Today we’d like to introduce you to Angelique Fish & Cindy Vance.
Hi Angelique Fish & Cindy Vance, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
We’re Angelique Fish and Cindy Vance, co-founders of the Women’s Wine Hiking Society (WWHS). We met more than 10 years ago through a mutual friend of our husbands (A: now my ex-husband, thankfully). When the guys would go dirt biking, we’d hit the trail and explore Utah on foot. Our friendship grew, one mile at a time. Eventually, the hikes turned into backpacking trips and adventures overseas.
Our passion for hiking and backpacking quickly morphed into something bigger: a passion for supporting and empowering women in the outdoors! We wanted other women to have a space where they could enjoy the outdoors, regardless of their age, pace, or fitness level. A place where women could gain both skills and a community with zero judgment.
This desire was inspired by our own personal experiences. First, we both saw how difficult it was to make friends as an adult. For me (Angelique), I had been a military spouse for 10 years, so I knew what it was like to move to a new place and try to build a new life, to try to find new friends and a new community as an adult. Sometimes I’d get lucky and make friends quickly. However, most of the time, it would take a year or two–just in time for one of us to get orders and have to move again. Even when I wasn’t the one who was moving, I would still have to start over in a way.
For me (Cindy), many of my friendships were made at work or through soccer. Those friends weren’t into hiking and backpacking. As I got more into hiking and backpacking, I found myself having less in common with my friends. I needed to expand my friend group to find other women who wanted to hike and backpack as much as I did. Doing that outside of a group is hard. Those experiences inspired us to create the community we so desperately had desired.
We also noticed how many women felt intimidated by the outdoors. Most of us weren’t encouraged to explore nature and take risks when we were younger, so we didn’t grow up with the skills that build confidence on the trail. On top of that, girls are often warned about how dangerous the world can be, which can make the trail feel even more daunting. While Cindy grew up camping in Montana and in Utah, I (Angelique) grew up in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma in a teeny tiny town of 80. I didn’t know anyone who hiked or camped unless they were hunting, and that was taught to be what men did.
Our goal was to change that narrative by creating opportunities for women to get outside together, build their skills, and learn directly from female experts in a supportive environment.
From our friendship, personal experiences, and passion, the Wine Hiking Society as you see it today was born.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We’ve had a lot of fun along the way, but there have definitely been challenges and lessons learned.
1. One challenge has been learning how to be friends and business partners at the same time. Going into business with a friend always sounds like a good idea. Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with their friends?
But, there can be a lot of emotional spillover. Disagreements about business operations can easily bleed into the friendship (and vice versa). Because you value the friendship, it’s hard to have uncomfortable conversations because you don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings. When those conversations don’t happen, it’s easy to build a resentment toward each other. A lot of friendships and/or businesses don’t make it for these very reasons.
We work really hard to keep our professional and personal relationships separate. We travel together a lot, but it’s typically for work, so we try to plan a trip every year that’s just for the two of us as friends.
We’ve also had to get really honest with each other and have some difficult conversations. And while we share a lot of similar values, we don’t always agree on everything. These challenges have taught us the importance of communicating in person rather than via text; speaking up, even when we’re worried about how the other person is going to take it; and remembering that what is said at work is coming from our business partner and not our friend.
We’ve had to get real with each other in a way that most friends never do, and that has strengthened both our partnership and our friendship.
2. One surprising lesson has been how differently small businesses are held to standards compared to larger organizations. As a small, women-led group, every decision we make, from setting policies to setting prices, is scrutinized much more closely. Larger companies can make the same choices without much pushback, but for us, it often feels like we need to explain and justify everything we do.
For example, we charge $5 for day hikes, and at the end of the year we donate 20% of those fees to a non-profit chosen by our members through nomination and voting. When we post something like, “Did you know that 20% of your $5 goes to charity?” we sometimes get comments such as, “Where does the other 80% go?” What’s interesting is that people rarely make these same demands of larger businesses—many of which are likely using profits to lobby for causes their customers may not even agree with.
While that can be frustrating at times, it’s also reinforced the importance of being intentional, transparent, and consistent. It’s made us stronger leaders and built a deeper level of trust with our community. And, it’s helped set the stage as we transition into a 501(c)(7) nonprofit organization.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Women’s Wine Hiking Society?
There’s so much to say here! We’re more than just another outdoor group; we’re a community and a movement. Although we have women of all ages (21+ and up) on our hikes, our main focus is women 40s through 70s. While many outdoor organizations focus on younger adventurers, we’ve created a space where midlife and beyond is celebrated—not overlooked, which is usually the case.
Our members are women who are rediscovering themselves, building confidence, and finding connection in a stage of life where friendships can be harder to form. They bring wisdom, humor, and life experience to the trail, proving that adventure doesn’t have an expiration date. Whether it’s a first-time camper or a seasoned backpacker, every woman is welcomed, supported, and reminded that it’s never too late to start something new. In fact, we do a beginner backpacking trip in Canyonlands twice a year, and the majority of our women are over 40. On our last trip, 6 out of 8 women were over 60. In April, we had a women who was 70 backpacking for the first time!
On top of catering to women 40s to 70s, our events often feature a theme centered around wine or another alcoholic drink. (We’re equal opportunity drinkers!) That said, drinking is completely optional. Whether people sip, skip, or stick to water, we’re just thrilled to have them along! Many of our members don’t drink, and they still have an amazing time. We’re a lively, welcoming group—booze or no booze.
So, why the drink theme? It’s all about breaking the ice and making our group approachable. We know joining a new group can be intimidating, especially when some hiking communities take themselves very seriously. But that’s not us.
The drink theme signals that we’re here for the fun, the friendships, and the journey—not to clock your fastest trail time. It’s our way of saying, “Come as you are and let’s enjoy the adventure together!”
We like to say that we’re a social club with a hiking problem. That’s because we’re not the group that races to the top. Rather, we’re the group chatting the whole way. Community is at the core of of everything we do. The fact that our community takes place on the trail is just an added bonus!
The WWHS started in the Salt Lake Valley and has spread to 11 other areas: the Sacramento area & Humboldt County, CA; Denver, CO; Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Houston, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; northern SC; and New England.
Here in Utah, we have 6-8 events each month. We call our hikes events because we do all the planning, organizing, coordinating, and leading. Women already take care of everyone and everything in their lives. The only decision they have to make with us is which events they want to join! We take care of the rest so all they have to do is show up ready to hike and have fun!
In addition to day hikes, we also do a monthly community service event and a monthly educational event, like this month’s Winter Hiking 101 class on November 15.
For ladies wanting to explore more, we offer guided camping trips, backpacking trips, weekend getaways, and international trips.
What are we most proud of? We’re proud of the caliber of women in our community. They’re smart, witty, kind, and endlessly supportive. They show up for themselves and for each other. Many of them joined us nervous, unsure, or feeling like they didn’t belong in the outdoors, and now they’re leading hikes, backpacking through the desert, and cheering on other women to do the same. They’ve turned this group into something far bigger than we ever imagined. It’s become a sisterhood built on laughter, resilience, and genuine connection. Watching women in their 40s through 70s find new strength, rediscover joy, and form friendships that feel like family has been incredibly moving and inspiring.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Because we lead others outdoors, we take risks very seriously. We want everyone to have a fun and safe time. There are always going to be risks when exploring outdoors. It’s unavoidable. However, we try to minimize risks as much as possible by doing research, planning ahead, creating contingency plans, thinking through different scenarios, and building in flexibility so we can adapt when things don’t go as expected. After we lead a trip, we hold a post-trip debrief so that we can discuss things we could have done better and lessons we learned.
That said, we believe that some risks are worth taking. Starting the WWHS was a risk. It meant stepping into the unknown, putting ourselves out there, and creating something different. Just like on the trail, the greatest rewards come from challenging yourself, pushing past fear, and trusting in your preparation (and the women beside you).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://winehikingsociety.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/winehikingsociety/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/womenswinehikingsocietyofutah
