about what you have done, it definitely helped give me some ideas. Have a great day or night!