LOS ANGELES — After a spell of rain in Los Angeles, the green backdrop of the Los Liones Canyon Trail in Pacific Palisades makes it a perfect day for Nicole Snell and fellow outdoor lover Brianna Cunningham to take a hike.

But besides being avid adventurers, both women have dealt with threats to their personal safety.

“I’m a survivor of violence that happened to me when I was a child, and then again when I was in college,” Snell said. “I felt a lot of self-blame about ways I could have handled the situation differently.”

Snell decided she couldn’t change her past, but she could shape plenty of futures.

She became a credentialed advocate for victims of violence and then she bought Girls Fight Back, an organization where she was already a speaker, dedicated to women’s empowerment and self-defense. Snell says the training she has now allows her to move past the violence she experienced and understand that it wasn’t her fault.

“I did the best that I could with what I had at the time to be able to manage those situations,” Snell said. “Now I’m able to recognize potentially dangerous situations.”

Girls Fight Back offers a plethora of programs including Students Fight Back, S.A.V.E. (Safety, Assertiveness, Violence Prevention, Empowerment), and Yes, I’m Hiking Solo, a program geared toward outdoor enthusiasts like herself.

“Uncomfortable situations I’ve faced have not been on the trail. They’ve been walking down the street. They’ve been when I’ve been traveling. They’ve been when in city areas. Past experiences I’ve had with violence in my personal life were from people that I knew,” Snell said. 

Yet she knows the vulnerability of being outdoors alone deters a lot of women from living the way they’d like.

“The list of don’ts that women are expected to follow in order to be safe — I want to toss those out the window and instead give women simple and practical skills we can use to not only manage our safety but to also still do the things we want to do,” Snell said.

Those skills include not just fighting in the moment, but prevention. 

“Learning how to set boundaries, use your voice, let the person know you want them to leave you alone — all of those can deter a situation before it becomes violent,” Snell added.

Snell’s work is necessary.

The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network estimates that every 68 seconds someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. They also estimate 1 in 6 women have experienced stalking at some point in their lifetime. Snell’s student and avid hiker Brianna Cunningham became a part of the stalking statistic when she experienced a scary situation with someone she was getting to know. 

“This individual showed up to my house, stalked me as far as coming to my job, dropping things off at my job, dropping things off in front of my house,” Cunningham recounts. “The event that happened that really opened up my eyes was that this individual was actually in my apartment and actually holding me hostage. I was able to get out, but they ended up ripping my hoodie — a very thick hoodie — off my back.”

Cunningham initially resumed her normal activities in denial of what had transpired. But eventually, the gravity of the situation hit her, and she found herself increasingly afraid and scaling back on activities she loved, such as hiking. 

“I at one point felt like I didn’t want to be out there alone too long,” Cunningham said.

After conversations with friends and family and training sessions with Snell, Cunningham felt empowered to go back to the activities she loved. 

“I’m getting right back into the flow and that’s just me feeling more confident in myself and my surroundings and the safety that I’m taking,” Cunningham said. 

Snell says just the awareness of what to do can help deter unwanted situations. 

“Simply knowing that you can protect yourself with your body if you need to gives you confidence and empowerment that changes the way you walk through the world, which makes it even less likely that you’ll experience violence,” Snell said. 

The great outdoors can feel greatly unsafe if you’re not prepared, but with a little skill from someone like Nicole Snell, girls can fight back.