SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah man set out to hike 800 miles and raise $8,000 in support of the transgender community.
Plenty of Utahns find their calling in the mountains. For Kyle Ricco, they’ve become like a second home since the pandemic got him thinking.
“What are my true passions? What am I missing out on?” he asked.
His first foray into backpacking came a couple years ago through an LGBTQ group called Venture Out.
“We actually did part of the Appalachian Trail, 20 miles or so,” said Ricco, who now lives in Millcreek.
Twenty miles turned into one hundred miles, then two hundred fifty on the John Muir Trail. But what he planned this spring dwarfed all the rest.
“Hey I’m Kyle, I’m hiking 800 miles from Mexico to Utah on the Arizona Trail,” Ricco said in a video on his Instagram page, @kyle_treks.
He’s documenting his biggest adventure yet - this time for a cause.
“I’m also fundraising for Genderbands, which is a local nonprofit in my home state of Utah that serves the transgender community,” Ricco continued.
Ricco tells Fox 13 News this thru-hiking experience isn’t all about selfies from a viewpoint. He’s doing it to spread a message of respecting others, because we’re all on the same journey of life together.
“Everyone, no matter how they identify, should be able to enjoy the outdoors,” said Ricco.
He says he started his 48-day trek of the national scenic trail at a time when a friend’s identity was being put under a political microscope by the State Department.
“They weren’t sure that they were going to receive a passport that matched their gender identity,” Ricco said.
Even through pride month, Ricco says adversity persists.
“I just feel this immense need to support specifically the ‘T’ in our community,” said Ricco.
So he set out to spread positivity and spread the word on social media.
“I hope you’ll sponsor me, for as little as one cent per mile - eight dollars, you can help make an impact,” Ricco said.
He went through the good and the bland.
“Sometimes you’ll walk 28 miles and see nothing but sagebrush,” said Ricco.
He even had some encounters with creepy crawlers, from a rattlesnake to a giant desert centipede.
But he made it over the finish line for this big personal achievement on May 16, reaching mile 800. He hopes the hundreds of thousands of steps he took show others that no steps are too small in support of those that need it.
“Instead of kind of sitting around and letting all of this frustration and anger get to us,” Ricco said. “Let them know that we welcome trans people in the community here in Utah and that we’re here to stand up for them.”
While he’s back home in Utah, Ricco is continuing to post his adventures online and gather donations throughout the month.
If you’d like to support his efforts, you can visit his GoFundMe page here.
