A quick look at Pepper Steps’ social media posts reveals all the characteristics of a typical Gen Z influencer. But rather than showcasing her makeup and skincare routine, the 27-year-old’s “Get Ready With Me” walkthrough explores how to pack the perfect backpack, and her must-have life hack video details how to survive a bear encounter.
Known online simply as Pepper, the full-time nature content creator and California-based “nature nerd” has a 550,000-strong Instagram following that signals a shift in the demographics of the great outdoors, as more young people embrace walking, humanity’s oldest physical activity, as a pastime.
Traversing the trendiest mountain trails and documenting the experience is now well-known online material, with the hashtags “hiking” and “hiking adventure” used up to 110 million and 11.8 million times on Instagram and TikTok, respectively.
It’s a route that has paid off for Pepper, whose content has been so popular among fans, primarily between the ages of 18 and 25, that she was able to turn it into a full-time job just five months after she started posting videos in October 2024.
“This is a healthy blend of nature education and outdoor education,” Steps told CNN. “It’s about learning how to spend time outside and what’s out there, and having as much fun as possible in the process.”
“I really try to cover everything, right down to the correct way to tie your shoelaces,” she added.
Gen Z’s growing interest in hiking has some less desirable consequences. A local mountain rescue team is feeling the pinch of a new group of young, wayward wanderers in need of rescue.
The annual report published in May by Mountain Rescue England Wales (MREW), an umbrella organization for 48 local teams, reveals that people aged 18 to 24 are now the group most likely to seek help.
In 2025, the 18-24 age group will account for 18% of incidents, twice as much as the next closest age groups, 13-17 and 25-29 (9% each).
With nearly 400 calls, young people aged 18 to 24 more than doubled their own tally in 2019. At the time, this group was responsible for 166 cases, ranking second only to young people aged 50 to 54.
Statistics from across the Atlantic painted much the same picture. Last year, young people ages 18 to 24 led incident reporting, accounting for 18% of more than 90 rescue units across North America, according to a data dashboard maintained by the Mountain Rescue Association (MRA), the nation’s oldest search and rescue organization. As in the UK, the closest age groups were those on either side. Teenagers were the closest at 11%.
Three incidents occurred in a two-week period in July, depicting an increasingly familiar story.
In the Lake District, Britain’s largest national park, a rain-soaked 16-year-old boy stumbles alone down one of the countless hills, one shoe on, as thunder rumbles overhead. Her clothes were covered in mud after falling into the mud, and she ran out her phone’s battery to call for help.
In Canada, three teenagers became lost, dehydrated and one seriously injured in the rugged British Columbia wilderness. The rapidly fading sunlight put even more strain on the navigation tools we had been using to complete the nearly 18 kilometers of difficult trail: several printed sheets of Google Maps instructions.
A 15-year-old boy lost control of his vehicle and slipped about 60 feet into a snowy field in Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He was planning a three-day solo hiking route using Google Maps and was trying to retrieve his lost backpack.
danger and honeypot
In all three incidents, disaster was averted due to the quick response of local mountain rescue teams, but the incidents left pressing questions about why the people being rescued were becoming more rejuvenated.
Mike Treherne, who has been a certified mountain guide in Canada for more than 20 years, is well placed to get the answer. Trehearne, who earned his professional designation in 2003, is the managing director of Cloud Nine Guides, an Alberta-based service. The service operates mountaineering trips, programs and skills courses from the Canadian Rockies and beyond, from the Alps to the Arctic Circle.
While many navigation apps are getting better at allowing users to share routes on social media, relying on them as a comprehensive guide greatly increases the risk of running into trouble, Treherne said.
“If that’s all there is to it, you’re almost certainly going to run into some difficulty eventually,” he told CNN.
Social media only further blurs the line between screen and reality, Treherne said. Efforts that would have seemed “incredibly abnormal” 15 years ago, such as grueling ski mountaineering in the Rocky Mountains, are now regular online content, “normalizing” routes that even he would consider complex.
These platforms are also increasing the visibility of hiking honeypot locations. The term is borrowed from the travel industry to describe spots that attract large numbers of tourists, some of which require an arduous scramble to reach, such as the knife-edge Crib Goch ridge in North Wales’ Snowdonia National Park.
The trend is part of a wider story about the impact of digital, which is contributing to an “endemic” lack of focus among a growing number of Treherne students.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “You can’t be confined to your environment for more than 10 to 12 minutes without checking your phone.”
“When I started, it was about stillness, tranquility, connection to natural spaces, and people being there together,” he added. “But now we see people coming to these spaces to curate their social media feeds. In effect, the motivation becomes external validation that what they’re doing is cool.”
You might think Pepper would jump to the defense of social media given her line of work, but she prides herself on taking a different path than other creators in the field.
Similarly, Pepper doesn’t blame her navigation companions. She says popular apps like AllTrails have saved her more times than led her astray. However, she never geotags or shares the exact trails she completes, only the general area to protect the location from the influx of visitors.
Some rescue organizations appear to see the popularity of educational content as a way to reduce the number of young people needing rescue. Last year, MREW and Parks Canada partnered with influencers to share tips for responsible outdoor planning on the platform.
The fact that rescue organizations are engaging with content creators paints a more positive picture. At a time when there is growing alarm over the rapid rise in screen time among children and teens, it may be better to encourage young people to use technology responsibly in the great outdoors, rather than spending little time outdoors.
“I really fell in love with the outdoor process and the whole experience,” Pepper says.
“Reaching a great summit or exploring a fantastical location is often inspirational, but the journey is just as important because we know it’s memorable.”
