Hike it Baby 30 March: The Big Baby Challenge

PORTLAND, Ore. - March 3, 2015 - PRLog -- Portland, OR (March 3, 2015) - Hike it Baby, a national organization dedicated to getting families out on the trails, kicked off their second Hike it Baby 30 challenge of the year on March 1, 2015. For the month of March, families in more than 70 cities across the country, will either be hiking 30 miles in 30 days OR spending 30 minutes outdoors 3 times per week. Participants will also add a personal challenge for themselves - some will train for marathons, while others will challenge themselves to hike 4 new trails or to invite 10 new families out hikes throughout the month.

Participants can live anywhere in the US (no need to be in a Hike it Baby city) and may register by paying a small fee on the website. Every family who signs up is entered into a drawings for prizes from well-known outdoor outfitters such as Garmin, Onya Baby and Oakiwear. They also get to log their hikes online so they can keep track of what they’ve done in the month and get a “badge of honor” in the form of a Hike it Baby 30 sticker.

“We started the Challenges last fall in November to help people get out in those tough-to-get-outside months where we all find excuses to not enjoy nature -- and it worked! We had a few families hike up to 100 miles that month,” says Hike it Baby Founder Shanti Hodges. “We hope, by continuing to offer these Challenges into the sunnier months, more and more families can find inspiration and motivation through talking with each other in our private community and we know they will get excited when they see their numbers add up in the log.”

The Hike it Baby website provides a Hike Log for registered families to keep track of their minutes and miles. In addition, a private Facebook group is formed for participating families across the nation to support one another and to share successes and failures through status updates and photos.

350 families logged 10,000 miles in the November Hike it Baby 30 Challenge to hike 30 miles in 30 days. The January Challenge to spend 30 minutes outside 3 times per week had 300 families logging a whopping 275,000 minutes for the month (that’s half a year of hiking). In March, Hike it Baby hopes for 500 families to join them this time around.

Hike it Baby hosts free hikes throughout the US and recently expanded to Canada, and Australia. The goal of Hike it Baby is to help families minimize the effects of postpartum depression in new mothers (and fathers), create a network of like-minded individuals, encourage families to discover new parts of their cities and county, and teach children an appreciation for nature from the newborn stage on. The organization was founded in Portland Oregon in 2013 by Shanti Hodges. Currently, there are 70 branches in the US, as well as in Canada and Australia, with nearly 14,000 members. The organization is run entirely by volunteers nationwide.

For more information on Hike it Baby, please visit www.hikeitbaby.com. Or email info@hikeitbaby.com