Three years ago, Nancy Sellers of Exeter Township, Berks County, wanted to get back in touch with nature, reduce stress and reconnect with friends after a two-year break from hiking with the Berks Community Hiking Club.
She hoped it would help her through the grieving process after her husband, Dr. John M. Sellers, died in 2019.
The two of them had been hiking together with the club since 1998.
“We were both working at the time, and it was something we did to spend time together,” Sellers said.
After reconnecting with the group, Sellers, 70, started feeling positive effects, which led her to include even more hiking opportunities in her life.
“That’s why I joined two more groups,” she said.
Between the Terrible Tues, a private hiking group that meets on Tuesdays, the Thursday Wanderers, a public subgroup of Berks Community Hiking Club that meets on Thursdays as well as the Berks Community Hiking Club’s Saturday hikes, she usually chooses one to two hikes to participate in every week.
Connection to the Earth
Sellers enjoys getting exercise while spending time outdoors instead of working out at a gym.
“I like the nature and spirituality of it,” she said. “I think we (as a society) have lost a connection to the Earth.”
She has formed some good friendships in the process.
“We are all of like mind and have a concern for taking care of the environment,” Sellers said. “A lot carry clippers and pick up trash on the hikes — people are conscious of that.”
Sellers said the oldest hiker in the Berks Community Hiking Club recently turned 96.
“She can go just as fast as me, and she’s the one who inspires me to keep up my health,” she said. “To keep moving is her theory.”
Sharing a meal
After the hikes, which typically take two to three hours, the groups will continue their time together by sharing a meal, either at a local restaurant or with a packed lunch to enjoy outdoors. Getting together in the evenings also happens on occasion.
“Sometimes we’ll go out and see a movie or dinner and a show,” she said.
While most hikes are in Berks and neighboring counties, she goes on periodic out-of-town hikes with the Terrible Tues group, which tends to focus on more challenging hikes.
“There are 12 going for four days and three nights in the Catskills,” she said.
When Sellers heads out on hikes, regardless of group or location, she wears a good pair of hiking boots.
“We’re going through streams and mud,” she said. “Last week we went to Blue Marsh and did 7.5 miles, which took us three hours.”
Length and degree of difficulty
Each week, she checks on the hike descriptions among the different groups to learn of their length and degree of difficulty in advance.
Heading to places of interest, like the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia, have been among the hikes. When hikes involve driving a distance, members will figure out a carpool point to meet up to enable them to travel together.
An upcoming hike that Sellers is leading will take place at Daniel Boone Homestead in Exeter Township on June 8 and will tie in the history.
“A few years ago I organized a hike at Antietam Lake, and one John and I led years ago was Susquehanna State Park,” Sellers said. “You’re out in nature and they’re all so good.”
Her favorite is the Monocacy Hill Trail in Amity Township, Berks County. Regardless of trail, she finds this time of year to be a particularly good one to get outdoors.
“Everything is blooming, so there are lots of photos taken with flowers coming up,” she said. “We have someone who is like an official photographer of the group who goes on each of the hikes.”
About 15 to 20 people participate in each hike.
“Especially now since everyone wants to get out with everything blooming,” Sellers said.
About Berks Community Hiking Club
BCHC was organized in the fall of 1921. They list weekly hikes from short to easy to strenuous mountain hikes. Different people from the club lead and pick a location for each hike. This is a public club, so anyone is welcome to join in on the hikes. The Thursday Wanderers are a subgroup of BCHC.
For more information, visit www.berkshiker.blogspot.com.
