The most divisive hiker today is back on trail after a recent, and controversial, high-alpine rescue. This year, one hiker among the thousands on the 2,650-mile trail from Mexico to Canada is receiving an outsized amount of attention.
Kamryn Renae, a 22-year-old, has amassed nearly 200,000 followers on social media for her hyper-feminine approach to the trail. Her all-pink set-up and daily hair and makeup routine set her apart from the typical dirtbag thru-hiker.
And of course, like anything on the internet, Renae has sparked fierce debate. Some have praised her for her unapologetic sense of self, while others have criticized her as unprepared.
When I first heard of Renae, I felt conflicted. As a feminist, I believe all forms of gender expression are valid. In the past, I’ve written pieces explicitly advocating for women to wear whatever they want in the outdoors. Whether it’s a sports bra, crop top, baggy shirt, whatever: “You do you” has always been my attitude.
And yet, when I watched Renae’s vlogs on Instagram, something didn’t sit right. Her baby voice and hot pink boy shorts and sports bra irked me. As I read through the misogynistic comments on her videos, I didn’t agree with them, of course. But for some reason, she was challenging my supposed full belief in inclusivity. Is Kamryn Renae just proving that I’m a bad feminist?
Who Is Kamryn Renae?
In an interview with Outside, Renae shared that she was inspired to hike the PCT after watching the 2014 film adaptation of Wild, where Cheryl Strayed (played by Reese Witherspoon) takes on the trail and finds herself. Renae had been on day hikes, but had never backpacked before.
Many media outlets have mentioned that she makes money through OnlyFans (OF). While this is true, she does not promote her OF account in her vlogs or Instagram posts about the PCT.
Renae’s gear setup is carefully curated. Her tent and sleeping pad are pink, and even her knife has pink inlays with the word “love.” She starts each vlog by putting on make-up and doing her hair. She frequently hikes in a light green Juicy Couture sweatsuit and pink boy shorts and sports bras. I reached out to Renae via Instagram to set up an interview, but did not receive a response.
Last month, about 700 miles into her hike, she was set to hike Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48. She soon experienced extreme intestinal distress, and had to be medically evacuated off the mountain by a search and rescue (SAR) helicopter team. Particularly after that incident, comments on the internet declared her “inexperienced;” others criticized her for taking up valuable SAR resources.
After taking time to recover, Renae posted on June 8 that she was back on trail, hiking through the Sierras in California.
Breaking It Down
The idea of an ultra-girly PCT thru-hiker might not seem that complex on the surface, but it’s a tangled web. Many criticize her for using money from OF to fund her thru-hike, which strikes me as blatant anti-sex worker sentiment.
This part of Renae’s story didn’t bother me in the least. Sex work is work, and it’s estimated that the PCT costs $10,000 to complete. A fully consenting adult woman making explicit content is as valid a way to pay for that as any job.
Others have cast her as inexperienced. Do I think it’s a good idea to take on the PCT if you’ve never done a weekend backpacking trip? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. But if she’s gung-ho about it, who are we to stop her?
If disaster strikes and she has to be rescued (as she did), she’ll deal with the consequences. Her decisions may not be the ones we would personally make, but they are hers. Her inexperience does not negate her autonomy.
As a woman who frequently backpacks alone, I have people try to stop me all the time from going into the backcountry myself. Sometimes, it’s out of alleged “concern for my safety,” but, as with Renae, it more reads like a desire to police women’s choices.
The choruses of “It’s unsafe for a woman alone” or “Aren’t you scared?” (typically from men) infantilize women. They presume we don’t understand the potential risks and dangers of our actions. Men’s questioning ignores that, as women, we are constantly thinking about our safety in every aspect of our daily lives, from walking our dogs to filling up our gas tanks. Nobody is thinking about our safety on trail more than us.
The Gear Question
Some critics have said she is setting a dangerous example for other hikers by being so “unprepared.” This felt like just another way to undermine her. First, Renae never presents herself as an expert. She’s not promoting herself in her content as a world-class thru-hiker: She’s just out on trail, trying to have fun. And she’s not engaging in brand deals or presenting gear lists that other people should buy.
Also, who among us hasn’t made a bad choice on a backpacking trip? Gear breaks and shit happens. On a backpacking trip in Saguaro National Park, for example, my water filter broke and I had to hike 20 miles in the 90-degree heat sans water.
I don’t think it’s fair for that to be used an excuse to stop me from going into the outdoors, and Renae’s inexperience shouldn’t disqualify her either. At some point, we were all newbies and figuring it out as we went along. No one is born an expert.
There are certain gear choices that Renae has made that have made me scratch my head. Walking in a cotton tracksuit, for example, seems far from optimal, especially considering the long-held wisdom that hikers should avoid cotton at all costs.
As I watched Renae’s vlogs, I found myself examining her gear picks, including whether she was wearing microspikes or crampons in the High Sierras. After I sent a photo of her footwear to ask an experienced mountaineer if this was an appropriate footwear choice, I had to check my behavior. Why on Earth am I trying to police a stranger’s gear? I wouldn’t hold any other thru-hiker under a microscope like this.
I wasn’t going to disqualify Renae for her inexperience or femininity. So instead, I was looking for something objective to critique her on: an obvious “she shouldn’t have done that” kind of move. I had to really question why I was so eagerly looking for a way to count Renae out.
My Own Issues
As someone who is a more masculine-presenting woman, I had spent years fighting back against expectations that I present myself in a certain way. Whether it was being forced by my parents to keep my hair long, or being told by my high school drama teacher that I had to wear a skirt and heels in a scene so I wouldn’t come across “so manly,” I came to resent expectations surrounding femininity.
When I scrolled through Renae’s Instagram yet again, I finally figured out why her scantily clad photos and videos of her putting her makeup on trail bothered me so much. There was part of me that worried that Renae’s content would unintentionally reinforce strict interpretations of gender.
For me, the outdoors are an escape from being pressured to look a certain way, and what if her videos made people think that her aesthetic should be the norm? The outdoors for me are a genderless oasis, and I seemed to balk at that perfect haven being infringed upon.
Of course, Renae is not promoting those ideals at all. She’s happy in hot pink and makeup, and she wants to hike that way. That’s all she’s saying. It’s not fair to place the entire weight of societal expectations on one person.
Renae isn’t responsible for our larger attitudes toward gender expression, and she’s not even trying to weigh in. She’s just being herself. And if her content helps encourage other hyper-fem folks to get into the great outdoors, that’s a win.
My own body image issues also made me want to turn against Renae. With a lifelong history of body dysmorphia and disordered eating, I couldn’t imagine hiking in the woods in just a sports bra and boy shorts, much less posting photos about it. I resented her apparent freedom and confidence in her body. I didn’t want to look like Renae; I just wanted to be able to hike in a sports bra without seven layers of anxiety kicking in.
But of course, as with everyone on social media, we have no idea of her interior life. Maybe she does struggle with body image, or maybe she is as confident as she seems. The picture we get of Renae is incomplete, and the fact that we’ll never meet her makes it easy to apply our own issues and hang-ups.
My Views Now
After digging into my thoughts on Renae, I have come to one conclusion I feel sure of: Let the woman hike. She’s out on the PCT having an adventure, something that takes no small amount of courage. Yes, she’s making content about it (when she doesn’t have to), but that’s also the norm in the thru-hiking world these days.
I don’t judge Renae at all, but I don’t think she’s a feminist hero either, as some commenters believe. She’s just doing her thing, her way. She’s not using her growing platform to discuss issues of gender or misogyny or sex worker rights, nor should she have to. She’s just a person, and our responses to her tell us a lot more about ourselves than her.
Renae is a young, white, and conventionally attractive woman, and that is likely not an inconsequential part of her huge media following. In 2018, Elyse Walker became the first Black person of any gender to complete the thru-hiking Triple Crown (PCT, AT, and CDT), and she has fewer than 3,000 Instagram followers (compared to Renae’s 188,000).
As people choose to applaud Renae for taking on the trail as a hyper-fem woman, let’s also not forget to applaud people from other marginalized genders and communities for getting into nature and raising awareness about outdoor access and the challenges certain communities face.
