By Carrie Gregg, Founder of Girls Only Adventure Trips
If you had told me a few years ago that I would someday be leading women on hiking trails through the mountains of Utah, planning multi-day adventure trips, and encouraging other women to step outside their comfort zones, I probably would have laughed.
Carrie Gregg
When my husband, Donovan, and I moved to Salt Lake City in 2022, I was what I lovingly refer to as a “park and look at the viewpoint” kind of person. I loved beautiful scenery, but I wasn’t necessarily the woman hiking fourteen miles up a mountain to get there. At the time, I was overweight, out of shape, and honestly, even shorter hikes left me exhausted. But something about Utah kept calling me outside.
I had always loved travel and exploration. Growing up in southern Louisiana, my parents made sure our family experienced the world around us. We visited museums in New Orleans, traveled abroad, camped at places like the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, and learned to appreciate different cultures and landscapes. Exploring was part of how I connected with the world. Still, I never really saw myself fitting into “outdoorsy” culture.
So often, outdoor adventure spaces seemed built for a very specific type of person—usually men or women who already looked and acted like seasoned hikers. I think a lot of women quietly feel that way. We convince ourselves we don’t belong there because we don’t fit the image. But deep down, I think many of us are craving adventure. Not necessarily because we want to conquer mountains, but because we want to feel something again. We want to reconnect with ourselves outside of our routines, responsibilities, and endless to-do lists. That realization slowly changed my life.
I decided to set a goal to hike Mount Timpanogos in Utah in 2023. It’s about fourteen miles roundtrip with more than 4,000 feet of elevation gain, and honestly, it terrified me. I trained for months. There were moments I doubted myself constantly. But when I finally hiked that mountain with two friends beside me, everything shifted.
We encouraged each other, rested when we needed to, laughed through the hard parts, and reminded ourselves the hike didn’t have to be a race. Somewhere along that trail, I realized adventure wasn’t about being the strongest person in the group. It was about showing up before you felt fully ready and discovering you were capable of more than you thought.
That mountain became my turning point. It also became the beginning of Girls Only Adventure Trips—G.O.A.T.
What started as one unofficial girls’ trip in 2023 quickly became something much bigger than I expected. I realized women were hungry for spaces where they could simply show up as they are. No pressure to perform. No expectation to already know what they’re doing. No judgment. Just connection, adventure, and permission to take up space. That’s really the heart behind G.O.A.T.
I want women to know adventure can look a hundred different ways. Sometimes it’s a sunrise hike through the desert. Sometimes it’s a quiet walk through the moss-covered forests of Olympic National Park. Sometimes it’s simply boarding a hot air balloon while your knees are shaking because you’re terrified of heights. And yes—that happened.
On one of our trips to Santa Fe, two women admitted they were scared to death of heights before our sunrise balloon ride. But because they were surrounded by supportive women who understood vulnerability, they climbed into the basket anyway. By the end of the flight, they were glowing with pride. Those moments matter.
I’ve watched women rediscover confidence they forgot they had. I’ve seen strangers become deeply connected friends in a matter of days. I’ve watched women realize they are capable of hard things—not just on the trail, but in their everyday lives. One woman joined us on a trip to Capitol Reef National Park, a remote and rugged desert landscape in central Utah. A week later, she messaged me to say she was going back on her own with her young daughter because she finally felt confident enough to navigate the trails herself. That message meant everything to me. Because G.O.A.T. isn’t really about hiking. It’s about what happens to women when they are given room to breathe again.
So many of us spend our lives taking care of everyone else. We carry the mental load, the schedules, the planning, the expectations. We move from work meetings to school pickups to grocery runs and collapse into bed wondering where we disappeared in the process. Our trips are intentionally designed to remove that pressure. From the moment women arrive, they don’t have to plan anything. They don’t have to organize, manage, or take care of anyone else for a little while. They can simply exist. And honestly, that alone can feel transformational.
One woman laughed at the end of a trip and told me she wanted to sign up for every single adventure simply because she loved not having to make decisions for a few days. I understood exactly what she meant.
But maybe the greatest transformation is that I feel more myself now than I ever have before. There’s something incredibly healing about being outside, disconnected from noise, surrounded by women who are willing to be honest, brave, and open with one another.
For me personally, G.O.A.T. has transformed every area of my life. Physically, I’ve lost 100 pounds through hiking and outdoor adventure since moving to Utah. Mentally and emotionally, I’ve learned resilience, self-trust, and how to step into uncertainty before feeling fully ready. Relationally, I’ve built friendships and community in ways I never expected.
Every evening on our multi-day trips, we sit down together and play a little game called “High, Low, Buffalo.” Everyone shares the high point of their day, the low point, and something funny or unexpected—the buffalo. It’s simple, but it creates space for women to open up in really meaningful ways.
By the end of each trip, something has shifted. Women leave lighter. More grounded. More confident. More connected to themselves. And I think that’s because adventure changes you. Not always in dramatic, life-altering ways. Sometimes the change is quiet. Sometimes it’s simply realizing you can trust yourself again.
That’s what I would tell any woman who feels stuck in routine and quietly longs for something more: Listen to that feeling. It isn’t random. You do not need to have everything figured out before you begin. You don’t need to be the strongest, fittest, bravest, or most experienced person in the room. You just have to be willing to take the first step.
Because sometimes the bravest thing a woman can do is believe she belongs in the adventure too.
Follow G.O.A.T. on social @girlsonlyadventuretrips