Outdoors News
Chix in the Stix
Women's organization teaches in the Great Outdoors
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FarkOn a warm Thursday morning in September, a dozen women climb from three cars at the Little Elk Creek trailhead.
Kathy Maszaros pulls on a baseball cap, while Linda Maas and several others grab their walking sticks from a car’s trunk.
With water bottles in hand and hiking boots laced, they fall into a swift and steady hiking pace up the Little Elk Creek trail.
For the past 11 years, this group of mostly retired women, known as Chix in the Stix, has been hiking trails in the Black Hills every week.
The group gathers every Thursday morning at Fitzgerald Stadium in Rapid City. Members take turns choosing a trail to hike, as well as picking a location for lunch. Group communicator Maas keeps the group in sync with e-mails and phone calls.
Chix in the Stix got its start in 1996 when friends Karen Richards and Kathy Benson hiked the Centennial Trail. The pair spent five weeks doing sections of the trail. When they were done, they didn’t want to stop.
“Once you start hiking, it gets in your blood,” Richards said.
As the pair continued to hike together, their friends joined them. Very quickly, a group of dedicated hikers emerged, and Benson dubbed the group Chix in the Stix. Today, the group has about 30 members - so many in fact, that they’ve stopped taking members. “We sort of exploded,” Maas said.
Most weeks, about a dozen members hike together. They hike year-round, rain or shine. During the winter months, they sometimes strap on snow shoes. “We don’t let weather hold us back,” Richards said.
They usually hike Harney Peak at least once a year, as well as Crow Peak near Spearfish. They make trips to the Badlands National Park and Bear Butte. Most hikes average about five miles.
“We just go every direction, and it’s kind of up to the person in charge,” said member Barb Knight. “We have great hikes and we see the hills in a way you just never see them unless you’re out in them”
Bobbie Paradis agrees. “We’re seeing places in the Black Hills I’d never seen before.”
The group has come across elk, wild turkey, grouse and buffalo. They carry whistles to scare off mountain lions, but the members aren’t too worried about that particular encounter. “We make too much noise,” laughed Paradis.
The group also plans an annual trip each June. This year, they hiked in Winter Park, Colo. “That’s when we have a ton of fun,” said Kamie Hurd.
For most of the women, the socialization has become as important as the exercise and adventure. Conversations tend to include everything imaginable, said Paradis. “The fellowship with the other women — it’s great therapy.”
As they make their way up the Little Elk Creek Trail on this particular Thursday, the Chix in the Stix hikers keep up a steady stream of soft conversation. The group laughs a lot, both on and off the trail.
Knight, who wasn’t much of a hiker before joining the group in 2000, loves everything about the Chix in the Stix. For her, it’s been an experience of a lifetime.
“It really has been so fun,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of people who I didn’t know before. You just get to know them better when you do something like this week after week.”
Lynn Taylor Rick can be reached at lynn.taylorrick@rapidictyjournal.com or 394-8414.
Karen Richards, left, and Karrie Hurd take off down the Little Creek trail. Richards and Kathy Benson formed the local hinking club Chix in the Stix in 1996. The group has about 30 members.
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