KQED61%
‘A Moment Under the Sun’: Queer-Led Groups Are Getting Outside This Pride 11%
By Sarah Wright40%
6/12/2026, 11:42:35 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Nature, Halo Effect, and Attempt to Sell a Product or Service, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 19.8% saturation with 163 hits. Analysis detected 1,382 faulty-reasoning hits from 823 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 27.4% and a BS Rank of 11% (19,634 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.70% of the article peer group.
Celebrations for Pride Month are happening all June long.
And if you’re even a little bit outdoorsy, there’s no shortage of groups leading hikes, birding adventures and even surfing celebrations around the Bay Area.
“The outdoors, it belongs to everybody,” said Ryan McCauley, spokesperson for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, which hosts yearly Pride events with community groups like Branching Out Adventures to “make sure we have equitable access to our preserves,” he said.
This year, the district is hosting its own habitat restoration volunteer event on June 26 at the Sierra Azul Preserve’s Cathedral Oaks, which was home to a South Bay couple, Frank Ingerson and George Dennison, who created a haven there for the queer community.
“They were both big artists and invited artists from across the country to their home,” McCauley said.
“So the specific space has a lot of history as well.”
Even if you don’t typically consider yourself the outdoorsy type, summer is nonetheless a great time to get outside in the Bay Area, McCauley said — when the birds and other wildlife are particularly active.
One group taking full advantage of the summer weather’s possibilities for creating community is Trailhead Gays.
Founded by Gio Orantes, the group is a gathering space for gay men interested in exploring the outdoors.
Orantes’s collective organizes free events all year round, including hikes, camping, backpacking and other trips, but for Pride month this year, they’re hosting a hike around Angel Island on June 21 and a daytime campout in Dolores Park on June 28.
Orantes, who is originally from Guatemala, said he came out as gay 17 years ago, just three days after moving to San Francisco: “It’s a beautiful city, and with the sense of community, it just felt like the right moment.”
After becoming more interested in the outdoors as an alternative to the party scene, Orantes took up sports, joining local leagues and organizing hikes with friends every month.
At first, it started with just a few friends, but more and more kept joining.
“And suddenly it was like, 50 people hiking,” Orantes said.
Many of the participants don’t have cars, so everyone started carpooling — which sealed the deal on building community, he said.
“Sometimes you are driving for an hour or two hours with people you have never met,” he said.
“So it helps us to start creating those friendships and start getting people to connect and get a lot more social and make new friends.”
Since then, word about Trailhead Gays has spread throughout the San Francisco LGBTQ+ community, especially among those new to the city.
Online interest through Instagram has also resulted in the group’s more unique events, like their upcoming New Year’s camping trip to Death Valley, attracting people from across the country.
Now, he’s hoping to expand the website to serve as a community portal, powered entirely by donations, and even introduce a housing page for those seeking rentals, World Cup watch parties and more.
While “San Francisco is so gay in a sense,” Orantes said, there is still “a lot of isolation between gay men.”
He said organizing Trailhead Gays felt more urgent than ever last year, when a friend died by suicide.
The kind of events the group organizes offer “a moment under the sun with people like them,” Orantes said.
“A lot of people come for different reasons, and they keep coming, at the core, I think, because they want to be with their community.”
Orantes himself has only grown more and more proud of his identity, with the green stripe on the Pride flag, which represents nature, serving as his inspiration.
“[I went] from feeling ‘unnatural’ being gay to now fully embracing myself as a gay man, and understanding that it’s part of nature as well,” he said.
“Nature itself just gave me a new outlook on life and a place where I feel like I belong.”
Knowing he would probably still be in the closet if he were in Guatemala, “it also feels good to give back to San Francisco,” Orantes said.
Anyone interested in joining Trailhead Gays can register online for free.
More outdoor Bay Area Pride events this month
Queer Art Workshop
June 13 @ 9:30 a.m., hosted by Branching Out Adventures
Visit Antonelli Pond in Santa Cruz for a workshop on queer art and capturing landscape with artist Taylor Seamount.
All skill levels welcome.
Birding with Pride
June 20 @ 8 a.m., hosted by the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance
A leisurely 2-mile visit to Ulistac Natural Area showcases the diversity and resilience of nature in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley.
Queer History Walking Tour
June 20 @ 9:45 a.m., hosted by San Francisco Hiking Club
A 5.5-mile hike starting from the Ferry Building brings hikers back in time for a guided walking tour of San Francisco’s queer history.
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100%flagged-word coverageGio Orantes
302 attributed words69% of attributed speech80% writer coverage
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