By Taylor Conley

Have you ever felt bored of the seemingly uninteresting desert landscape around your city? Well, the TPA Outdoors Club has a way to fix that. The club, co-led by sister duo Tamsin and Hazel Hurlbut, is taking on the great outdoors and promoting a sense of adventure for their club members through hiking.

According to Tamsin, “We hike, learn outdoors skills, go into the beautiful Arizona wilderness, and have fun.” While hiking in Montana over the summer, Tamsin, a freshman, and Hazel, a 7th grader, came up with the idea of establishing an outdoors club at TPA and officially started the club at the beginning of the second semester. Since then, they have had one hike with plans for many more adventures in the future.

For their first hike, the group drove 45 minutes to the 3.5-mile First Water hike in the Superstition Mountains region. Freshman Zoe Jacobs, who went on the hike, says that, “Even though it was sunny for most of the day, everyone enjoyed it.”

Additionally, they hope to hike at less hot places in the future. The Outdoors Club will be having their second hike on April 10 at Spur Cross Loop, which has many creek crossings and is about an hour away.

Tamsin and Hazel’s goals for the club next year include an educational trip to the Grand Canyon, a backpacking or camping trip, and of course, more hiking! Tamsin says that “Even if you have no hiking experience, please come join! The point of the club is to [give] people without experience access to the outdoors.”

The hikes are manageable for people of any skill set, being 5 miles or less each time. Anyone interested in joining the Outdoors Club is encouraged to send an email to Tamsin at thohurl2024@gmail.com or Hazel at hazhurl2026@tempeprep.org! Also, you can follow @tpa_outdoorclub on Instagram for more updates!