It’s Called Fat Stoner Babes Hiking Club. It’s Not What You Expect.

In the spring of 2022, Amber Strautkalns was reeling.

A mother of four, she was still getting over a gnarly spinal injury and a move from small-town Montana to relatively big-city St. Louis.

“I was just itching to get out,” Strautkalns says. “I had just moved here. I hadn’t really met anybody yet. And honestly, I was just kind of feeling pitiful for myself.”

Strautkalns searched online for a hiking group for casual enthusiasts like herself, but she came up empty-handed.

All the groups she found seemed full of athletic, sporty people, whereas she viewed herself as more of a “hobbit hiker” and a “fat stoner babe kind of gal” — the type of person who likes to kickstart a hike with a cannabis joint and take periodic breaks to snap photos and admire native plants and animals.

Desperate to find connection, Strautkalns went on the St. Louis page of Reddit and posted the following message:

Fat Stoner Babes Hiking Club??? Where do I find them or do I need to create one? You know, like chubby alterna-moms and dads who are maybe slightly introverted and nerdy, but like to get together to climb and saunter around nature with like-minded individuals? Where y’all at?

The post blew up. People told her nothing like it existed and urged her to start something. With her husband’s encouragement, Strautkalns put together a vague hiking schedule and a hastily constructed flyer.

About a week later, she showed up at Creve Coeur Lake Park not knowing if anyone else would. In the end, 30 people joined her. By the second hike, the group had ballooned to over 50. At that point, Strautkalns thought, Okay. We’re doing this.

Fat Stoner Babes Hiking Club was officially a thing.

 

Let’s Hike
More than four years later, Fat Stoner Babes Hiking Club is still going strong. The group has thousands of followers on social media and meets most Sunday mornings at a different park in the St. Louis area — Cahokia Mounds one week, Pere Marquette or Taum Sauk the next.

The hikes range from 1.5-mile strolls on paved walkways to 8-mile treks on densely forested singletrack. (You can find the schedule on the Fat Stoner Babes website or on Instagram here.)

Everybody is welcome at Fat Stoner Babes as long as you’re respectful of others, says Strautkalns. Despite the name, you don’t have to be plus-size — or know a vape pen from a kazoo.

“We have such a diverse group of people,” says Strautkalns. “We’ve got the stoniest stoners, and we have law enforcement. It’s quite the potpourri of people.”

The group does more than hike together. Every spring, members head to Hawn State Park for three nights of camping, hiking, and fun. In the summer, they spend a full day on the river at St. Francois State Park — swimming, paddling, and, in some cases, toking. They throw in the occasional indoor, weed-friendly event, and many members hang out together off the trail as well.

“People are really enjoying it,” says Strautkalns. “They’re losing weight. They’re improving their lung capacity. There’s all kinds of connections being made. We’ve had people who’ve moved from California and Florida totally connect because they’re the new kid in town. It’s super cool.”

Love on the Trail
Eric Glass is one of those Fat Stoner Babes success stories. In the summer of 2023, he was struggling — dealing with anxiety, loneliness, and his bipolar condition. “I was having a hard time getting out of the house and making friends,” he says. Someone suggested he try Fat Stoner Babes.

Glass doesn’t like driving on the highway — or driving fast, period — so he took surface streets and drove faster than he ever had in his life to reach the Fat Stoner Babes hike that weekend at Babler State Park. Upon arriving, the first person he saw was Sara Figueroa.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m Sara.” Glass remembers thinking, Oh, she’s cute.

The two started talking and continued chatting for virtually the entire hike. By the end of the day, they joked, “We’re friends now. We’re best friends now.”

“It was amazing because Sara and I hit it off right off the bat,” says Glass.

“It was an instant connection,” remembers Figueroa.

 

Before long, the two were carpooling to hikes and talking more off the trail. In October of 2025, Glass and Figueroa moved in together in the Shaw neighborhood of St. Louis. They plan to get married at some point.

They’re also still very active in Fat Stoner Babes, making as many hikes as they can and doing the annual campout at Hawn. Glass says he’s feeling better and experiencing much less anxiety when he’s on a trail. “Eric took to hiking like a duck to water,” says Figueroa.

Even beyond the romance, Figueroa says Fat Stoner Babes has been a huge blessing.

“There’s been a ton of lasting friendships,” she says. “Hiking groups are a safe way to experience the trails. They’re also a great way to spend time with others and develop genuine relationships, which is very beneficial for people’s mental health.”

Looking Ahead
Strautkalns is happy with the current state of Fat Stoner Babes, but she wants to keep on rocking. She has grand visions of getting a van or a bus so the group can take trips farther away. “Everybody jump on the stoner bus!” she says with a laugh.

She also wants to get merchandise up and going on the site to spread the word and fund more adventures.

But the whole operation is a money-losing proposition — she’s definitely not getting paid for running Fat Stoner Babes, and she estimates she spends several hours a day on the club.

It’s a lot of work. But she gets a lot out of it.

 

“I get community out of it,” she says.

“I get connection out of it. I get a sense of self outside of Mom. I get to exercise my creativity with the flyers and all the graphic design stuff. I get to scratch the nerd in me by learning the history of all these amazing places and the flora and fauna and the different rocks and fossils you can find around here.”

And ultimately, she says, it comes back to something beautifully uncomplicated.

“Hiking is so simple, and for the most part, it’s free,” she says. “If you’ve got the gas or you can jump in with somebody to get to the trailhead, that’s a free day of fun and connection, and you’re doing your body, your mind, your soul a service.”

When asked what makes Fat Stoner Babes such a special group, Figueroa credits the fun and welcoming atmosphere. And the name itself.

“The fact that it has ‘fat’ in the name,” she says, “weeds out a ton of assholes.”

Author: Shawn Donnelly is the managing editor of Terrain.

Top image: Amber Strautkalns (second from left) with some of her fellow Fat Stoner Babes Hiking Club members. (Fat Stoner Babes Hiking Club)