For some, donning running gear and heading for the hills is a welcome opportunity for fresh air, solitude and calm.
For others, it brings a fear of the unknown and a feeling of self-doubt.
According to Keri Wallace, a lot of this comes from a misconception surrounding trail running as a sport.
“If you’ve got a good level of fitness, you can go into the hills and run,” she said.
“We run, walk, sit down, walk, run, have a sandwich, if you take that approach you can pretty much go all day, you can go into the mountains and run.
“People just don’t realise that, they think we’re running straight up mountains, but that’s not what we do.”
Humble beginnings
Based in Glencoe, both Keri and her close friend and business partner, Nancy Kennedy, are self-proclaimed mountain enthusiasts.
Both have been trail running for years and wanted to do something to share their love of the sport with other women.
“We weren’t really in the stage of life where we were expecting to set up a company,” Keri said.
“I’d just had my first kid and we were chatting really informally about it. She said ‘I’m not joking’, I said ‘well I’m not joking’, and in the end we just decided to do it.”
So Girls on Hills was born in 2018, a guided trail, fell and skyrunning company that aims to empower women with the skills and confidence necessary to become self-reliant in the mountain environment.
Getting involved
Girls on Hills offers different courses for all ages and abilities – from scenic meanders and bespoke adventures to newer winter skills courses.
They are mostly based in Glencoe, but also do some trips to the Cairngorms and further south.
Trained instructors and elite athletes including Georgia Tindley and Nicky Spinks teach women how to read a map, use a compass, what bag is best to use when running, what you can eat and drink in the wild, how to safely cross a river and more.
Many people who have taken part in a Girls on Hills trip agree that the hardest part of it is plucking up the courage to sign up in the first place.
This comes back to the reason why Keri and Nancy set up the group; to banish the misconception that trail running can only mean scaling the side of a mountain in one go.
Keri said: “Quite often people are shocked that it’s not as hard as they think it is. It’s not a race and it’s not about what the pace is..”
Why only women?
The group has received criticism for only accepting women, but both Keri and Nancy know the importance of making this available.
“We get a lot of women who come to us seeking out that safe space,” explained Keri.
“Maybe they don’t feel secure in a mixed group, maybe they feel overly stretched or anxious about being slow or about body image or even about going for a pee outdoors.”
Girls on Hills is one of the only groups creating this environment for women, and it advocates for decreasing the gender gap that exists in trail running.
Though there is still a lot of work to be done, change is happening.
“We’ve got amazing role models in running now and I think there is more of an understanding of this gender gap and things are being done in the industry to address it,” said Keri.
“Social media shows more and more women smashing through glass ceilings, suddenly everything is up for grabs and women are scrambling around to find their own place in this world.
“You can be a runner, be a climber, get married, not get married, live a life of adventure, be a working mum, work from home – the variety of things on the table is just so vastly different.”
‘You gain self-confidence’
Girls on Hills aims to unlock the confidence from within the women taking part, no matter how deeply it might be buried.
Keri said: “If you learn to navigate and become more confident getting out into the hills on your own, you gain self-confidence about being in charge of what you’re doing.
“It’s the process of saying ‘I could never do that’ but then standing on the top of a mountain in horizontal weather thinking ‘I had no idea I could do this’.”
Being out in the hills also brings out a more primal side, helping us connect with nature and the world around us.
“You’re making decisions about your safety that are sort of a little bit ancestral, a bit hunter-gatherer style,” said Keri.
“You feel like you’ve gone back to basics and it does feel empowering. We all have an internal desire for adventure, to find the wilder side of ourselves that wants to connect with the natural world.”
To find out more or to book a spot on an upcoming course, check out Girls on Hills on Facebook, Instagram and at girlsonhills.com
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