Bruins hoping to experience nature outside Westwood – from Big Sur to Joshua Tree and Yosemite – need look no further than the Backpacking Club at UCLA.

The Backpacking Club is a group of UCLA students who regularly take backpacking and camping trips, according to the club’s website. Each quarter, the club tries to make eight to 10 trips to locations such as Big Sur and Death Valley to hike and camp, said Jess Cooper one of the club’s trip leads.

Cooper said she helps to plan and work out logistics for the club’s trips as a trip lead. The Backpacking Club does not require any registrations or fees, Cooper said, and it organizes trips on Slack. Anyone can join the club’s group chat in which trips are announced, added Charlotte Wolf, a fourth-year mathematics/applied science student.

“It’s the best place to meet anyone and everyone,” said Cooper, a fourth-year environmental science student.

Cooper added that prior backpacking experience is not a requirement to join. On the club’s trips, many participants have never been backpacking, camping or hiking, she said.

“If you think you’re going to be the only person out there with very minimal experience, you’re wrong,” Cooper said.

As part of its mission to make backpacking accessible and inclusive, the club has organized events for different affinity groups within the club, such as a hike for people of color and an LGBTQ+ affinity group, said Mei Lin McLaughlin, a fourth-year marine biology student.

Wolf led a trip to Santa Barbara from Oct. 26 to 27, during which backpackers participated in activities such as yoga, beach trips and making friendship bracelets, she said. The trip was exclusive to female-identifying and nonbinary students as part of the club’s effort to create opportunities for different groups to find community in backpacking, she added.

“Backpacking is a historically predominantly white and economically affluent sport,” McLaughlin said. “Historically, there hasn’t been a lot of people of color in backpacking just because it’s not as financially accessible.”

Cooper also said that the club used to operate on a first-come-first-serve basis, but because of its popularity, it switched to a lottery system to determine who gets a spot on the coveted weekend excursions, which typically last three days and two nights.

“We were making it accessible for students of all communities, of all ethnicities, of all sexualities – they have a chance to experience and connect with the outdoors and meet other people who feel the exact same way,” McLaughlin said.

Aside from the trips, the club also organizes socials and workshops including a make-your-own-granola social, hangouts on slacklines in between trees by Janss Steps, a backpack-packing workshop and a wilderness medicine workshop, McLaughlin said.

Wolf added that she and McLaughlin became close friends after attending a trip run by the club and are now roommates.

An important value shared by members of the club is sustainability, McLaughlin said, adding that nonperishable food items are passed from trip to trip.

Affordability and accessibility are also club priorities, Cooper said.

The club receives money from funds that provide financing to UCLA clubs, including the Green Initiative Fund, the Mini-Grant Fund and contingency funding, Wolf said. With funding, each trip costs approximately $30 to $40 per person, including gas, food and permits, Cooper said, adding that the staff chooses to work for free to further subsidize the cost.

“We all love being outside so much,” Cooper said. “We all find such a deep joy in seeing that in other people and getting to provide that service to someone else.”

Cooper also said that she, alongside many now-graduated students, made a successful petition last spring to reopen the Outdoor Adventures Rental Center, which UCLA Recreation operates.

The Center was shut down in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but was originally located in the John Wooden Center and allowed anyone with a qualifying UCLA Recreation membership to rent out tents, coolers, sleeping pads and other outdoor gear, Cooper added.

“It’s such a key part of getting people outside, especially having a lot of international students, a lot of out-of-state students, but even just people who don’t have $700 to drop on gear to go on a weekend trip,” she said.

The club gives members opportunities to explore all the nature that California has to offer when traveling can sometimes be inaccessible to members, McLaughlin said. Cooper said the club hopes to travel to Catalina Island, Mount Whitney and Yosemite in the future – trips that currently present numerous financial and physical obstacles. The club has allowed members to see places in California they never would have otherwise, she added.

“We live in California,” Cooper said. “What a shame to spend all four years only in Los Angeles and not see anything else the state has to offer.”